The search

I searched and searched. For days. Everyone around me had to listen to the phrase twice an hour. "I can't find it anywhere!" Then I groaned.

Over and over again, I uttered it.

It was an heirloom, it had to be here somewhere! It just had to be .... I kept imagining it was waiting for me under this floorboard, in this box, or in this hiding place.

I couldn't find it.

The strength left me little by little, and the search turned more and more into powerless trembling and words for it to stop.

Why did this curse have to be on me, why only?

One day I set out to ask the greatest mage of Greevent if he could lift the curse from me that my sister had put on me when I was a child.

I had been looking for our runaway dog, in which she had never taken any interest, and she had said: "May you never find him. May every one of your searches be unsuccessful."

She had been five then, maybe six, and had long forgotten. I hadn't.

I suffered, and I was still suffering.

That she had cursed me now, until I find the heirloom, not to be redeemed from my previous curse, was not only unspeakably stupid, but additionally impossible.

The mage let me know I could only break the curse if I managed to actually find something.

He said any of my searches would be unsuccessful, but if I found something without looking for it, I would be redeemed.

Now I look around and find. Again and again.

Meanwhile I can also search, but it is not in my interest. But the most important thing is that I learned from it.