[Fic] "Sea-Glass" -- original
Apr. 21st, 2004 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingWhile I wait to hear from FA about "Wearing Thin," I went digging through my old files again and stumbled across this story. It's a bit more blatant with symbolism than I usually like, but I'm kind of fond of it anyhow. Plus, it's short -- always a bonus!
Generic fantasy atmosphere, but no adventuring, swashbuckling, or wizards. Just some people by an ocean.
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Sea-Glass
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I. The Glassmaker
Long ago a glassmaker lived by the sea, making vases, lamps, and goblets for the gentry in the countryside and the merchants in the town. He was a good glassmaker, skilled at blowing goblets and plates and lamps, but not like his old master, who could turn plain glass into beautiful, intricate ornaments, glowing with brilliant colors. His glass was simple and plain.
The gentry sniffed at his goblets, the merchants sniffed at his plates, and so he sold his glass to the villagers, who loved him. He was a good man, they said, with a good heart -- ten times as good as his master, who had thought only of glass and money and fame.
But the glassmaker heard only the gentry and the merchants, who compared him to his master and found him worthless.
One day, sick of the gentry's sniffs and complaints, the glassmaker decided to make the most beautiful lamp anyone had ever seen. It would have hundreds of spires, crystal drops, and dazzling etching, and it would shine with all the colors of the world. He would pour his heart into the lamp, and give it to God.
He worked for months, experimenting with dyes and shapes and acids, never satisfied. Everything he tried was wrong. His colors were too dull, too bright, or too muddy. His shapes were too sharp, too flat, too twisted and ugly. His lamp grew brighter and brighter in his mind and his work farther and farther from perfection, twisting in on itself.
After a year, the glassmaker gave up his hope of making the perfect lamp. He gathered his dyes, his acids, his misshapen spires and crystals, and all his failed experiments, and threw them into the sea.
He returned to his home, sat down by the fire, and said, "I will never be as good as my master. Nothing I touch is beautiful." And the rest of his life he never made one thing that was more than plain and simple.
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II. The Garden of Rainbows
The people of the sea lived under the waves, in the depths where everything was green and dim. They never saw the sun unfiltered or the sparkle of rainbows in the water, because they feared the people of the land and their great ships, their nets, and their spears.
But one young girl listened to old stories of the sun on the waves and the shimmer of light on the sand in the shallows, from the days when her people were free, and she dreamed of rainbows.
"I will find the sun," she said.
She swam out of the dark into the coral mazes and further towards the shore, until she came to a place littered with twists and lumps and chains of colored glass. And then the sun peeked through the clouds, shining through the water, and the glass glowed in all the colors of the world, sending dancing patterns and nets of light around the sand and coral.
The girl watched for hours. "This is magic," she said to herself. "This is holy. Protect my people, god of the sun and the rainbow. Give us hope. Set us free."
She told her friends and their friends, and soon hundreds of sea people came to the shallows to see the dancing lights. The place was called the Garden of Rainbows, and it was holy -- a place of peace and light. The people of the sea swam in the shallows and gloried in the sun and sky, unafraid, protected by the light.
But over the years the sand and the sea scraped the glass, until the smooth, sharp faces were rough and crusted and the sun no longer struck rainbows across the shallows. The sea people returned to the deep and no longer came to the garden, except for an old woman, remembering the years when her people were free.
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III. The Fisher's Daughter
In a village by the sea, a young fisher lived with his wife and daughter. One day, instead of bringing home fish or coins from the market, he brought an armful of dull glass wrapped in his tattered jacket.
"Today I saw a sea-woman," he said. "She told me to leave my fishing and sail to the shallows, near where the old glassmaker lived. She dove to the bottom and returned with this glass.
"'This was the joy of my people,' she said, 'but the magic has gone from it in the sea. Let it return to the land.' So I brought it home."
His daughter took the glass pieces, turning them in her hands. "I will give it to the wind," she said.
Over the weeks she took a nail and ground holes in the glass fragments. She strung them on twine and hung them from driftwood in circles, spirals, and counter-weighted patterns. When she finished, she hung her creations along the eaves of her father's house.
The figures danced in the wind and the fisher's daughter smiled. The glass chips were dull and her knots rough, but the fragments spun in balanced patterns, wheeling in and out and past each other, sinking and rising, carried by the wind.
In later years the fisher's daughter became known as a holy woman, one who could heal, find lost things, and read the hearts of her people. The villagers said her wisdom came from the glass chimes that spun and shifted endlessly outside her door, holding all the earth and heavens within their changing patterns.
"The sea-woman was wrong," she told her father once when he was old. "Magic never leaves. It only changes forms." And every year she placed lilies on the glassmaker's grave, and scattered roses on the sea.
