Shell With No Soul

• Makaya Craig, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2022

Love is tricky. Love can be everywhere and anywhere, but sometimes it can feel as if its anywhere else than near you. Me being a 21-year-old woman and never yet have had the courage to discover what love feels like, can really take a toll you. Sure, I’ve had the occasional stomach full of butterflies and the ugly shades of red patched onto my cheeks, but my heart has never felt so full that it could explode. Sometimes love reminds me of a glowstick. You start off as a dull looking thing, your soul empty, no love has ventured inside. And then that lucky person comes along and starts cracking out the goods bits in you, you start to glow, and when fully glowing you know you’ve finally reached beyond love. And then it can either end in two ways, you stay glowing, filling the darkness with your embering light or you can start to fade, the former loved one breaking you into pieces, leaving you to your now again empty soul. I’ve never really minded my loneliness, I rather enjoyed it, but recently the feeling of emptiness has been shadowing me like a bad odour. Maybe it’s because some of my bests of friends have started to show interest in dating, or it’s because my soul longs for the same feeling the old couple on a park bench have. I never thought that I would be capable of love, always standing on the side lines. I know what love is capable of, I’ve seen it, the bitter bits. Falling for someone and then having another version of them break you just seems like a waste of time. But life is short and the only thing I want to discover before my time has come is Love. Though I’ve never understood the concept I fully understand how people long for Love. It makes you less lonely, happier, and overall loved. And I long for that, but I haven’t yet received my lucky person. No sign, sighting, zero. And the doubt that has filled my soul is so overwhelming, it fills like an overweight weighted blanket has been placed on top of my shoulders. Maybe my lucky person will never be received or worse, has never existed. Instead of dying from a broken heart by the person I love the most, I may as well die of a heart that has never been loved, leaving me as a shell with no cherished soul.