Ted's Tale - in summary form

Hello there - I've been warned this story is too long... so scroll down to the 3rd comment right at the end for the context of it & I'm hoping that will intrigue you enough to read it :-) Thanks! Shannan

"STORY": The tale has been told in many ways before, but still, many have not listened, many still cling to their fear and self-pity like a blanket in the coldest winter… Ted was one of those humans who knew his soul yearned to create more, to be more; but he was blind to the obvious. He wanted his tale to be told, in case, by a miracle, someone else would listen to what he hadn’t, see what he couldn’t and be more than he chose, before it was too late.

He had a childhood that wasn’t too ‘abnormal’. His parents hadn’t been brought up in homes with unconditional love, and so they didn’t know how to create such a home. He was born into a little town with a few churches, but very little practicing of faith. He was guided towards fitting in with the small population, in order not to stand out, in order to be ‘normal’ like everyone else. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for one thing, his desire to create. He felt a longing inside himself, a space nothing seemed to fill. He travelled, he got a higher education to become a master of his art form, he researched religion, he received high awards and accolades for numerous things, he made a fortune with his sharp mind in the world of technology, he jumped off mountains and out of planes, he learnt to fly helicopters, but, despite all his efforts, that space remained empty. It was like he was the ugly duckling, born into the wrong family, searching for his flock of swans, yet, no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find them.

Then one day, busy making money, busy studying, busy working and searching and striving, he was making plans to move along again and try something new, so he had to employ someone to take over his job. Many candidates were interviewed and time was running out, until Sayuri walked in. Ted was blown away by how perfect for the job this woman was. Well dressed, well groomed, client and supplier friendly, able to fit in with the colleagues, bosses and subordinates, experienced and confident. He knew God had answered his prayers and he would be able to train her up and get on with finding the answers to his more important prayers. It often infuriated him that God would answer such easy prayers, but the big ones for finding his joy, his artistic release and his soul contentment had been hanging unanswered for as long as he could remember.

Sayuri came on board and Ted showed her the ropes. She picked up faster than he had ever expected. She had everything under her wing in a couple of weeks and this left Ted with time on his hands, with his business handed over he sat back and relaxed and observed things for the first time in his memory. Sayuri fast became the centre of his observations, she made his pedantic desire to do things ‘right’ look like the mess of a high school student, not an experienced executive. All the people she encountered liked her, trusted her and opened up to her in ways they had never done with him. She had needed this job because of awful circumstances that he knew from her application, but no one else did. Financially strapped due to her previous employer’s dishonesty she had been in search of a job to get herself ‘back on track’; the situation had been perfect for him. Yet, as he watched her, no one would ever have known. She brought small gifts to those who needed a boost, she gave generously of her time to help where she could, she expected nothing in return and approached everything with a humility that astounded him. He watched her inspire people and bring out incredible work from them something that he had been trying to get out of them for nearly two years! Each day his awe grew, each day he noticed something new, each day he couldn’t help but desire to just stare at her in wonder. How did she know what she knew, how was she able to give so much when she had so little, how was she able to smile in such an unbelievably difficult environment, how did she make him feel so much less than he knew he was?

His time came to an end, and instead of feeling like he could conquer the world in his new role, in his new business, he felt lost, more lost than he ever had felt before. He blamed her, who did she think she was anyway? He was important, he had achieved amazing things, he could fly a helicopter for crying out loud and she only had a post graduate first level. He had a fortune in his bank account and she had debt. He owned homes in different countries and had an unbelievably sexy girlfriend, Sayuri was single. He could speak four languages and she only two. She didn’t even come from an upper class background. Why, why did everyone react so differently to her, when he was clearly superior? Ted couldn’t understand. He couldn’t fathom how she did what she did. He tried to pursue his new goals, achieve his new agenda, take his planned steps to finding his peace, yet she consumed his mind. He went into a very dark space within himself and self-doubt that he had never experienced before started to seep into his life, he realised how few genuine friends he had, and guessed that she probably had more life long friends than he could hope for. Most of his ditched him when he wasn’t into spending his fortune on them. The space around him darkened more into a loneliness and an introspection that he felt spiraling into a fear that he was more lost than he had ever realized. He physically felt a tangible creative block lodge itself firmly into his being. All creativity dried up to leave a sense of anguish and disappointment within him. He slipped into the masochism of self-reproach and self-loathing which held themselves victor over the creativity that used to reign in his life. The overriding sense of unease and negativity made him think that he couldn’t create things of worth; the thoughts separated him from the fact that he was indeed, an incredible creative. He was overcome by the archetypal negatives that many people live in, drunk, irresponsible, promiscuous and unhappy.

