The Broken Thing

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Jack and Jill.  All that stuff about tumbling and Jack breaking his crown – it was all just good fun.  They were inseparable.  The two of them always went together to fetch the pail of water, and they always took their time tumbling about on the hill, as children do.  No one was ever seriously hurt by it.  The point is: they were the best of friends.  They always sat together at the schoolhouse, and Jill would always say: “Jack, would you like to be my partner, for whichever activity the teacher assigns us?”

“Yes, of course,” Jack would say, “we always make the best partners.”

And Jill would sometimes add: “I was working on a story, can I tell you about it?  Maybe you can help me.”

“Certainly,” he would say, “we always write the best stories, don’t we?”

And when the two of them worked together diligently, they seemed to glow, and especially, whenever they were working with words, they seemed to shine.

The point is: they were the best of friends.  Until the new headmaster arrived.  He was a mean, old man, who hated children, especially when they shined.  Whenever he saw two children shining together, he made sure to separate them, and put and end to it.  As he walked the halls, and patrolled the classrooms, a set of long, iron keys jingled from an iron ring that hung from his belt, and all of the children were frightened of him, and they all wondered what those keys were for.

After several attempts to separate Jack and Jill, and seeing that Jack always made his way back to Jill, and Jill always made her way back to Jack, the headmaster decided to put an end to it once and for all, and took extra special measures.  He told two of the meaner boys to go and bother Jack and Jill, assuring them they wouldn’t get in any trouble, and when they found Jack and Jill, working together in peaceful harmony, they said they didn’t like Jack and Jill, and that they always wrote stupid stories.  When Jack stood up and told the boys to leave them alone, and that they were just big meanies, the headmaster burst in, demanding to know what all the shouting was about.

“That’s it, Jack,” he said, “you’re coming with me.”

Jack was hauled up to the tower, and beaten with an iron pipe.  Unconscious, he was layed out on a table – and that’s when the headmaster reached for his keys.  The first one was the grief key.  He inserted the grief key deep into Jack’s mind, wiggled it around until it fit into the appropriate lock, and gave it a turn.  From that moment on Jack could no longer process grief.  Anything that happened to him, from the smallest insult or insignificant slight, to the most heartbreaking loss, it stayed with him, and weighed on him, compounding and compacting, and eventually, over the months and years, it would crush him and cripple him.

The second key was the joy key.  With a turn of this key, Jack could no longer experience joy, nor could he take joy from anything.  He could find fleeting glimpses of happiness, if he worked long and hard for them, but there would be no joy.

The third key was the self key.  After that key was turned, Jack no longer knew who he was, and he would not develop any sense of self or self-image, and no sense of place or purpose, as other children do.

The fourth and final key was the negative key.  In his natural state, Jack’s mind was a happy one, and care free, and he had his whole life ahead of him, but, with the turn of this monstrous key, all of that was inverted to the negative, and all of Jack’s hopes and dreams were gone, replaced by a hopeless doom, and gloom.  With a turn of this monstrous key, the headmaster sentenced Jack to a life of misery and anguish.

When Jack came to, his mind was burning with agony.  Not only his mind, but even his body didn’t develop properly after that.  His form grew crooked, and hunched, and he was kept in a cage up in the tower, away from the other children, and over the months and years they all but forgot about Jack, and knew him only as the withered thing, or: the broken thing.  When he was allowed out, the children threw stones at him, and called him names, repeating the horrible and shameful lies the headmaster had told them.  Even Jill had to move on, as all children do, but she didn’t shine the way she did before, and when she went up the hill, by herself, to fetch a pail of water, she could sometimes hear the broken thing weeping and sobbing in the tower, and she never forgot about Jack.

~

The broken thing was to clean the attic space, where all of the excess books were stored.  If he kept that space entirely clean, he was allowed to spend his free time copying out pages from the dictionary, or from any of the books he found in there.  Thinking this was a punishment, the headmaster underestimated just how much Jack loved words.  This was where he found little bits of happiness: in books.  He noticed that when he read certain passages, when the words were truly moving, he seemed to glow! so he kept on reading, and seeking out more good things to read, and when he discovered Shakespeare’s works, and read some of the passages out loud, he didn’t just glow, he shined! lit up like a lightbulb flowing with current, and he couldn’t help but wonder: what is this?  What is happening to me?  I’m lighting up like a candle!

He couldn’t remember a time when he felt so good, so he stowed the book away, and sneaked it up into the tower with him.  Later on, at nighttime, the broken thing read from The Tragedy of Hamlet, scene one, and the tower lit up so brightly that all of the children, who were supposed to be sound asleep down below, were wakened by it! and they too were filled with wonder.

“What is it? up in the tower?” some of them shouted.

“It’s the broken thing!”

Then some of them started grumbling about the broken thing, and some were afraid, but that’s when Jill silenced them.

“No!” she shouted, pointing up at the tower, with tears streaming from her eyes, “it’s Jack!”

The headmaster roared up the stairs to see what was the matter, and when he found the broken thing glowing through the bars of his cage, he snatched the book away.

“That’s enough of that!” he shouted.  “Am I going to have to lock you up in a box?”

The broken thing was forbidden from ever borrowing a book again, and afterwards, when all of the children were actually sound asleep, the headmaster beat the broken thing mercilessly with an iron pipe.

The next day, the broken thing quickly located a volume of Shakespeare’s works, and copied out several of the speeches.  He then hid this page in his pocket, and when he was alone, he worked at committing the speeches to memory, but, whenever he heard the jingle of keys, marking the approach of the headmaster, the broken thing was dutifully at work, copying out dictionary pages.  As he was leaving, he was stopped by the headmaster.

“You better not have any books with you,” the headmaster said, sternly, shaking the boy down from top to toe.

“No, sir,” said the broken thing, “I learned my lesson.”

Then, later on, at nighttime, the broken thing waited until he heard the jingle of keys, marking the approach of the headmaster.

“Now is the winter of our discontent! made glorious summer by this sun of York…”

As the broken thing began his speech from Richard the Third, his shine burst forth like lightning, filling the entire chamber with a marvelous glow, and awakening all of the children, who were supposed to be sound asleep down below, and when he was finished, he turned to address the headmaster, who was on his knees, speechless, and defeated.

“You can lock me up in any box, I will shine through the cracks!  This much light cannot be contained!”