There once was a beautiful girl who lived in a precious bedroom filled with diamonds and gold and chocolate

There once was a beautiful girl who lived in a precious bedroom filled with beautiful things. She had lived there all her life- and so her life had always been. She loved every bit of it, from her silver hairbrush, to her marble statue of her love, to the massive mirror that hung on her wall. She brushed her hair and gazed at herself and swooned over the statue, perfectly satisfied with life.

However, what that beautiful girl did not know was that her life had not always been so, that once she had been a free bird, ready to soar at a moment’s notice. It was only a witch, ugly and filled with a jealous rage, who had captured her and locked her in this room, stealing from her any memory of the past. The girl knew not what she had lost, knew not that she was trapped by anger and envy, and so she was happy in her room of splendorous things.

Well one day, that beautiful girl decided that she would like to try something new, that she would leave her room of splendor, and explore the corridor beyond. So she rose from her magnificent bed and strode past her love and placed her hand on the door-handle. As she did she looked around and bid goodbye to her grandeur, for she would, at last, leave.

She pulled the handle and she wrenched at the door, and she found, that no matter her effort, the door would not open. So she tried again and the knob came off in her hand. She looked at it, struck by the falseness that it represented, and pounded at her bedroom door. There was no sound beyond it, but for a muffled thudding. She beat it and cried and finally, when she had given up the hope of opening it, slumped down to the floor.

It was then that she realized that the door had no bottom, and met the floor in a seamless fusion. So she ran her hand over it, and paint flaked off and soon she found that her door was really a wall.

She was so upset by this that she ran to her bed and threw herself upon it, and landed upon the floor with a crash. Her bed had collapsed, and she saw that it was really made of cardboard and glue.

She became frantic as she rushed to her mirror, that portal which assured her of the security of her room, that window which had promised her the glory of life was borne solely on her shoulders, to find it was plastic, and that it reflected nothing but the walls of her prison.

Her silver hairbrush, lying before the mirror, glittered with the pledge of reality, and she reached to take it, grateful that at least this was true. As she brought it before her, she cried out, a teardrop of blood weeping from her finger. Her brush was plywood, and the unfinished handle had cut her, leaving the drop bright against her pale skin.

Then she, lost in her haze of horror and terror, dashed to her most prized possession. Her mouth turned to ash as the statue of her beloved fell in a pile of burned dreams.

When finally she could no longer stand, and her world of opulence had been destroyed, she came to her knees and she looked about her and she realized that she had nothing.

As she knelt there, she thought of her beautiful things, and she cursed herself, for being content in her surroundings, for never trying to reach past what she knew, for settling with what she had. As she knelt there, and looked at the ruins of the cloistered life she had led, she grew firm.

Without a second thought, she surged up and, brushing the dust of lies from the hem of her gown, she took the plywood of her hairbrush, which had promised truth, and the plastic of her mirror, which had assured her security, and with them, she began to chip away at the stone that contained her. Her hands bled and her eyes burned but she continued, until, with the plastic a nub in her fingers and the plywood long gone, she at last saw the crisp light of day greeting her and she breathed the honest air of truth. And she exalted.