Restoring Rapport

There once was a man who carried in tow a burden of pitiable nature. The burden was not of great weight or size, but disturbing beyond compare, for it had once been alive. This man’s burden, which dragged behind him like a shadow, was the body of his beloved. She died—not in an accident—as many would suppose, but by her own choice, made in a moment of weighty despair. Following her death, the bereaved man went about his life, and the body of his beloved did too. When the bereaved took a meal, her body lay behind his chair. When he lay down, the body was there. When he rose up, the body rose too; not in life of its own, but in obedience to cords which stretched between the bereaved and his beloved. The cords were not of a physical nature, but were the kind of ties which connect two hearts and that are woven by four hands over the course of many sleepless nights. Years passed. The body which ever dragged behind the bereaved man became mangled and distorted from its rough contact with the