The Tangle...

She tapped her foot and looked up at the looming tower in front of her. The knotted, tattered, tangled mess of wires bundled up so tightly it seemed like its various ends and individual cords may never be freed. Her foot tapping increased, she grit her teeth, and she huffed and puffed about.

Okay. Maybe she could power through this. Someone had to take this thing down, and it certainly had to be her. Maybe this time she’d succeed.

When she’d first tried, all those years ago, she’d been fierce. A blank, empty confidence. She would laugh as she gripped the frayed ends poking out from various ends of the Tangle, calmly telling the passerbys that of course it was that simple. The Tangle was there, obviously, but she was totally on it. She was handling it. She’d have it undone in no time.

As the years dragged on, she grew disheartened. Desperate. She was a little more measured. More focused. Meticulously digging and pulling at an area until she’d managed to work out the cords trapped in this never ending ball. She’d lay them out, labeled and examined, then stumble her way past the mess to begin picking at more.

It was such a slow process, yet she rarely wavered. Yes, she paused. She had breaks. There were times where the Tangle would loom behind her, trailing her every step of the way. She would shrug it off, refusing to look back at the tasks demanding her attention; instead locking her eyes forward each and every day. In the back of her mind the thought would loom. “The Tangle is there. The Tangle is there. Don’t look now, the Tangle is there!” but sooner or later she would turn, tapping her foot and glaring up at the tower. “Fine, fine! The Tangle is there. Let’s get this over with.”

I carried my tangle along in my arms, trailing after her and her Tangle alike. I was slower with mine. Gentler, I suppose. I would study it from afar. Like a puzzle ring or a sliding puzzle box, turning it over and over. Searching for pieces, following a single trail until it clicked into place, letting me carefully draw away its clingy ties and unleash a length of thread.

“I think I’ve nearly got it…” I said, though I don’t. “I think I’m nearly there.”

“Of course, you got this.” She’d genuinely say, buried halfway in twine.

She’d be so focused, so locked on her task, and I’d always just leave her to it. I’d get her attention, every once in a while, and take with me what I had learned. I’d show her a cord on the edge of the Tangle, asking for a helping hand.

She’d hop on down from her own mess of wires, happily dusting herself off. “Sure thing, what’s the problem? Show me what I can do!” And we’d take that wire, hand in hand, and pull it right on through.

I’d lay it out, labeled and pretty, and get to work on the rest. Each and every time, she’d stay by my side, watching me sort for some days. Seeing my work, my patient plucking, the way the loose wires connect. “How do you do this? Keep it so neat? Why can’t I be like that?”

“I don’t know dear, it’s easy I guess, when you hardly ever act. You push ahead, you try your best, you always make some ground. My progress is an avalanche, one small slip creating a crashing flood. Yours is a river chiseling a dip in a canyon, slow but ever moving. Our methods are different, but so is the scale, so is the way we live. We may never conquer this Tangle, I know. That’s a scary thought. But we’ll do this together, side by side, no matter how long it goes.”