Once upon a time, there lived a world of people
made of glass. The glass people were as lovely as the finest crystal, as gentle as the softness
of breezes, as kind and good as the noblest of saints, and as happy as a
laughing infant.
But one day a tradegy occurred when some of the glass
people ate a poisonous fruit instead of the wholesome fruit they
normally ate. The poison in this fruit was very strong and rotted away
inside their stomachs. Some people died, others lived but were only
fragile glass shells rather than the beautiful people they had once
been. Although the poison filled their insides, to others they looked
normal, so no one knew of the terrible tradegy that occurred. One day a
man and a woman met and later married.
They were two of the people
filled with poison, so they were miserable and evil.The couple had a
baby daughter. At the babys birth, which was quite early, the couple
knew a miracle had occurred. The glass child was born whole and
undamaged, and she shone with all the brilliance that her parents had
lost. The man and the woman smiled at each other for giving life to such
a beautiful baby.
The glass child was born quite early, so for six weeks she stayed in a
special room to grow bigger. The parents looked at the child and their
smiles at her beauty turned to bitter envy of her innocence and
wholeness. The baby grew into a little girl and still the parents hearts
burned with envy at the laughing child-envy for the freedom of her
spirit. The sunlight sparkled and danced on the little glass girls body,
but the light only showed her parents to be full of darkness. The man
and the woman had to cover their eyes when they looked at the child
because she dazzled them with the radiance of all the light and hope and
beauty in the world. She showed them all the wonderful things they had
lost.
One day the parents could stand it no longer. Picking up their daughter
they ran across the land into a dark forbidding castle. They ran all the
way up many flights of curving staircases to the very top of the tower.
They rushed into a room lit with tiny red candles and filled with many
strange objects of different sizes and colors. Silver light from a full
moon streamed into the room until someone covered the window with a
thick black curtain. The evil parents put on black robes which hid their
inner darkness.
The couple picked up their child and danced around the room with her,
but even in the darkened room the light from the tiny red candles
reflected off her and hurt her parents eyes. When the couple could stand
it no longer, they halted their frenzied dancing and stood still in the
center of the room holding their child.
They put the child down and stared at her for a moment-then each parent
picked up one of the childs arms and held her high in the air. They
waited until the count of three and then threw the glass girl with all
their might against the unyielding floor.
The child was shattered into many pieces. Some of the pieces were large
and shiny, others were infinitesimally small. The parents picked up a
few of the pieces and glued them into a glass shell child, who was much
more fearful and manageable than the original child had been. The glass
shell did not sparkle with sunbeams hurting her parents eyes. She kept
her head down and did what she was told. Picking up the shell girl the
parents opened the black curtain and removed all the strange objects
that surrounded the room, but they left all of the glass pieces
undisturbed on the floor.They locked up the room and went down the
twisting staircase and out of the castle.
At first the little girl felt quite hollow and missed her inside pieces,
but her parents filled the empty space inside her with commands, shame
and lies-they told the child she was evil and "rotten to the core".The
space inside the child filled with thick black sludge. The next time the
parents took the child to the room for rituals, the girl did not
recognize the shattered glass as her inside pieces, but instead thought
the pieces of glass were helpful friends who stayed in the room when the
girl was frightened and hid in the black sludge inside her. The parents
came to this room for many years. Sometimes the parents took especially
pretty glass pieces and shattered them, creating even more pieces, yet
the parents could not destroy even the tiniest speck of glass that had
once been inside the child. One day the parents grew tired of the evil
ritiuals, so they left the room forever, leaving only the glass pieces
on the floor. The parents even took the thick black curtain from the
window.The locked the door and threw the key into the deepest ocean.
"There", they thought to themselves,"now she can never find her missing
inside pieces and become whole again. She can never be more beautiful
than we."And they took the child away.
The girl grew older with deep sorrow and thick black sludge inside her,
as well as with a longing she could not name. As she grew and studied,
the black sludge inside her also grew. She went to study at a far off
place, but realized the sludge inside her was so thick she might die.