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Written in September 2001 for Ardis, my step-grandmother
Generic fantasy atmosphere, but no adventuring, swashbuckling, or wizards. Just some people by an ocean.
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Sea-Glass
---------------------------------------------
I. The Glassmaker
Long ago a glassmaker lived by the sea, making vases, lamps, and goblets for the gentry in the countryside and the merchants in the town. He was a good glassmaker, skilled at blowing goblets and plates and lamps, but not like his old master, who could turn plain glass into beautiful, intricate ornaments, glowing with brilliant colors. His glass was simple and plain.
The gentry sniffed at his goblets, the merchants sniffed at his plates, and so he sold his glass to the villagers, who loved him. He was a good man, they said, with a good heart -- ten times as good as his master, who had thought only of glass and money and fame.
But the glassmaker heard only the gentry and the merchants, who compared him to his master and found him worthless.
One day, sick of the gentry's sniffs and complaints, the glassmaker decided to make the most beautiful lamp anyone had ever seen. It would have hundreds of spires, crystal drops, and dazzling etching, and it would shine with all the colors of the world. He would pour his heart into the lamp, and give it to God.
He worked for months, experimenting with dyes and shapes and acids, never satisfied. Everything he tried was wrong. His colors were too dull, too bright, or too muddy. His shapes were too sharp, too flat, too twisted and ugly. His lamp grew brighter and brighter in his mind and his work farther and farther from perfection, twisting in on itself.
After a year, the glassmaker gave up his hope of making the perfect lamp. He gathered his dyes, his acids, his misshapen spires and crystals, and all his failed experiments, and threw them into the sea.
He returned to his home, sat down by the fire, and said, "I will never be as good as my master. Nothing I touch is beautiful." And the rest of his life he never made one thing that was more than plain and simple.
---------------------------------------------
II. The Garden of Rainbows
The people of the sea lived under the waves, in the depths where everything was green and dim. They never saw the sun unfiltered or the sparkle of rainbows in the water, because they feared the people of the land and their great ships, their nets, and their spears.
But one young girl listened to old stories of the sun on the waves and the shimmer of light on the sand in the shallows, from the days when her people were free, and she dreamed of rainbows.
"I will find the sun," she said.
She swam out of the dark into the coral mazes and further towards the shore, until she came to a place littered with twists and lumps and chains of colored glass. And then the sun peeked through the clouds, shining through the water, and the glass glowed in all the colors of the world, sending dancing patterns and nets of light around the sand and coral.
The girl watched for hours. "This is magic," she said to herself. "This is holy. Protect my people, god of the sun and the rainbow. Give us hope. Set us free."
She told her friends and their friends, and soon hundreds of sea people came to the shallows to see the dancing lights. The place was called the Garden of Rainbows, and it was holy -- a place of peace and light. The people of the sea swam in the shallows and gloried in the sun and sky, unafraid, protected by the light.
But over the years the sand and the sea scraped the glass, until the smooth, sharp faces were rough and crusted and the sun no longer struck rainbows across the shallows. The sea people returned to the deep and no longer came to the garden, except for an old woman, remembering the years when her people were free.
---------------------------------------------
III. The Fisher's Daughter
In a village by the sea, a young fisher lived with his wife and daughter. One day, instead of bringing home fish or coins from the market, he brought an armful of dull glass wrapped in his tattered jacket.
"Today I saw a sea-woman," he said. "She told me to leave my fishing and sail to the shallows, near where the old glassmaker lived. She dove to the bottom and returned with this glass.
"'This was the joy of my people,' she said, 'but the magic has gone from it in the sea. Let it return to the land.' So I brought it home."
His daughter took the glass pieces, turning them in her hands. "I will give it to the wind," she said.
Over the weeks she took a nail and ground holes in the glass fragments. She strung them on twine and hung them from driftwood in circles, spirals, and counter-weighted patterns. When she finished, she hung her creations along the eaves of her father's house.
The figures danced in the wind and the fisher's daughter smiled. The glass chips were dull and her knots rough, but the fragments spun in balanced patterns, wheeling in and out and past each other, sinking and rising, carried by the wind.
In later years the fisher's daughter became known as a holy woman, one who could heal, find lost things, and read the hearts of her people. The villagers said her wisdom came from the glass chimes that spun and shifted endlessly outside her door, holding all the earth and heavens within their changing patterns.
"The sea-woman was wrong," she told her father once when he was old. "Magic never leaves. It only changes forms." And every year she placed lilies on the glassmaker's grave, and scattered roses on the sea.
---------------------------------------------
Written in September 2001 for Ardis, my step-grandmother
