Below is my offering for Trifecta’s week 95 challenge word, which is ‘rainbow’. As you will see from the Trifecta blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘rainbow’ is:

[from the impossibility of reaching the rainbow, at whose foot a pot of gold is said to be buried] : an illusory goal or hope

I hope you enjoy my offering – please check here for the other entries!

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– Essence –

“What do you want from life?”

The man replied, almost before the question had finished reverberating around the empty room.

“I just want to be happy! That’s all!”

Silence settled, coating the walls, the floor and the man himself with an almost palpable disapproval.

“Hello? Did you hear me? I said -”

“I heard.”

“So?”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“Look, I thought you were omnipotent, omniscient, all that crap. So, just sort it out, won’t you? The rest of my life is waiting!”

The Voice sighed. Every time…

“If that is what you wish – and I repeat that you said ‘I just want to be happy’ – then it can be arranged. But if your only experience is happiness, you will be forever denied the richness of life. Do you understand me?”

The man held up his hand, as if to stop The Voice in its tracks. The man’s ears were deaf to all explanations. His mind had been made up long ago.

“I know what I want. Deliver it.”

The final words sealed his fate. The door opened and the man ran from the room, eager to meet his destiny.

The Voice remained silent. There was nothing to say. Removing all causes of negativity from the man’s life would render him happy, but not for long. Once he arrived home to a house with no wife and children to welcome him, a phone with no parents or friends to receive his call… well, his choice had been made.

The Voice knew. Each thing that brings us happiness also brings us pain. Equally, remove all sources of pain and our happiness soon evaporates.

Such is the way of the world.

Such a shame that once the man had made his decision, there was no turning back. He had embarked on a fool’s errand.

The Voice wondered if he himself would ever stop searching for the wise man, his own personal rainbow.

Perhaps The Heart would know.

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