A Personal Story, Part I

Spring/2006

Once upon a time there was a shop keeper once who collected and cared for fragile things.

His shop was full of curio cabinets with glass doors and each cabinet was filled with little figurines, and all were quite special to him.
Each figurine had a story of its own, and all of them were damaged in some way when he found them. There were angels, and kittens, and puppies, and little glass flowers; as well as hand painted children, wood-elves, and fairies, horses, trees, birds, fishes, and oh-- just about anything you can imagine.

He did all he could to make repairs so that any flaws would be corrected. He had painted, glued, melted, soldered, dusted, washed, and anything else he could think of to restore the figurines to their original beauty.

The shop keeper had many customers visit his shop everyday. Some customers were regulars, and some were new, but they all admired the many figurines in the cabinets, and everyone had a favorite. The figurines were not for sale though, even though some people tried very hard to buy them.
The shop keeper would explain, “These are special to me, and they are fragile. Each one has its own story and only I know where they have been broken and how to take care of them.”

One morning, the shop keeper arrived at his shop and found a box on the ground in front of his door. There was no note, and nothing written on the box, but the shop keeper picked it up carefully and carried it inside. He hung up his coat, put his keys in the drawer, tucked his umbrella away, and turned his attention to the box that he had laid on the counter. Carefully he opened the box and found it to be full of old newspapers.

As he removed the newspapers he discovered a badly broken figurine, loosely wrapped in a sheet of paper. On the piece of paper was a roughly written note that said, “This was mine, and I broke it. It was special, and now I think it is trash. If you can do anything with it you can keep it. Otherwise, just toss it out.”