This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me –
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!
Kiamo Ko was lonely at night. The bustling activity died away and left a silence stronger than any Elphaba believed she'd experienced before. Those dratted children finally left her alone and even Chistery, whose company was usually welcome, wandered off on his own and left her to her thoughts. She sat down on her bed and stared blankly through the open window, watching the wind stir the grass almost absent-mindedly, making lazy swirls in the blades. This particular night, she felt she needed the time alone more than ever. Her helplessness was overwhelming of late and she found herself despairing of ever ameliorating her circumstances again.
But then, she mused, picking up this particular train of though and running with it, why bother with even that? What would be the point of ameliorating her life at all if it was just going to end anyway, and thank goodness for that. It seemed to her that all anyone lived for was to fix something. Economic conditions, relationships, society. If this didn't matter, what did?
She leaned back against the stone wall adjacent to the bed and brought her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. It was an uncharacteristically blatant display of vulnerability that she never would have dared share with anyone but the stars. She had learned the hard way how insignificant an individual could be. Here, she had tried all her life to fix things and had come up entirely unsatisfied. Every attempt failed. She couldn't even think of one small success she'd managed in all her years; yet the list of failures seemed never ending. Dr. Dillamond, Fiyero, Frex, she'd even failed herself in the fruitlessness of her efforts against the Wizard. Sweet Lurline, she'd failed even just in the action of being born.
And now her she was, trying to lessen at least one of them in her apology to Sarima, and she couldn't even do that. The endless stream of self-derision was so grim that she wasn't quite sure why she even tried at this fixing business anymore.
Perhaps, she considered, it was only human nature to contradict one's brokenness and strive to become whole. Because to simply sit by and watch one's life disintegrate was just foolish.
But then, Elphaba had seen "fixed" people – Pfannee, Shenshen, even Galinda – and she knew that was the last thing she wanted. The utter hollowness of their lives left nothing more to be desired, and, she reasoned, if everything was fixed, what was the point of living at all?
So she couldn't live in her brokenness, but she found the "complete" life repulsive. Feeling the need to pace, she stood and made her way to the window, looking out on the silent plains and letting the breeze play in her hair and twirl her skirt around her ankles. She crossed her arms over her chest subconsciously, almost defensively. Where, exactly, was one supposed to draw the line? Should a person stop just short of fixing everything, and was such a feat even possible? If it wasn't, her mental debate ventured, why bother trying at all except to derive a reason for living? In so artificial an existence, Elphaba found no purpose at all.
Then, a small Nessa-like voice in her head reminded her that one ought to make the most of the time given them, even if it was mostly futile. With luck, the voice reasoned, everything might work itself out one day.
"How tragic," Elphaba actually said aloud, "How tragic, indeed."
Everything she fixed would break again. Her thoughts drifted back to the privileged girls back at school. Maybe having fixed everything just results in a new kind of brokenness, the only kind Elphaba had yet to experience. The kind that needed to be broken again before it could be fixed. Was that why, when it came down to it, fixed people acted more broken, and broken people acted more fixed? But there were always exceptions. What about the fixed, fixed people? Or the broken, broken people?
"Sweet Oz," she said aloud again, "I'm hardly making sense to myself any more."
Self-pity, she reminded herself, did no one any good. It just made her more miserable and people around her more annoyed. Although, it wasn't as if she talked to anyone anymore, at least not beyond barking orders and coaxing Chistery. With a little shudder, she felt a surge of regret and missed the days back at Shiz when she had someone to talk to. Elphaba shook her head and refocused her eyes, removing herself forcefully from her reverie. She shut the window almost vengefully against the chill night air, even though she knew it wasn't the cause of her trembling.
She'd just spent the better part of an hour, she realized, in silly pondering with no real conclusion to speak of. She feared it was becoming something of a trend lately. It sounded rather like her life.
Shaking her head at her continued foolishness, Elphaba lay down on the bed and tried to sleep.