It Is Like This

It is like this: There is a great house at the edge of the forest. Everyone is trooping into the great house, families, friends, shouting and laughing, carrying baskets of food. When I get to the door there is whispering, and one of them turns and stops me in the doorway and says, “We have prepared something special for you.” She leads me to a little cottage. It is lovely, and warm, and has everything in it. She says, “This is yours.” Then she turns and goes back to the shining house and leaves me alone in my cottage at the edge of the woods. It takes time to realize what has happened. Everything is lovely, comfortable, but I have been rejected, exiled. It’s empty but for my little spirit. It begins to snow, and I go back to the house, but the door is locked and the curtains are drawn and the sound of mirth inside is so loud they can’t hear me. I stand in the deepening snow, not certain whether I should return to the cozy, lonely little cottage, or strike out for the deep forest.