She was nothing to me. She was not less than nothing; my thoughts toward her were infused with a neutral, bland feeling of not bothering to think anything of her. I did not wish her to die, but I did not particularly care that she lived, or what sort of life she lived.
She did not strike me a particularly intelligent or driven. I thought she was rather silly, with her pretty monkey-face and childish remarks, but she was not an idiot. She did not work with diligence or stick to her tasks, but she was not slow or unpleasant.
Sometimes, I admit, she annoyed me. I didn't like it when she wandered away from her work or complained about silly little things or talked about how incompetent I was behind my back (that might have been jealousy talking, but I really didn't know - I didn't care enough to presume anything, of course). Sometimes, she outright ticked me off - but only very rarely. She would do things like take too long of a time on break or wander off and ignore my calls for help, and then pretend like I was simply stupid about it. (Of course, I don't pretend to know what she meant by all that - it might have been a great misunderstanding - but those happen not very often, though they are not impossible...)
Today, she got a splinter in her hand. She was howling about it and flailing hopelessly with a pair of bad tweezers from under the desk. She'd probably gotten it on the railing on the office stairs; it was always leaving them in my hands, and I knew how nasty and painful they were. Some of mine had gotten rather badly infected, too. I grabbed the injured appendage and a pair of surgical scissors and had at it. For just one moment, our minds were bent toward one goal - getting that splinter out. I looked at her, and I knew that that splinter was bad for her, and I wanted the opposite of that.
It was simple, it was silly, but there you have it. And I figured out that maybe, just maybe, I could want the opposite of that more often - that it wasn't that bad, that she wasn't so bad. Because really - is anybody ever nothing to me? Once the counter of someone's worth drops below something, it immediately hits the negatives. There is no apathy; or rather, there is no apathy free from hatred.
We got the splinter out, me digging with the scissors and her manipulating the pressure on her skin with her other hand. It's not everything, but it's something.
"THEM she lived with would have killed her for a hat PIN, let alone a HAT."
Ahem, my apologies. Interestingly, I was rather thinking of this the other day - specifically in the context of the essence of love, that is, seeking the good of the object. Strange how that can be displayed in the simplest ways, like getting a splinter out of someone's hand.
(By the bye, I like your writing. ^.^)
It made me think of Justin. It doesn't take much to make me think of Justin. Justin and Flavius and Evicatos - little things like that in which seemingly incongruous souls are suddenly bound together over some one purpose. And if you pay attention to the moment, it can change everything that comes afterward. And there is something about healing-craft that does that most, because a part of each person is taken away by the other afterward. You're never free from it.
And I suppose, if you think about it, you never want to be.
New background! *likes* :