Transition

(A Short Story)

        Linda was young....very young.  She was only five - not responsible yet,  just carefree.  She knew only happiness and contentment.  She had a favorite toy - a doll, and she called it Crimson because it had a crimson dress on.

Afternoons she would take Crimson to the beach, aimlessly walking on the sand while the gentle winds caressingly played on her long ebony tresses - black as the night matching her brilliant pair of lovely eyes.  She did this again and again until she felt she could no longer let a day pass without spending some time at the beach - just her and Crimson and the breeze the the friendly murmur of the waves.  Later on she named the beach after Crimson.  The sand looked crimson to her and the sky had a crimson glow.  She had cloistered herself in a small world of her own - in a world she called Crimson.

        Years passed.  Linda had grown out of her crimson world.  She began to learn of a wider world...began to search for that world...wanted to know what it had in store for her.  But that too was when her mother passed away.  And her dream world exploded.  Suddenly she had to get things the hard way. This was a new life she had to begin wherein loneliness started to creep in.  She began to know what it was like to crave for love - for the special love of a mother.  There was no more babying, no more caressing, no more affection  - no more of the beautiful things only a mother could graciously give. And she was sinking in a kind of helpless death.

        To Linda,  life was now meaningless.  After all the years that she had lived on love alone, life was a barren desert.  She felt like full of life but with not a thing to live for...found herself drifting in acres of dry sand...sand thirsty for the refreshing and soothing tenderness of June rain...not knowing when that rain would come or if ever it would come at all. She plodded on, however, just because she had to. No cause, no goal - nothing. But somehow, she did continue rather mechanically to mature.

        Then something happened to her.  Or rather was it an emotion that simply seized her being?  To her it was an unexplainable feeling she couldn't hide and neither could she suppress.  She only knew it was there: -intense, constant, lingering....it was as if it meant to stay forever as her mind proved incapable to fathom its depth.  And she knew there was a saying that went: the flame of love when extinguished can only be rekindled by love itself.  Because for her, life had meaning once again. There came goals she wanted to achieve.  The spark that had become her life was fanned to a blaze which wanted to soar above barriers, yearning for eternity itself.

        For Linda, this was no longer her imaginary Crimson world.  This time, things were a reality, - as real as bright daylight came after the fearful darkness of the night. This was another world - a world of deeper love which began on a rainy September afternoon when Fred walked across the room to take her into his arms.  Gently had he raised her chin until she was forced to meet his eyes.  Sweetheart, look, he then said, you can't doubt that I do love you so badly, can you?