A folktale: The Land of Hopeful Dreams
Friday, January 26th, 2007Once upon a time, a man crossed the Big Wall and came to The Land of Hopeful Dreams. He met a woman and they fell in love. However, their love was soon eclipsed by stormy weather. The man was constantly seeking New Things: new food to eat, new jobs to make money, and, unfortunate though it was, new women. He did not know how to share these new things with his wife, and so, leaving her to fend for herself, he built his own Big Wall between him and her, which he would cross over when he wanted new things, and then he would return to his wife.
After many mornings, his wife asked him, “Why have you built a Big Wall which you cross over and leave me in the night and return in the morning?” Upon being asked this, the man ran to the Wall. “Where do you go on the other side of the Wall?” demanded his wife. The man jumped over the Wall and disappeared for a month. He then returned, but afterwards would be gone over the Wall in the night, day, or both, sometimes for weeks on end.
A baby was born to the couple. The wife, wondering and wishing to see where her husband was on the other side of the Wall, named her daughter See-Through.
See-Through began to grow up and, just as her mother had wished, did see some of her father’s New Things on the other side of the Wall. But when See-Through told her mother that father had a New Wife and New Daughter on the other side of the Wall, mother banished her father across the Wall forever.
From that day forward, See-Through hated New Things.
When See-Through was thirteen, she saw a boy on the other side of the Wall. Indeed, all other children lived on the other side of the Wall. So See-Through learned how to climb the Wall by herself and, while she hated New Things, she wanted her mother to join her, and so she tried to make her mother see her. See-Through screamed and cried when the boy broke down the Little Wall inside her, but her mother did not see or hear. At these moments, See-Through felt as if she was the Little Wall inside her, being broken to pieces. So she began to build Bigger Walls around her. Indeed, as the years went by, a Labyrinth she grew around her.
Ten years passed. A man came from a Far-Away Place. To her surprise, the man was a Wall-Jumper. See-Through had never met a Wall-Jumper. Indeed, she wondered how she would stop him from jumping over the walls of her Labyrinth. “It is okay,” she reassured herself, “because he is Good.” But she was confused when he pulled her on top of the Big Wall. He tried to pull her to her feet. But she was only used to climbing the walls, and then only in secret. She was afraid of what might happen if she stood up. “You can see so much,” the Wall-Jumper told her. She was afraid that if she stood on top of the Big Wall, she would see her father and his New Things.
She did not stand up. “Come here,” See-Through whispered to the Wall-Jumper. She pulled him to the ground, and as she looked through him, he broke down the Little Wall inside her.
After he would break her Little Wall in the nights, See-Through would climb the Bigger Walls and duck behind them. But she saw him seeing her over her walls and inside her Labyrinth, and she felt like a rat in a cage under a microscope. As the nights went on, she began to crouch near her walls and press herself flat against them. And now, jump as he might, he could not see her.
It was a relief to her. He could not see her. See-Through returned in the morning and left in the evening. She hated New Things, and so she would spend the night alone by herself, crouching, pressed flat against a wall.
Unlike See-Through, the Wall-Jumper could not see through walls. He had fallen in love with See-Through and he very much wanted to be close to her. “Why have you built a Labyrinth of Walls which you hide behind in the night and return in the morning?” Upon being asked this, See-Through ran to the Big Wall. “Where do you go on the other side of the Wall?” demanded her love.
“I do not love you,” she told him. “You break down the Little Wall inside of me and when my Wall is broken, that is when I have stormy weather inside. Besides, I do not want to see so much as you do. Why do you jump walls? You will see New Things! And I hate New Things.” And then (as he pressed himself against her) she screamed, “Leave me alone!”
See-Through climbed the Big Wall and disappeared. Try as he might, the Wall-Jumper could not see her. He only heard her screaming, “Leave me alone!” Even when she had stopped screaming out loud, he still heard her in his head, and because he could not see her, it was hard for him to convince himself that she was not still screaming.
See-Through hid for a long, long time. She built herself the walls of a very small room, and would invite people in from time to time, but there was no room for them to sit down, and so they did not stay very long, though she wished they would. When they left, “They do not like me,” is what she told herself. She built small rooms for other people, the kind of rooms that she would want to hide in, and sometimes she built the kind of room that she would want to stay in if she felt safe. But she never felt safe for long.
One day, she was building a very small room for a very old man. “You are very beautiful,” said the Old Man. “Thank you,” she said, but she hated him inside because she thought, from the glint in his eye, that he wanted her to be his New Thing and to break her Little Wall.
“When I was very young,” continued the Old Man, “I crossed a Big Wall. I was looking for New Things, and I found a beautiful woman. We had a beautiful daughter. But I did not know how I would grow old with my daughter. If I was not new and young to her, I thought that she would not want to play with me. I thought that she would run away from me. I waited for her mother to tell me that it was okay, that I could stay and grow old with them, but her mother never said anything to me about it. So I ran away in search of New Things. I have done that my whole life, and now I am old.”
When she heard this, See-Through understood that the Old Man had been her father, and she felt the strongest stormy weather approaching. She tried to climb out of the room she was building but it was too small; with the two of them in it, she could not climb out.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”
The Old Man did nothing. He had spent his life seeking The Land of Hopeful Dreams, and he had given up. If he had not found it yet in all his travels for New Things, why would he find it anywhere? So the Old Man stayed.
See-Through tried to run away. And she tried and she tried and she tried to run away and she found her arms around him. He stayed where he was because there was no room to fall down. And See-Through saw that his eyes were not glinting but each with a tear.
See-Through saw herself in the tears. And as she bent closer to look at herself, she saw it take a long time, but See-Through carried the Old Man over the Big Wall. There were so many smaller walls that she had built all around, that she carried him many miles before she came to a place where she could lie him down.
And now, although it was strange to her, she who could see through walls, she who had built so many of them, she began to tear them down. There were too many walls to tear down by herself, but others saw what she was doing, and they helped. There were many who helped, for who among us has not built and climbed over a wall? Who among us does not secretly wish to take that wall down?
And as See-Through neared the end of her life, and the walls were torn down, except for the Big Wall, which was still standing, she climbed up to the top, and stood upon the Big Wall, and looked around, as far as she could see.
She felt very light, and as her helpers took down the Big Wall, she remained in the air, though the stones beneath her feet were gone.
# # # 1/1/06
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