There once was a boy who fell in love with a girl. They were young and restless, full of passion, fire and intimacy. Their love was a blissful blur, and time could not catch them. They did everything and nothing at the same time, and often found themselves sitting on a grassy hill under a willow tree. They spoke of all the wonders of the world, their dreams and their hopes, their fears and their secrets. They opened up to one another like blossoming roses, and so their souls were linked. Yet despite their happiness, the boy could feel a sadness that followed the girl like a shadow. Because of this, the boy wanted to give the girl something to heal her sadness, something he cherished.

One day the boy walked up the grass hill to find the girl sitting under the willow tree, staring out at the distant horizon. He sat down beside her but was surprised to find that there were tears in the girl’s eyes. She looked up at him and smiled, but it was soft and he knew she was hurt. He sat with her for a long time as she cried that day. After the moon had come and was gazing down upon them, he turned to face her. She took her eyes from the dark horizon and looked at him. He brushed a strand of hair from her wet eyes and took her hand. After a moment he took off his shirt and reached to his chest, opening it like a little door. She watched in curious awe as the boy pulled forth his heart; an orb of fire that burned bright in the night. She could feel its warmth drying her tears. He held it out to her while she gazed in wonder. She took it cautiously and smiled at him, kissing him softly on the cheek. The boy returned home that night feeling happiness like a dream come true.

The next day on his way to meet her, he stopped at a bakery and bought her and himself some bread, along with an extra loaf. He gave the extra loaf to a hungry man as he walked to meet her. He stopped again along the way to smell a beautiful red rose, and took the time to see and appreciate everything around him. The warmth of the sun, the touch of the wind . . . everything was beautiful. He then picked the rose carefully, and made his way to their homely grass hill.

There he found her. Sitting beneath the willow tree, her eyes once again captured by the horizon. Brightly colored butterflies tossed and turned around her. He came and sat beside her, smiling as if he had come upon something he had been seeking for a lifetime. She looked up at him, and the moment their eyes met, he felt a sudden pain like a sword through the heart. There were tears in her eyes. The boy lost his breath. He couldn’t understand. Lying on the grass before her was his heart, still burning radiantly. He looked at her and embraced her, waiting silently beside her as she wept. After several long hours, thunder crackled in the distance but the rain never came. It didn’t need to. Her only movement was passing the rose gently between her fingers, but she did not look at it. That night he walked her home but she did not speak. The rose was left under the shade of the lone willow’s branches.

The next day the boy awakened but could not bring himself to smile. He walked to the bakery and bought a single loaf of bread. He passed the hungry man in a hurry, not even realizing he was there. He did not stop to smell the roses along the way, and the beauty of the world was lost to him. When he came once again to that same grassy hill, the girl was nowhere to be found. Only a burn in the grass and the rose remained. He sat beneath the tree and took the rose in his fingers. Time moved in a slow, crawling manner, as it does when something precious is lost. The sun rose and fell. The moon chased as she does. And so, the sun came again. And then the moon, and then the sun. Each night the branches of the willow seemed to hang lower and lower, but he did not notice. He did not even notice the petals of the rose falling one by one until none remained. He only waited, and he did not cry.

Much time passed for him, and there were some who came to the willow tree to meet the boy who would not speak. To see the boy who only stared at the distant horizon. They tried to talk with him, but he would not answer. Those who came always left in tears, and eventually, no one came to the tree at all. As time passed, the few who still whispered of the boy came to know the place as the Weeping Willow.

It was during one of those nights lost in time that a thunder much like the first night crackled in the sky. The rain came and cried upon the willow tree. The branches trickled tears. It wept for the boy and stretched its branches lower, but still could not reach him. In the dead of night, the boy wondered if the earth loved the sky and the sky loved the earth. He knew that the two could never be together, and that only with the rain were the two momentarily connected. The tears of the sky, he thought. He wanted to cry upon the thought, to break down and weep like the sky and the tree. But he was the earth, and the earth could not cry. That night the boy wrapped his arms around his knees and began to shiver in the cold. Deep down he knew he couldn’t feel the chill anymore, but he still could not stop the shivering.

