Page 27 of Tiger's Trek
“That explains it, then. If they loved you, they bestowed a blessing instead of a curse. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.”
“I suppose you think that makes me lucky, then. Is that right?”
“You tell me.”
“Don’t you dabble in luck?”
“Bad luck. And curses. I specialize in curses. Told you that, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Speaking of which, it might be a good time to tell you that you’ve got a sorrow riding on your back, kid.”
“I’ve got a what now?”
“A sorrow.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a curse of sorts. Sometimes you bring it upon yourself. Sometimes it just finds you when you’re vulnerable. But once they latch on, they’re difficult to shake.”
Nik spun in a circle, trying to see his back. “I don’t see anything.”
“Course you don’t. You wouldn’t. They’re invisible to all ’cept ta those who do things like cursing others.”
“Well, what’s it doing to me?” Nik asked with a panicked expression, constantly wriggling his shoulders and flicking his hands at the back of his neck like he was trying to rid himself of a spider.
“Oh, you probably wouldn’t feel much of the effects at this point. It’s a bit like having a mosquito drawing on you or maybe one of those river leeches. They feed on sadness, you see. That and negative thoughts. It’s like I said—once you have one, and they start getting plump off you, they tend to stay. This one looks nice and ripe. Not huge, mind you, but he’s definitely not starving.”
Nik darted up to Pasha and put his hands on the shorter man’s shoulders, shaking him desperately. “What do I do? How do I get rid of it?” he demanded.
“Calm down, boy,” he said. “The ‘what’ is easy. The ‘how’ is the problem. What you do is to turn around your thoughts. Think positive about yourself, your future, and your life. Simple, right? How you do that is complicated, especially as the sorrow gets bigger. You see, the more he feeds, the heavier he feels.”
Nik stomped away, pulling at his hair and spinning in circles, trying to see the invisible creature clinging to his back. Eventually, he gave up and started walking again. Pasha, taking pity on the lad, tried to explain.
“Look... have you ever felt like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders? Well, that’s him. Life dragging you down? Making your head feel heavy, your body slouch, your feet drag? That’s him too. Feel like you have no energy? That’s him sucking the life out of you. He wants you to feel that way, because that sadness—that going-nowhere feeling—is like a giant-roast-pig-with-an-apple-in-its-mouth buffet dinner to him.
“Turning all that around to joy—to effervescent, bubbly, happy-go-lucky, fun-in-the-sun, nothing-weighs-me-down, free-as-a-bird bliss—is the only way to get rid of a sorrow for good. And that’s as rare as golden Caspian osetra. Most people just find a way to live with it.”
“And what happens if you can’t?”
Pasha winced and reluctantly added, “Well, there are some. Not many, mind you, but some, who feed their sorrow so much that they can barely function, and the only way they can think to escape is by death. Of course, what they don’t know is that even when they kill themselves, it doesn’t kill a sorrow. If they drown, he just swims around, looking for another person to latch on to. If they hang themselves, it’s not long before someone else comes along to see what happened, and he just hitches a ride.” He patted Nik on the elbow. “Try to cheer up, kid. Most everyone has at least a little sorrow. The longer it lives with you, the better it gets at poking your little hurts, triggering its favorite brand of candy. It’s the rare person who can shake him off for good. The key is in not overfeeding him.”
“How... how common are these things? Does everyone have one?”
Pasha scratched his chin. “Depends, I suppose. They’re more widespread after wars and during winter. They’re a bit like the plague or influenza or maybe lice. They pop up when folks are at their weakest, downtrodden, and in pain.”
“I see.” Nik was silent for a moment and then asked, “Do you have a curse to cause happiness?”
He wasn’t prepared for the knee-slamming, belly-ripping laughter that followed. When Pasha finally quieted, he answered Nik’s query, but first he glanced at Nik’s back. “It wouldn’t be much of a curse to make someone happy now, would it, lad?”
“I suppose not,” Nik replied with a dark expression, slumped shoulders, and tightened fists.
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“Might as well.”
“It would do you some good to learn to laugh at yourself. You felt stupid just now, didn’t you?”
