Stories Told Through Symbols 🌿

The old man stands at the edge of a cliff, looking down at the city below.

His clothes are worn, his staff gripped firmly in his hand. He lifts his head—and the sky before him shifts in rapid succession: blazing sun, then a star-filled night, then sun again, and stars once more. One day flows after another, as if time itself is unfolding before his very eyes. Only when he turns back toward his home carved into the rock does the rhythm slow. His wife greets him at the door, and the moment he sits down at the table, their three children are already gathered around him, each demanding a piece of his attention.

The eldest and the youngest seem strong and content. But the middle one—the second-born—is small and fragile.

For the first time, the old man truly notices how weak the child looks.

He lifts the little one onto his lap, rocking gently, and the child smiles at him with a quiet, sorrowful smile that pierces straight into his heart. He turns to his wife and asks what is wrong with their child. She answers wearily that she barely has time to knead dough for the sweet buns and take care of the essentials. She has no strength for more. The child is not starving… and not dying.

The old man takes her wrinkled hand in his palms.
He asks what she needs, what he could do for her.
Would she like to walk down to the city someday? He had never noticed she might long for it. She looks away, and after a moment replies that it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t need the city. She needs their children to be strong and healthy—especially the middle one. Otherwise she will never become who she could be.

At that moment, the door opens silently. And Death stands upon the threshold.

A scythe in her hand, she watches the old man without moving. She cannot cross the threshold—not while he is surrounded by his wife and children. But if their second child were to die, she would come soon. “I will return the moment you lose your desire to live,” she says softly. “Your first child awakens in you the desire to be better. The second the desire to take life into your own hands. And the third the desire to see the world from a different angle.”
The wife pulls all three children close. But Death is gone as swiftly as she appeared.

The old man rises without a word and steps outside. He takes his middle child with him and hands her a paper kite.

The child grips the string tightly, and the kite rises at once.

The old man feels the gusts of wind—and suddenly he himself is lifting off the ground. Together with the child, he soars upward beneath the starry sky. The child’s laughter rings out, bright and infectious. And the man, who had forgotten how to feel joy for so long, suddenly realizes he is laughing too. A tremor runs through his whole body, as if he were awakening once again.

When at last they land before their home and step inside, he sees his wife with her long blonde hair let loose. And in her eyes, he finds a spark he had nearly forgotten.

In that moment, the old man understands. With a quiet certainty, he vows that from this day on, he will give his middle child the same attention as the others—and never again let her remain in the shadows.