edenfalling: headshot of a raccoon, looking left (raccoon)
[personal profile] edenfalling
It occurred to me that I ought to put this here as well, now that I have a journal. So here we are, inspired by this week's word at [livejournal.com profile] 15minuteficlets:

[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]

---------------------------------------------
Eden
---------------------------------------------

Inside every person, something is broken. It may not be anything large or important, but something is always broken, imperfect, the edges misaligned and awkwardly bound together.

Hermione broke when she realized that the other children weren't interested in the books she read, didn't want to learn how the world was put together, couldn't be bothered to understand her, and closed her out of their world.

Ron broke when he heard his father tell his mother of another missed pay raise despite his growing workload, when his mother sighed and put her head in her hands and wondered aloud how she was going to afford thread to fit Bill and Charlie's old robes to Percy and the twins, and how she could make a small back garden stretch to feed the family.

And Harry? Harry broke when he reached out to his aunt and she frowned and pushed him aside again, muttering about burdens and worthless boys. He didn't understand the words yet, but any child can understand a frown and a swat and a lack of love.

Sometime, everyone learns that the world is not made for us, that we can't always get our way, that people aren't always going to love us, that things don't always work out for the best. Sometime, everyone reaches out and gets slapped back. Sometime, everyone asks why. And no answer ever quite fixes the break the way it was before.

Sometime, everyone tries to fly. Sometime, everyone falls. And at the end of the fall, we break.

---------------------------------------------

Inspired by the 9 November 2003 [livejournal.com profile] 15minuteficlets word #28: broken

Profile

edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Elizabeth Culmer

December 2025

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
141516 17181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Tags

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags