Chapter Forty-Nine: Interlude — Joy
Once, he was young.
Once, he was happy. Once, he was content.
It was such a simple life, and he loved it. He only had to tidy the house, and he loved tidying the house, and when the house was clean everyone was happy. He only had to watch the children grow, and he loved watching them grow, and that made everyone happy too. He only had to play with the children, and he loved playing with them, and everyone was happy when he did.
That was all it took to make everyone happy. Keep the house clean. Watch the little ones. Play. He was good at it, the best, and he gave it everything he had, and in return there was warmth and laughter and a place at the center of a family.
He believed it would go on like that forever.
But time moved slowly, and everything changed.
They stopped looking at him. They stopped caring whether the house was clean. He cleaned it anyway—it was the only thing he knew how to do—but no one noticed anymore.
The children stopped looking at him. The children did not want him anymore. They had grown, and somewhere in the growing they had left him behind, and he did not understand how or why. He had done everything right. He had done everything he always did. And still, somehow, it was no longer enough.
So he kept doing his job. It was all he had. He cleaned a house no one thanked him for and watched over a family that had forgotten him, and he told himself that was enough, because it had to be.
He grew old.
He grew weak. His eyes began to fail him. His ears began to fail him. The world dimmed and quieted around him, year by year, until he moved through a soft grey fog where bright sharp things had been.
And then the family began to fight.
They fought because of him. He could not hear the words anymore, but he could feel the anger in the air, sharp and ugly and aimed somehow at his own tired old body. They were fighting over who would have to take care of him. Over who was burdened with the old thing that could no longer see, no longer hear, no longer bring anyone joy.
So he left.
He went away on his own, because he no longer brought anyone any joy, and a creature who brought no joy had no place in a happy home. It was the kindest thing he knew how to do for them. If he was gone, they would stop fighting. If he was gone, they would be happy again. That was all he had ever wanted—for them to be happy.
And then they came for him.
They came looking, and they found him, and for one bright shining moment he was happy—truly happy, the way he had been when he was young—because they had come. They needed him. They wanted him after all. He had been wrong, and everything would be the way it was before.
Then they left him at a place full of others like him.
Old ones. Hurt ones. Blind and deaf and broken ones, abandoned ones, every one of them a creature that had once brought joy and no longer could. They left him there among them and they went away, and they did not come back.
They had not needed him. They had not wanted him. They had only needed him gone.
But he waited.
He hoped. He wished. Day after day after day, he waited for them to come back, the way they had come back once before. Surely they would. Surely someone would remember the old one who had tidied their house and raised their children and loved them with everything he had.
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No one came.
And as the days became seasons, his eyes finally went dark for good. His ears finally fell silent for good. And somewhere in that closing dark and silence, his hope quietly died too. He understood, at last, what he had become. He was no longer anyone who could bring joy to anyone. He was only an old thing waiting in the grey for an end that no one would mourn.
He stopped waiting. There was nothing left to wait for.
Then someone appeared.
Someone who felt, somehow, like the family had felt long ago—before they turned cold. The someone touched him, and the touch was warm, and the warmth was terrifying to an old creature who had lost everything and learned at last not to hope. He did not want to feel that warmth. Warmth had betrayed him before. Warmth was a thing that came and then left you in the grey.
But the someone did not leave.
The someone gathered up all the old ones, all the broken ones like him, and took them somewhere new. And though he could not see it and could not hear it, he could feel it—and what he felt was a wonderful place. It was warm. It was happy. It was the thing he had missed for so long he had forgotten its name. It was a place full of the joy he had thought he could no longer be part of.
The someone stayed by his side.
The someone touched him with a warmth he had long forgotten, again and again, asking nothing of him at all—not a clean house, not a watched child, not a single thing. The someone simply stayed, and brought peace to a heart he had believed long dead.
And so, slowly, he began to think a strange new thought.
Perhaps he had brought joy after all. Perhaps the someone was his joy—and joy was a strange thing, because joy did not need him to do anything. Joy did not need the house cleaned or the children watched. Joy asked nothing of him, demanded nothing, required him to be neither useful nor young nor whole. Joy only stayed.
That, he decided, was the someone’s name. Joy.
And the place they lived now was a lovely place, full of others made happy, with Joy in the middle of it all like a warm sun the old pig could feel even if he could not see.
One day, Joy called them.
Joy gave them something—a thing to drink—and he took it, because he trusted Joy now, and then a great heaviness came over him, and he fell asleep.
He dreamed.
He dreamed a long, long dream, from when he was young all the way to now, every part of his life passing slow and gentle before him—the clean houses, the growing children, the warmth and the cold and the grey and, at the end, the place where Joy lived. In the dream, he saw all the things he had wanted, lost, and found again. And in the dream, at last, he said goodbye to his old family. He forgave them, or perhaps he simply released them; he was too tired to know the difference, and it did not matter anymore. He had found his own joy now. He did not need theirs.
When he woke, the world was clear.
Things that had been foggy for so long were suddenly, impossibly sharp—though not in the old way, not through eyes that no longer worked. He could feel emotions now as colors and shapes, drifting bright through the air around him. He could see everything with his mind, the whole warm world laid out in light and feeling.
And there, in the middle of it all, he saw Joy.
Joy radiated a warm and gentle yellow, soft as morning, brighter than anything else in that shining new world. The old pig looked at it—truly looked, for the first time in years—and he knew, somehow, that he could reach out. That he could speak. So he gathered up everything he felt, all the warmth and the gratitude and the impossible returning hope, and he pressed it gently toward the yellow light.
He expressed his joy to his Joy.
And Joy felt it, and held him—he felt the warm arms wrap around his old body—and the embrace was the most wonderful thing he had known in all his long life.
Then Joy came with clothes.
He did not understand why. But when Joy laid them out, he found that he liked one of them—felt, somewhere deep down, drawn to it—and so he told Joy, pressing the wish gently into that warm yellow light, and Joy understood.
And then there came a garment made just for him.
Made for him. For the old blind deaf thing nobody had wanted. He was so happy he wanted everyone to know it, wanted the whole bright world to feel how happy he was, this old creature who had believed he would never again have anything that was his.
Then Joy came once more with new clothes—different clothes—, and somehow he knew, the way he now knew so many things, that everything would change after this. That something was beginning. He was not afraid. He let Joy dress him, gentle hands settling the fabric over his old body, and as the warmth of those hands moved over him he thought, with all the quiet love a worn-out heart could hold:
Thank you, my Joy. For bringing me joy.