Eventually, he had to escape. He stopped his international work, returned to his home town and went to the estate agency to chat to the agent about a new space to live in. None of his homes gave him the positive energy that they used to, and he didn’t desire to see the people he used to entertain. Jill was a lady he had gone to school with. She was thrilled to see him and chatted away. He smiled at her inability to gauge what he was really thinking and feeling and then mentally chided himself for thinking that Sayuri would’ve known, she would’ve sensed where he was at. He pushed the thoughts away, even more determined to get to a space on his own. He told her he wanted a place on the furtherest edge of the forest on the border of the town, something secluded, somewhere people wouldn’t venture. She smiled at this and told him it was absolutely perfect timing, that God must be answering his prayers. Ted scoffed, in his mind he knew God had left him long ago and he was in this on his own, his prayers didn’t get answered. Nevertheless, he humoured her and told her to lead the way.

They drove through the forest, a rocky road seemingly going nowhere, until eventually they arrived at a broken gate connected to a grimy picket fence. The cottage itself was surrounded by so many trees that nothing could be seen beyond the roof or sides of the building. They got out and walked through brambles to get to the door. She took out the key and opened the door, they walked into extreme sunlight, so much sunlight that it was blinding. She quickly closed the shutters on the window. "Sorry," she said "that’s the glare from the sunlight. You’ve told me you don’t want any sunshine, so you can keep these closed if you prefer. The cupboard over there is also situated to keep the light from coming in under the back door."
He stood there and knew this was where he should be, an ugly duckling away from society and everything he couldn’t fit into. Here he could force himself to be creative again; he would work to make himself creative again. He asked her the rent and nearly choked when she told him. He couldn’t rationalise the high rental and argue with her. She said that it was what the landlord wanted and as the place was so unique and special he would not let it go for less. Ted knew he had to be here, he was over money and price and signed a lease for the year.

One year turned into 2, then 3, then 4, then it rolled into his 40th birthday year. By this time he had done up the whole cottage, he had opened space in the garden and created his own vegetable garden, alongside a small orchard. He had worked out his routines precisely and was living day to day in the simplest tasks. Yet, despite all this time, he believed his block had not gone. He had painted the cottage, he had found a workshop a little way into the forest and had built new furniture and had become highly self-sufficient. He had maintained his income with his connections and investments over the internet. Necessary groceries were delivered weekly by his old mate from secondary school who now owned his father’s old store. The two of them had become close as Ted’s news on the town and the necessary information to ‘stay in the know’ came regularly from Jim. Jim was incredibly impressed with what Ted had achieved and would come around to spend the odd evening being a carpenter or a painter, or whittling wood with Ted on his porch over a beer.

