The Woman who Loved a Stone

By Bett

03-24-2004

A woman lived in Germany. She met a young man who was living on the streets. He drew pictures all day, although he wasn't very good at it. She began to talk to him each day in the park on her way to work and she though she saw something in his eye. Something which made him different than any other man she met before. He had some hidden passion for some unknown thing. His blue eyes sparkled brightly. These sparkles were like shards of glass and they flew into her heart. She felt that this man was someone she needed to know. So she tried to understand his mind. She talked to him day after day to find out what was in him. What drove him?

After a long time she decided that he was evil. But she believed she could control the evil that was in him. He had no love in him. He had no affection. He had no tenderness. He hated weakness. He believed he was superior to all those around him. He would only be on "good terms" with those he believed where inferior to him. If he met an equal he would panic and get away, then quickly make up a reason why they were scum. But she thought there was something under that hard exterior. Some good which needed to be encouraged out. She thought if she could teach him to love, he would become a human.

She got closer and closer to him. She tried to make him rely on her so she could make sure that he didn't leave her. She gave him a place to live and a job. She funded his attempt to get into the university. She gave him things to read which would open his mind to the beauty of the world, trying to wake him from his negativity. She would watch movies and plays with him. They would talk about them. His views were often tainted by his hatred of other men. He felt superior to them. She tried to, very gently, to guild his mind to understand that other men were equals. But in her gentleness she "took on" some of his characteristics. She knew it was happening, but she figured she could control it and return to her previous state when her job was done. Her job was to convert him into a living man, with a heart of flesh and blood.

They spent so many hours each day together. She would see it, a little bit of emotion, a tiny bit of tenderness. This was enough to keep her interested in him. She gave him her whole being. Telling him everything in her heart. Showing him humanity. So he could see what a human looked like. She gave and gave. Never withholding. Never becoming impatient with his lack of reciprocation. She had faith that just one more day and he would break and become the man she was sure was hidden under the rock like exterior.

One of the times he would show tenderness was when he listened to music. He loved the music of Richard Wagner. He’d get lost in the music. It was the closest thing he could get to real feeling and emotion. He’d confuse the feelings from the music with having real emotions. When he and she listen to music together she felt so close to him.

She became obsessed with breaking him. She planned all day and schemed all night in ways of waking him up. He became her whole world. Her family and friends became second important to making this rock into a human. She worked so hard.

But, instead of him becoming like her, gentle, kind, loving, she became more like him. Heartless, cold, mean. She began to develop a superiority complex like he had. She became defensive when she ran into someone better than she. She stopped feeling. She hardened her heart. She had to. It was the only way to cope with his coldness, his distance. She had opened her heart to him, and he had been cold and cruel. He hated weakness, and he saw her openness as weakness. He shot arrows into her soft flesh. She backed off in pain, but her goal was too strong in her mind to let her leave him. She stayed and just grew thicker skin around her heart. She became colder and colder. She felt less and less.

He was never accepted into the university and grew bored with her. He moved on and left her for more interesting endeavors. When she realized he was gone, she let go and gave up her mission. He was hopeless. He wasn't worth her time. She felt such joy to be rid of him, but then she realized she had become him. With no feelings, with no emotions. With no love. What was she going to do now? She felt such loss. She had lost her humanity. But she also felt so safe with no feelings. It was freedom from all the pain she had been through. She knew if she returned to feelings it would be painful again. So she reveled in her coldness and felt safe.

Then she decided she'd rather be human again and feel again then be this machine she had become. She worked very hard on developing healthy relationships with her family and friends again. She would hurt them over and over with her coldness. But she kept trying. Finally she began to feel again. She felt much remorse over her behavior. She felt much pain and regret. She suffered at the hands of guilt which ripped her soul into pieces. Whenever it started to heal again she would be reminded of her previous sins.

One day, she felt like she had made so much progress from her hard work and her trust in God for helping her humanity return. She was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper when she noticed a picture of him and the subtitle made her heart stop. The subtitle said, "The 30 year old Adolph Hitler becomes head of the National Socialist German Workers Party."