Night and day became a blur of untraceable time. Seasons came and went. The boy’s thoughts grew dim and silent until they no longer came to him at all. The butterflies would not come to the tree anymore, and all life seemed to come to a standstill.
It was a sunny day when she came. She was a girl who loved all things. Her soul held a powerful curiosity for life and all that she did not understand. She came unbeknownst to the grassy hill and was surprised to find a boy sitting beneath a willow tree, shivering under the warmth of the sun. At first, she cautiously watched him from afar, looking for any sign of life from him at all. Yet there was nothing. Only a blank stare. She tried to speak to him but he would not answer.

At one point, she tried to touch him and jumped back when her fingers touched something odd and invisible surrounding his body. It felt to her like a window on a windy night. She could not reach him and she did not know why. Looking closer at his shivering, she realized that it had created a barrier around the boy, isolating him in solitude from the world. Before him on the ground was a faint burn in the grass, and the stem of a rose long since withered. That night the girl didn’t sleep, and stayed up all night thinking about the boy.

The next day the girl returned to find the boy in the same state. She brought food, water and books. All day she asked him questions, tried to scare him, blew in his ears, but there was no response. The boy merely gazed dimly at the horizon. The girl looked up at the willow tree often, wondering how it could be the only comfort to the boy. When night came the girl sighed and left in sadness, leaving the books, food and water.

But she would not give up so easily. The next day she returned again and repeated everything. Still there was nothing. No response. Not even a single movement.

Day after day the girl returned, and the things she tried changed. She began to speak to the boy about herself, talking of her dreams and fears. She couldn’t understand why she was telling him these things, but she found a certain comfort when she did. Spring passed, and soon after came Summer, then Fall. It was during a chill and windy day that she first felt doubt. For a brief, fleeting moment, she nearly convinced herself that it was hopeless, that the boy could not be reached. She wept that night beneath the willow. The wind tossed and turned as she cried, causing many leaves to fall beside her. Looking up with teary eyes, she realized that the willow wept alongside her. Once she had finally left, one might have said that the boy’s eyes followed her, but no one truly knows.

During a cold day in winter the girl made her way to the tree and stopped in surprise. Every day she had brought the boy bread and water, and each day he would not touch it. This day the bread was nowhere to be found, but the water remained. However, the boy remained much the same, and she wondered if some creature had eaten it.

That day she spoke to him of love and her hopes. She spoke to him of things she had not even known of herself, and as she did she realized that the boy was awakening a new part of her. As she continued speaking it began to snow, first gently but soon it fell harder. She didn’t know how the boy could survive the chill, so she tried to place her sweater upon him. She found that even the sweater could not reach him, and merely hovered a few inches above his shoulders. She wept again at the sight until she had no more tears left to cry, and fell asleep shivering by his side.

The next day she awakened to find something warm upon her body. It was her sweater. She sat up in a hurry and turned to face the boy, but he was nowhere to be found. He was gone. She heard a faint rustle and turned to find the boy behind her, standing beneath the willow and staring out at the horizon. She stood cautiously and walked forward until she was directly behind him. A tear fell down her cheek as she held the sweater close to her heart. After a moment, she reached out to touch him but the boy’s barrier remained, hard and unforgiving. As she pulled her hand back, he turned to face her. It was then she finally saw it. The truth of the boy. In the middle of his chest was something very much like a door, a little opening to his heart, and within it was nothing.

Her hand fell quickly over her mouth. All this time, all those long days and nights, the boy’s never changing gaze, everything made sense. She looked up at him as he wore a faint smile, his eyes full of melancholy. As the last leaves of the willow fell amongst them, they gazed at one another. The girl stepped forward, reached her hand to her chest and opened it in the same manner as his. Within was a beautiful orb of flame. She took it carefully in her hand and pulled it free.

The boy watched her cautiously but did not move. For a long, still moment, she held her heart and the eyes of the boy. Then, without so much as a second thought, she split the flames of her heart and held out one half to him. He stood silently for a moment, watching her. A tear fell down his cheek. And then another. He smiled faintly and held out the palm of his hand, moving to push her heart back to her.

​Yet the moment his hand touched her heart, the barrier that had been guarding him shattered into a thousand pieces. Deep within his chest he felt something return, like a distant memory that had long been thought lost. The girl’s eyes widened as a flame flickered within the emptiness of his soul, and so was the boy’s heart reborn. At first it was small, but as they gazed at one another, it grew until it was bright and full and burning like a star. He took her in his arms and smiled. That night there was no rain. That night there was only silence. And that night the willow danced and played and wept in its own loneliness, for there was no one who sat beneath it.