Spinning Top

She had a spinning top when she was a child. Just like the one you had. It fascinated her beyond anything else; she loved to sit there for hours on end, cross-legged on the carpet in the centre of her bedroom, just watching it. Once she set it going, there didn’t seem to be any stopping it; it would turn and turn, whirl and whirl for minutes on end, a beautiful, vibrant blur of vivid technicolour. The spinning top was her favourite item out of all the other toys in the toybox. It was prettier, somehow, than all the rest. It reminded her of something, something very important, though she could never quite place what.

     The spinning top was red. And blue, and green, and orange. It was all the colours of the rainbow simultaneously. She didn’t know how this could possibly be - yet it was. Undoubtedly it was. There was nothing quite like it, in her experience. Nothing had ever been so colourful, so mesmerising. Nothing ever could be. She would while hours away watching it spinning around her on the floor, wondering when it would stop. Would it ever stop? She didn’t think so.

    She would spend her days in a similar fashion, always enchanted by the spinning top, never ceasing to be amazed at the way all the different colours wove their way in and out of each other. Its beauty was unparallelled, untouchable. And she thought it would always be this way.

    But one day, the spinning top seemed different somehow; the colours were fainter, and faded. They weren’t so pretty anymore. The top still spun on, round and round beside her, just as it had always done. But the vividity had departed, and it would never return. Never again would it mesmerise and charm her in the same way.

    Eventually, the top stopped spinning completely, and lay cold and stationary upon the floor. There was no colour left anymore; it was black and lifeless, discarded and forlorn. She had a spinning top when she was a child. Just like the one you had.