The Strange Tale of Mr Valens; Part 2

This walk into the depths of the forest filled Mister Valens with unease, yet at the same time stirred his curiosity, thrilled him, and sent a strange chill through his core. With his companions at his side, Darin, Telder, and his peculiar dog Gabarin, Valens stepped onto the narrow path that stretched from his garden into the woods beyond. Humming the oldest songs they knew, these misfits wandered forward until, all at once, a sound rose from deep within the forest, startling them. And when they came to their senses, neither Darin could see Telder anymore, nor could Valens find Gabarin.

The journey they had begun together had, from its very first moments, turned into something deeply personal for each of them. As Valens searched with anxious eyes for his friends and his dog, he also began to listen more closely to the thoughts echoing within his mind. After a while, as those thoughts swirled louder in his head, Valens suddenly called out, “Darin, Telder, you fools, leave me alone with my thoughts! And besides, where did you vanish to all of a sudden?

What business do you have wandering through the shadows of my mind?” In response, Darin and Telder spoke with a single, deep voice, saying, “We have existed only in your mind from the very beginning, Valens. But once you finally set aside your cowardice and began to face yourself, once you tested your limits and defeated your fears, it was then that we emerged. And now we shall show you the true Valens, before this fleeting life comes to its end.”

Like everyone else, Valens was experiencing this life for the very first time. After a long and weary stretch of time, he had finally begun to feel that he was truly alive. For the first time, he felt such a strong influence over his own existence, and yet many things still unfolded beyond his control.

But this no longer troubled Valens, for he had come to understand that he could not control everything, nor did he need to. He had let go of the needless struggle he had once waged against life itself. Or had he truly let it go? Perhaps this was not the end of the fight, but the beginning of a new one, a deeper battle with himself. How far would he carry this conflict within? We too may begin to drift through this land of riddles alongside Mister Valens. And now, it seems Mister Valens wishes to speak to you.

Yes, this is a long journey, and yes, like you, I am walking this path for the very first time. Along the way, I feel anxious, I grieve, I doubt, I grow strange, I fear yet because I do not shy away from any of these emotions, I feel, in some strange way, profoundly brave. I press forward, I do not retreat, I do not feel shame, and not only do I refuse to fear being different, I no longer carry the burden of trying to be the same.

I cannot keep my soul from dancing within this whirlwind of feeling. I cannot restrain my passions, and I no longer fit the vessel I was once poured into. So you see, I am living I am not merely surviving, I am truly alive. I want to feel, to my very core, all those dark and uncomfortable emotions you are too afraid to name. I want to know the impulses within me that frighten me, that make me anxious, that unsettle me. Not to run from them, but to learn how to live alongside them.

At times I rise, and at times I fall. But through this journey inward, I am learning what it means to live with myself. I feel my existence both in the passion that stirs when I rise and in the melancholy that lingers when I fall. In this journey where I have welcomed you as my guest, I carry no urgent desire to change who I am. Yet perhaps I do not resist the inevitable transformation that may await me at the end of it either. I do not wish to force the pieces of this puzzle into place. I want them to find where they belong on their own. I am waiting for the pieces like the lost feelings and faded impulses in my life to move in harmony and complete the frame with a quiet, graceful dance.

I surrender myself like a sable drifting through the crystal waters of the Mojori River, flowing as purely as the Sisters of Hennes. Like that creature, I yield to the current, yet even as I am carried by its flow, I guard my inner self as fiercely as it protects its home.

I embrace every feeling that belongs to my being, and I imagine, I dream, I hope, and I nurture new light deep within my soul. I do not wait for a wish to come true or for someone to appear simply to feel well again. In this strange journey, I do not hesitate to wander through the dream garden of light just as much as I open windows toward the dark. I do not anchor my existence, nor my sense of self, to the absolute rule of darkness or to the majestic splendor of the light. As an old writer once said:

“We did not ask for this room or this music. We were invited in. Therefore, because the dark surrounds us, let us turn our faces to the light. Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty. We have been given pain to be astounded by joy. We have been given life to deny death. We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.”

You’d best grow accustomed to Mister Valens’s interruptions now, for they may well become more frequent as we go on. As he voices these emotions, he claims to draw strength from the very illusions and contradictions he wrestles with within himself. He knows that the growing sense of power he feels comes, in truth, from the quiet satisfaction of learning to feed off his own inner paradoxes. But no matter I hesitate to speak too much on Valens’s behalf. Better we return to our journey, to the tale itself.