On one such evening, Jim mentioned to Ted that his wife Jill, the estate agent, had found a new lease on life through her writing. She was using the internet to publish her poetry and share her short stories with people all over the world. Jim told Ted how fantastic it was that his wife was wonderfully young again and things were as good as their honeymoon these days. It was obvious from Jim’s continuously self-content grin that he was indeed a happily satisfied man. He used Ted’s laptop to show him the site. He navigated onto one of her poems and passed the laptop to Ted who looked it over to humour his companion. He scrolled down the poem he thought was fairly average, but didn’t say that to Jim, and then he started to read the comments from other writers who he assumed were also as uneducated as Jill probably was. He laughed out loud at the first comment by some baseball guy who told her to ‘keep trying’. Jim looked offended and Ted told him that he was laughing at the morons commenting. Jim laughed too saying a lot of the people who thought they were poets were simply ‘struggling artists on a vanity trip’, but he told Ted to scroll to the end of that poem, he couldn’t pronounce the person’s name properly, but she always gave comments that Jill loved. Ted obliged Jim again and quickly moved to the end. His finger stopped moving and he went white.
"What’s wrong Ted? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!" Jim put his beer down and was ready to get something if needed.
Ted swallowed, and in very slow motion looked up at Jim, trying to focus on him.
"It’s pronounced Sa-yu-ri."
"Huh?" Jim was confused; Ted turned the laptop towards him to show him the beautiful comment. "Oh, right, thanks. You ok? The comment isn’t that frightening you know."
Ted recovered, but became very restless. Jim sensed his discomfort and offered to stay or go. Ted appreciated his friend’s sensitivity and closed the laptop saying he’d had a full day and was ready to hit the hay. Jim grinned, with the knowing look that he was very ready to go home to his creatively happy and energized wife.

Ted was in torment all night. Eventually at 2 in the morning he pulled out his laptop and went back to the poetry site. He clicked on Sayuri’s profile. Could it be her? Could he find out the how’s and why’s if he read her work? Would that be right? Ted couldn’t help himself, he went to her first entries, long before he had met her; he devoured them with a soul hunger that felt like it had been left unfed for years. He read and read and read. He heard each piece in her amazing voice, he remembered each of her idiosyncrasies, he felt like he could even still smell her as he read. He knew it was her, without a doubt, the work was of her soul, he knew it. By 5 o’clock he was writing, by 7 o’clock he had 5 complete and inspired poems, by 10 o’clock he was done arguing with himself and he had created a false Poet Character right down to the location, age, occupation, time-zone differences and explicit details about his character. It was perfect he thought. He would get to know her, find out about her and figure out how he could win people over like she did. If he could figure that out, then he would be made for life and he could make himself fit in anywhere, with anyone. He knew it was devious and he knew it went against every moral fibre within him, but he had spent years dreaming about this woman, she had caused his misery and he had every right to stalk her. She would never know, he’d be as unassuming as possible and his created character was airtight, no one would ever find out, especially as he was way out in the middle of nowhere. By lunch time he had posted his poems. He knew he had to go about this carefully and he had nothing but time on his hands, so for 4 months he read her work each day and responded by posting a poem of his own. She still hadn’t noticed him, so he started to comment on the poems he had found her commenting. He soon realised he would have to comment on a poem before she did so she would read his comment. A month later he managed to comment on one of Jill’s poems first, and then again and again, it infuriated him that Sayuri posted so sporadically, he figured writing must literally only be a hobby for her.

He studied her work and found a continuous thread of loneliness, an overriding sadness that pierced his heart in a way he had never felt before. There was a contentment and a spirituality to her work that left him in awe. The way she saw things, her humility, her grace, her softness, her kindness, each bit of information made him feel worse and worse. Yet each poem he wrote made him feel better and better. Other poets were commenting on his work and, by the 5th month he had a substantial fan base, yet still not her. He found her now entering his dreams and conscious thoughts, he found himself with an overwhelming desire to hold her close, to take away her loneliness, to share her faith, to walk by her side, to listen to her words. He found himself falling in love with a being he now believed to be nothing short of an angel. There was no malice in her writing, no bitterness in her words, they rang with hope and encouragement, they sang in lyrics and rhyme that made him want to sing. Guilt, ridiculous guilt started to cradle his soul. How could he have thought she was trying to outdo him? What had made him think this lady was as cold-hearted and money-orientated as he was? How could he ever be forgiven for entering into her space so stealthily and deceitfully? He wanted to delete his profile, he wanted to let it be, it wasn’t too late, he knew he could, but he was loving writing, his creativity had been unleashed again after being dormant and inaccessible for years. His soul was yearning to keep going, he wanted to write, he wanted to write for her, about her, to be around her, but surely it was wrong. Ted was beside himself over the dilemma he now found himself in, the angel and the devil…

