The wind hollows through the the trees, blowing leaves up into my face. Fall is here, which means that winter is nearing. Life will so be limited. Reaching and plucking a small green leaf, the last one left alive on the tree, and watch it shival in my hands. The leaf now brown and wrinkly, having the life drain out of it. How I wish I could do something other than this. 

      I am something everyone fears, the one I love is what everyone clings to. As I am Death and they are Life; we could never be more apart. It’s cruel this world, I take and take from Life’s wonders, only destroying them, unable to admire them for long. I wish I could just hold their hand and be together, but the nature for which we are, we cannot.

Sighing, I continue walking through the forest. The grass under my feet dying slowly as I pass. Walking closer and closer to the stream, I hum a gentle tune. Something soft, and slow. Once I am close enough I kneel down beside the river's edge, and run my pale fingers through the water. The chill from it bites at my fingers, but I barely notice since my hands are as cold as the deads. I close my eyes, humming, and feeling the cold water rush through my fingertips.

     “Why did you make me like this?” I whisper under my breath. “Please just tell me why. Did I do something wrong? Is there anything I can do to become something else?” But I’m only met by the hollowing of the wind and the rushing sounds of the stream. I start humming again, different tune this time. More mournful, more sorrowful. My thoughts drift from one thing to the next, like this tide of muddy water, nothing really clear, but enough to make sense of it.

     “Hello Death. What are you doing?” A smooth, and gentle voice that worms its way into my ears, breaking my thoughts. I could never forget their voice.

     “Hello Life. I’m just enjoying this quiet, little forest,” my words come out just above a whisper and the wind threatens to take my words away. I hear the steps and take a small glance over my shoulder, only catching their feet and the grass and flowers sprouting to life. They sit down beside me.

     “I’ve been looking for you, why have you been avoiding me?” I can feel their pleading, beautiful eyes on me.

     “I haven’t,” I whisper, knowing that I’m lying.

     They sigh, “Then why haven’t I been able to find you?”

"Maybe you haven't been looking hard enough," I half mutter to myself and notice the tone of annoyance in my voice. Shit, why did I say it like that? "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

I'm avoiding eye contact as much as I possibly can, but they gently lift my head so our eyes meet. I can feel my face and ears burn as they turn red. Their beautiful green eyes sparkle, and their dark skin like the colour of the earth. They are the most ethereal being of beauty I've ever set my eyes on. I can't help by fall a little more in love with them.

"How about we take a walk, then?" Their voice sparks butterflies in my stomach.

"Alright, let's go then."

Looking through books, the words of artfully spun fiction, of fantasy, of imagination. Worlds of undiscovered minds; Universes of everything, anything, that the writer could think of. And interpreted through our own brains, like a filter. Each story a different place inside us.

Oh, the multitude of wondrous places in ourselves! Hundreds, thousands, millions, an infinity of realms, just waiting to be awakened by those precious, golden sentences!

But to imagine, we must have believed, perhaps even for a silvery second. That single, child-like beauty of doubtlessness, brought out in our souls, shaken out by others with their scratches upon a page, their heart-wrenching acts on a stage, their seemingly magical sleight-of-hand. Effortless, yet agonising: that is how we imagine, and thus believe.

How mysterious does the human mind work! Trusting in the most innocent manner our own delirious daydreams! How naive, how beautiful!

It is art - Life does not simply imitate Art (notice how these words are capitalised, for they are Important), but simply Is Art. The Earth of green and blue; Distant nebulae of the finest silver; Human life itself of an iridescent shimmer; All strokes of a Master Creator that many believe and even wholeheartedly give ourselves over to, and this is called Religion, which is based upon BELIEF!

To be real is to be believed in - to believe that yes, we exist, we have a meaning, we are not phantoms of an insane creature! Belief is key to Being!

Suspension of Disbelief: merely a fancy term for a simple, but elaborate, word that I have stressed so much! Belief! And I truly Believe that we have a meaning! That we have to Believe in order to Live! And this cannot be done without, else we are deemed inhuman, even non-existent.

Look at our childhood reveries of unicorns, superheroes, magic! This is all belief! How we visualise, and sigh over, and exclaim excitedly, about our own deliriums! 

We all have our own Suspensions Of Disbelief. And I feel, I Know, that we have to retain this beautiful thing, so often seen and felt, yet taken for granted.

Ending this off with a quote: So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. 

This is from the beautiful work of literature, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner. We may soon grow world-weary as we plod on through life sedately, and lose this gift of Belief. Maybe you already have. Maybe we wouldn't even notice it.

Don't lose it.

Believe.

Live.