SHATTERED CHRYSTAL



A Fairy Tale of Surviving
Through Muliplicity

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

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