By the end of the 5th month his conscience was eating him alive and he had lost too much sleep to be rational. He decided that enough was enough and he had to stop the writing because he couldn’t live with himself anymore. He turned on the laptop, logged in and went to his site, a little message was telling him he had comments, he went in to read them and his blood turned to ice, there it was in black and white, he had a comment from Sayuri. Feeling like he was in another body, out of this world and meddling in the twilight zone, he clicked on the message. He was blown away. She said she loved his poem! She said he was talented! She loved his poem! He jumped up in glee and joy like he had never felt in his life. Like all the weight he had been carrying had been lifted by God Himself. AMEN! He yelled at the top of his lungs as he grabbed hold of his adopted dog and danced with him squirming around the room. No way, no way was he deleting his profile, this felt too good! She loved his poem! Ted calmed down and spent two hours working on his one line reply. Then in his excitement he asked if he could be her fan, and he commented on three of her latest poems. Then he stopped, maybe that was too much, maybe that would give the game away, oh no, he didn’t know what to do now. He closed the laptop and went to work in the forest collecting firewood, tending to his flowers and vegetables, he went for a run into town and back, and in sheer exhaustion showered and ate. While he was eating his mind wouldn’t stop pestering him, had she accepted, had she read anything else, was there another comment? As if possessed by something beyond himself, his usual complete self-control was gone and he couldn’t stop himself from logging in. Once again his would went into a spin, she had accepted, she had commented, she was amazing, she was his angel, he couldn’t let her go, he would keep writing, he would keep going because it was the only way he could be connected to her. He couldn’t cut all ties, he knew she wouldn’t forgive him, he knew he had lost and this was his one chance to stay connected to her spirit, he wasn’t going to cut that off, not for anything in the world, not even for his blasted conscience.

Through his 40th birthday, through another two seasons, through rain and snow Ted posted a poem a day. Sayuri was inconsistent, yet, at many points Ted thought she had figured out that she was his muse, then she would change tune, or post a poem that changed his mind; then another that made him believe again. He lived on the edge as his soul longed to be near her, as his infatuation with her expanded beyond the real and into day dreams of children and marriage. It blew his mind how often her poems would directly link to his thoughts, how her feelings would be in tandem with his, he prayed and prayed for God’s forgiveness, for an answer to get him out of his moral bind. No answer arrived, which didn’t surprise Ted; he was surprised he still bothered praying at all.He was stuck in a catch22, he could tell her the truth, but then he’d be a liar and a stalker who she couldn’t trust; or he could carry on writing and be miserable because he couldn’t touch her or ever be with her in person again if he didn’t tell her. This churned in him daily.

Then December arrived and Ted was a wreck after sleepless nights and the constant ache of missing his soul, he was missing Sayuri. He missed the answer to his prayers and his dreams because he had been consumed with being in charge, with working hard, with being busy and making money and searching, when the answer had walked right through his door. That’s where he fit, his soul told him without a doubt that with Sayuri was where he fit, she was a swan, the swan he had been searching for for so long; and he had been to blind and self-consumed to see it, to see her, to believe she was genuine, because he hadn’t been.

Jim made his Friday delivery just before Christmas day and saw how down Ted was. Jim had observed him becoming more and more self-consumed and ‘out-of-it’ over these last few weeks, yet Ted refused to talk about it and kept telling him everything was fine, when it clearly wasn’t. Jim had mentioned it to Jill who had told Jim to invite Ted over to theirs for Christmas. Jim broached Ted with the idea.
"No thanks Jim, I’d rather be alone, thanks," came the somber reply.
"Well that’s not an option I’m afraid, Jill won’t have it. So either you come to ours or we come to yours, but we won’t have you in this constant depression on your own. We can’t have you doing something stupid."
Ted chuckled, he knew he wouldn’t win, but having them here would be way better than going to their’s. "Ok Jim, you win, but you can come here, I’m not venturing into town."
"Done deal. We’ll see you then, I’m sure we’ll have a feast for five between us."

