By Chukwuemerie Udekwe
Imagine a war against villains. A war against Thanos, Night King and Pilgrim. Fighting against them in an endless fatal battle. Where there are no Iron Man, Arya Stark and Sunny. Imagine engaging in such a war and imagine writing on trust issues.
You see that weird feeling? You do not trust that you are going to win such war. You do not also trust that you trust what you are writing either.
Like humility which you keep praying for, but never thank God you have gotten it, lest you have lost it already, trust is so dicey and slippery.
Alright, imagine yourself in such impasse, with nowhere to run; your only route of escape just three steps away from the Bermuda Triangle.
“Trust is like glass. Once broken, it will never be the same again.”
Matilda had heard about Bran of Stark, who broken, became the king of the six kingdoms.
She had heard about, TheonGreyjoy, who after the huge betrayal, redeemed himself by giving an unflinching loyalty and correcting his past in the end, even fighting to the last of his blood. The Starks were so lucky to have given him a second chance.
But “trust is like glass. Once broken, it will never be the same again.”
It’s a cliché, so it has got to be true. And since momma constantly says it too, then it must be true.
Matilda just finished her first relationship. And it was going to be the last.
She remembered her prince charming, Steve who kept telling her the loveliest of things, and in the sweetest ways they could ever be told. The time they spent. The laughs. Teases. Cries. Secrets and Plans. And all those things that now sum up to only but memories forever to be forgotten. Future hopes now shattered. Regrets. And the knob to that door of trust that would now be shut eternally. At least, against him, o prince charming. Steve seemed to have dramatically salvaged her from her vast emotional struggles in one minute, then carelessly plunged her into unfathomable despair in the next.
Such a poet!
“How did he get to my heart? Deactivated all my defences? Momma warned me about this.”Matilda cried. “But how did he? How could he? I call it all quit, anyway.”
“…Once broken, it will never be the same again.” The wisdom of the sages.
Matilda felt hurt, bemoaning every experience. Wishing her heart could be fixed just at the closing and opening of her eyes. She remembered the long nights spent in wonder, in suspense, in untold doubt, about what must have happened, about what she must have done. Oh, if this had been done by an enemy.
But they no longer mattered to her. Undying love turned to absolute hate. Nothing can change it anymore. Not the pleas. The intentions. The promises. Nothing. She could not be going back to her vomit.
Upon forty-five miles, three kilometres was Matilda’s sweetheart, Steve, rending and shredding his heart. Exiled to his room and secluded from whatever was not the feeling of guilt he kept conjuring up on himself. He deserved it. And he was not going to spare himself of it a bit. Not for a second.
Steve needed redemption. He was born again, loved Christ, and cherished his church and his neighbours. So, perhaps, a redemption that came from being understood. That came from a second chance; to prove oneself, make things right, in the way it should always have been. That came from showing the love you wished, in the way you wanted. The redemption that came with not losing that which you cherish most, upon the time you are just about to lose it.
But “trust is like glass. Once broken, it will never be the same again.”
If Steve so cherished their love like he claims, why did he let it slip, fall down and die? It was the same question the stranger asked the farmer, until he came back to see a flower blossoming upon the spot where the seed had died.
Steve was not a playboy. He was only not perfect. Of Matilda’s heart was a treasure he was willing to pamper, love and guard at all cost.
But it just happened. He wished he could help that horrible silence that unravelled the spot where Matilda and he had fallen like pebbles into the ponds of each other’s heart, lifted them out, and breaking their love. He wished he had known and chosen the better option. If only he was perfect.
But, “… like glass. Once broken, it will never be the same again.”
Or so Matilda thought.
Thus went Prince charming’s undying loyalty, forever cast and lost under the shadows of doubt, sheer ignorance and bias.
The best of loves are not of them without scars. Nor the loveliest of friendships those without struggles. The strongest of trust are not those whose bonds are without knots.
They comprise those who saw through these things and scaled over them.
Maybe glasses could break so they could be refined.
Maybe they break, so they could never remain the same after all, more beautiful, more precious, o lovingly sweet.
Maybe they always have to be a deep fall before a great rise.
That the deepest betrayals may beget the greatest trust!
Wonder at how many loveliest of love stories destroyed and denied the world because clichés were recounted a million times to earth’s ears.
If only Matilda would give a detailed look to her momma’s thoughts, a pensive sight about the world’s clichés.
Maybe Steve would stitch the world’s sweetest story out of her.
Maybe that fatal silence would become a stepping stone, not stumbling block to their stairs of love.
Do you believe all I have said?
I find it hard myself.
But while all the world die in this pit of mistrust, I decline.
So, what do I say to the god of unrepentant distrust?
Not forever!
LET US TRUST, FORGIVE AND TRUST. IT CREATES REDEMPTION
