the scratch
published: 2013-03-21A new table, perfectly polished, unspoiled. Its wood is soft and warm and welcoming. With nothing on it, not even a pen or a set of keys. You feel foolish for telling a friend to be careful. But when you next look, there is a scratch. It is a small scratch, barely noticeable from a distance. Only when coming up really close.
Maybe she was unaware.
For a few days, weeks even, you are reminded of this scratch every time you sit down at the table.
But by and by there will come a day when you forget all about the first scratch. When you next look for it you can no longer find it because there are so many more scratches, deeper ones and longer. Some you’ve caused yourself. And you realize: it wasn’t the scratch that caused suffering, it is the fragility of the wood.
Once the observer realises the scratches were inevitable, he/she would appreciate the beauty of the wood…..and the scratches.