Short Stories

Fun Facts

TW/ Mentions suicide and self harm but nothing does happen happy endings :)

She sat on the bench at the park and stared at the tree across the sidewalk. She hugged her knees to her.

"You wanna know something?" She asked quietly.

"What?" Sighed the person beside her. They had an earbud in listening to a thrown together playlist.

"If coral gets too stressed it'll die. Because they're living you know. Actual breathing organisms. Hundreds of them in one reef." Her voice was flatter and fainter than usual.

"That's cool," so was theirs.

"Ya know what they get stressed about?"

"Hm?"

"Current events." She didn't look away from the tree and didn't smile.

They looked at her and nodded, "Good one."

"I read it on tumbler."

Silence.

"You know- you know there's a kind of lizard that shoots blood from it's eyes?" She spit off another one like a broken fortune telling machine.

"Really?"

"Mhm."

"Huh."

Silence.

"You wanna know something scary?" She didn't look away from the tree, staying completely frozen, but her voice broke.

They sighed and looked at her. "What?"

"I don't wanna be here anymore," her voice was a mumble and her body shook. She blinked furiously but didn't move.

"Don't say that.." they whispered.

"I don't- it would have been easier without me.." she leaned back on the bench, shifting her focus from the tree to her hands. "I'm not hurt," she answered the unasked question. "I'm not going to- but-" She closed her eyes and started humming and tears dropped down her face.

They tugged her closer to them so her tears dripped against their hoodie. "Don't go.."

"I don't wanna die.." she sang softly in a broken voice, "but I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.."

Silence.

"Carry on.."

She leaned into them and they didn't look at each other or the morning joggers or the squirrels or the tension in the air or the elephant in the room. Or park, rather. They sat there. In comfortable silence. Both having a hundred things to say but no way to say them. It seemed like they never left that bench. Like they grew old and turned to stone there and it was okay. The sun still shone and kiss still had their birthday parties. The world didn't end or combust. By the end of the day they were themselves again.

Now that doesn't mean everything went back to normal. Steps were taken and moves were made because when something starts cracking it needs to be patched up and sometimes it's even stronger than before. Ancient Greeks would put broken pottery back together and paint the cracks in gold to show that the cracks made the pottery even more beautiful and even if the pot was still broken it was still a pot.

Your cracks don't make you less beautiful or useless. And if you need help to glue yourself back together and paint the gold to show you that your still the wonderful person you were always meant to be, there's always people willing to help you. You're not alone. We can all be cracked pottery.