Ted took up the idea whole-heartedly and put together an amazing Christmas dinner, it was a wonderful distraction from the torment in his soul. He continually irritated himself as he was setting the table and picturing Sayuri sitting there, or cooking with him, or helping with the dishes, or dancing to the Christmas music. He would talk himself out of the thoughts and carry on.

On Christmas Day, Jill and Jim arrived in time for lunch in the sweltering heat, never before experienced at the time of year. After greetings and present swapping, food and table preparations, they prayed and sat down to a delicious meal. While they were eating, beautiful, cascade of laughter was heard and Ted couldn’t control himself anymore. Tears welled up and started to roll down his cheeks. Jim and Jill were smiling at the laughter and then were confused at Ted’s response.
"Ted, sweetheart," Jill touched his shoulder "what on earth is the matter?"
Ted couldn’t hold it in anymore, all the anxiety, the tension, the months of depression, the months of glorious writing, the heartache; everything was spilling out of him through his tears. "Jill, I’m sorry. I came up here depressed, I came up here to run away and find myself again, to get away from someone who was haunting me, and I haven’t won, I haven’t managed to escape. I love her, I know I love her and I can’t have her. I wish she was here so badly that I have even got myself believing I can hear her laughter," the tears streamed down Ted’s cheeks, a man who once had more pride than anyone, a man who saw himself as all powerful, a man broken in learning the truth, in experiencing love.
"Ted, what are you talking about? We can all hear the laughter; in fact it sounds to me like its Sayuri’s laugh."
"What?" Ted looked at Jill in shock as he wiped his nose with a serviette.
Jill looked at the shutters and the cupboard, "Ted, are you telling me you have not opened those shutters or moved that cupboard in nearly 5 years? You men are too much!"
"You told me that it was keeping the light out. I don’t want the light. I want the darkness."
"Ted, through those windows is a glorious sight. Behind that cupboard is a door that opens out onto the estate of one of the wealthiest men in the country. A short walk away from your cottage is the home of the Head Grounds Man of the estate. He began working on the estate over two years ago after he was retrenched from his job upcountry. The Head Grounds Man has a daughter called Sayuri and she has been visiting him here every four months since he started working here."
Ted let Jill’s words sink in, the laughter was heard again, he looked at Jill, he looked at the window, the cupboard, then launched out of his chair and pulled the shutters open to see Sayuri and her Dad cooling down in the garden sprinklers, amongst the most incredible gardens Ted had ever seen. He stood there watching his dreams unfold before him and before he could stop himself he found the strength to push the cupboard away from the wall and open the door to be standing in the light. To be standing nearer to Sayuri than he ever thought possible. He froze, standing there, reality hitting him, not sure what to do now. His voice wouldn’t work, he couldn’t move. Slowly mid-laugh she turned to see him. Smiling, she ran towards him and wrapped her arms around him, he fell to his knees, arms around her waist, holding her tighter than he had ever held anything before. She cupped his head in her arms and held him gently, then slowly lowered herself to his level, and looked into his tear-filled eyes.
"Ted, I’ve been waiting for you to open that door, I was beginning to think you never would." She wiped his tears with her fingers, and started to speak with more faith and promise in her voice than he had ever heard before. "Ted, God told me to wait, He told me that you would find the light and be able to see again. He told me years ago that He would bring you to my door, and not only has He answered my prayers, but He did it literally and on His birthday too. Our God is an Awesome God, Ted."
Ted never let her go again. His faith in God, his belief in goodness, his trust in the Universe never faltered again. From then on the shutters and doors in Ted’s life were always open to the light and he always chose to live a life of love.