That’s not to say I haven’t made that mistake, I’ve made it many times, over and over and over again. Despite my best efforts I grow fond of people, those who can embrace change and understand their fragility. Those who meet my eyes, and can say, “Bring it on.” The courage of these individuals is endearing and left me with a soft spot. I know that even those who can roll with punches, eventually fall to the ground exhausted and weakened. Their dreams which once were so hopeful and bright have grown misshapen and transformed into nightmares. Poisoning their ambitions, leaving people bitter and angry. I’ve watched the mighty fall, and worlds shatter in seconds. All I can do is turn away and hope that this doesn’t hurt too much, pretending I don’t know what their fates will become and ignoring the anger in their eyes as I’m forced to take from them.
There’s something about this girl. I know the difference between people who can see me and look past me, but she’s looking at me. She’s young, too young to know the anger that the world will throw at her, but I can already tell she won’t be affected as those in the past. I’m intrigued by her lack of care about what she’s heard about me, but I can’t risk losing this connection with her. So, I must lurk around the corner and out of sight. I’ve done this dance too many times, I don’t want her to lose her faith in the world too young, there’s a reason humans say, “ignorance is bliss” after all.
“What’s your name?” she asks, she’s found me while I was lost in my own world. I look at her eyes, and the lack of wariness in her eyes is exciting.
“I’m Mutability,” I find myself saying, there’s no harm in telling her my name, she’ll forget me soon enough. Her eyes are twinkling and she smiles to herself, like she knew this already.
“I’m Stability,” she says and her smile grows.
The world seems to stop spinning.
Analysis:
I decided to write a creative writing piece inspired by Percy Shelley’s poem “Mutability.” I chose this poem because of the contradictory imagery of the poem’s subject matter and the meaning I derived from the poem. My short story takes Mutability and creates a god like figure from it, bored from the constant lack of excitement in the world and the paradoxical human desire for change and sameness. I took Mutability and showcased how they desired for humans to no longer treat them like the enemy and still longing for some form of “excitement” in their life.
I was inspired by the line, “Nought may endure but Mutability” to start my creative writing piece. This line is very interesting as it states that nothing stays the same but change. Shelley’s use of this idea is seen throughout the rest of the poem and I did my best to capture this in my creative writing. I took this literally, as my Mutability is immortal and has lived throughout human history. I drew upon the concept of change being an unstoppable force and how things in life begin to blend together as you grow older. My Mutability has grown wary of humankind and the perils of human connection. I decided to imply that Mutability has made these connections in the past and has had a tough time with forming connections and moving on. Overall, I wanted the tone of my creative piece to be similar, that change is a constant in life and that people need to accept that and move on.
Another key phrase that inspired my writing was, “We rest – a dream has power to poison sleep; / We rise – one wandering thought pollutes the day.” I wanted to showcase this line by having characters grow older and bitter with the actualities of the world. This line was both in part to show how people shed the rose-colored glasses of childhood and the heartache that people experience with dreams failing. I was inspired by this line and decided to have humans grow angry and disillusioned with the way that change doesn’t take their feelings and desires into account. Overall, I wanted to showcase the perspective of change in this matter, as a party without any real control more so acting as an agent not a leader. This line was especially important to me as it really sparked my interest in creating this piece of writing and served as my primary starting point. This line really interested me as dreams are typically seen as a time of hope and relaxation but flipping the idea of dreams on its head allowed for the creation of a new medium and perspective. Finally I ended my poem with Mutability and Stability meeting, showcasing how Mutability and Stability depend on and need each other.