She did not want to die so she went to see a man she hoped could heal
her. The man, who worked at her place of study, saw the black sludge
inside her and knew she was in grave danger. He helped her cleanse her
insides of the poison from her evil parents. It was a slow and painful
process for them both. After three years the black sludge was mostly
gone, but a few pockets remained and surged up from time to time.
The girl was now a woman. As she removed the sludge from her inside she
was once again filled with an emptiness she could not name. She told the
man of her inner emptiness, but he could not hear her. Like all the
others he looked at her and saw a whole glass woman not just an empty
shell. He helped her face some of the evil her parents had done to her,
but here again sometimes he could not hear her. The woman grew hurt,
then frustrated,then angry. Finally she knew although he cared about her
very much, she would have to leave him. So she left and found a helper,
a woman, who could truly hear when she spoke of her parents evil. But
this helper, compassionate though she was, did not see that the woman
was an empty shell, because she was new to helping others heal.
But she found another woman who had been a helper for a very long time
and had aided many empty shells in finding their inside pieces and
becoming whole-including other empty shells who had been badly hurt by
evil rituals.The empty shell of a woman told this helper of her inside
pieces, but it had been so long since she had seen the pieces, she was
uncertain and only said that it was possible that she had been missing
inside pieces.
A few months later, the shell woman remembered something that her mother
had once done, and one of the pockets of black sludge exploded inside
her stomach and almost killed her. The woman was very much afraid, so
she went to a special place where many damaged glass shells and other
hurting people worked on their healing, and were watched and supported
every minute of the day.
One of the helpers at this place watched the shell woman, and soon told
her that she had many inside pieces. At this the woman grew very much
afraid. "How can there be missing pieces?", she cried. "What if some are
sharp and hurt me? Im so scared!"Then she ran into her room and put her
head in her hands.
As the days went by, the woman felt more calm about her missing glass
pieces. She was told that the pieces were good and could make her whole
again. At this the woman despaired, for she now remembered her parents
had locked her pieces in the room high up in the castle and thrown the
key into the deepest ocean. Dejected, she told the helpers about this.
She knew that she needed the missing pieces to become whole again. "But
that is not true," said the helper who had first seen that the woman was
just an empty shell. "The missing pieces,large and small, dull and
shiny, are inside you. They always were. Look inside your mind." The
woman looked and realized the truth-the missing pieces were there inside
her mind. "How can this be?" the woman wondered. When the little girl
was shattered into many pieces, the inside pieces pleaded for help from
a gentle dove that had once flown into the room.The missing pieces knew
they belonged inside the little girl. The dove helped them hide inside
the little girls mind(where her parents could not see them) and found
colored plastic to spread around the floor.This tricked the little girls
parents , who never knew that although the girl was shattered into an
empty shell, all of the pieces of glass were inside. She was complete
and always had been. When the woman realized this, she cried with joy at
how her inside pieces had been so wonderful and sneaky. Some of the
pieces had been peeking out of the womans eyes from time to time for
years. The woman laughed and knew she need no longer yearn for missing
pieces, but instead she could get to know the glass pieces in her mind
and slowly become whole again.
Today the woman and the inside pieces are getting to know each other.
"All of the pieces of glass are beautiful and deserve love and
attention".,the woman thinks. The inside pieces are telling the woman
that theyve been there all along , helping her, but they know how hard
she had worked to keep them all safe. The womans helper who is new to
the job of helping her heal, is learning to help empty glass shells with
many inside pieces,even as the woman works hard to learn about herself.
The glass woman knows that many years and much hard work is required
before she becomes whole and solid once again. But she is not
discouraged. Today she went out into the bright sunlight. When she looks
at the ground in front of her, she sees the sparkling sunlight had
bounced off her and formed a perfect rainbow.
hope you liked this.
written by:
Sarah