Love and Madness: The True Story

This is a piece I wrote many years ago. As I've been cleaning up my old blogs (what Nano?!), I thought a repost would be in order.


A long time ago, before the world was created and humans set foot on it for the first time, vices & virtues floated around and were bored, not knowing what to do.

One day, all the vices and virtues were gathered together and were more bored than ever.

Suddenly, Ingenious came up with an idea: "Let's play hide and seek!"

All of them liked the idea and immediately Madness shouted: "I want to count, I want to count!"

And since nobody was crazy enough to want to seek Madness, all the others agreed.

Madness leaned against a tree and started to count: "One, two, three.."

As Madness counted, the vices and virtues went hiding.

Tenderness hung itself on the horn of the moon... Treason hid in a pile of garbage... Fondness curled up between the clouds...and Passion went to the centre of the earth.... Lie said that it would hide under a stone, but hid at the bottom of the lake... whilst Avarice entered a sack that he ended up breaking.

And Madness continued to count: "... seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one ..."

By this time, all the vices and virtues were already hidden - except Love. For undecided as Love is, he could not decide where to hide. And this should not surprise us, because we all know how difficult it is to hide Love.

Madness: "... ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven ..."

Just when Madness got to one hundred, Love jumped into a rose bush to hide. Then Madness turned and shouted "I'm coming, I'm coming!"

As Madness turned around, Laziness was the first to be found--because Laziness had no energy to hide. Then Madness spotted Tenderness in the horn of the moon, Lie at the bottom of the lake and Passion at the center of the earth.

One by one, Madness found them all - except Love. Madness was getting desperate, unable to find Love. Envious of Love, Envy whispered to Madness: "You only need to find Love and Love is hiding in the rose bush."

Madness grabbed a wooden pitch fork and stabbed wildly at the rosebush. Madness stabbed and stabbed until a heartbreaking cry made him stop.

Love appeared from the rose bush, covering his face with his hands. Between his fingers ran two trickles of blood from his eyes. Madness, so anxious to find Love, had stabbed out Love's eyes with a pitch fork.

"What have I done! What have I done!" Madness shouted. "I have left you blind! How can I repair it?"

And Love answered: "You cannot repair my eyes. But if you want to do something for me, you can be my guide."

And so it came about that from that day on, Love is blind and is always accompanied by Madness.