the glass hearts

ONCE there was a kingdom of glass heart people.

They were very proud of the music that they heard in their ears, whenever they moved: they said it sounded like wind chimes wrapped in silk; or like ghosts playing marimba; or like drowned men dropping bells underwater. Most of their composers tried to mimic the sounds they heard, but it was a music that could not be shared. Each person heard only their own music.

Most of them died young.

There were three sisters who became philosophers together, who learned that their hearts had been shattered at birth. They realized that the music that rang in their ears was really the sound of chips and chunks of glass rattling and singing against each other. And the pieces of glass were cutting into them as they moved, biting into their organs until they bled.

The middle sister was frightened. So she swept up all the pieces of her heart that she could find and put them into a small box; they glittered and shivered at her. And she closed them up carefully in a little drawer, and locked it with a little key, and went on about her work safely. Sometimes she would remember a snatch of the sparkling music she had once heard, and feel wistful, but she never unlocked the little drawer. And she lived a long life, although she was not much loved by the glass heart people.

The youngest sister was brave—or perhaps she was foolish. In fact she was not much of a true philosopher at all; most of her thoughts were tangled up in fairy tales, for she had a great love of stories and sought out tales from all over the world. “I have read of a man who mends things,” she said to her sisters. “Let us go find him; perhaps he can help us.” But her sisters were not willing. So she went by herself. It was not much trouble she had in the finding of him, for the kingdom he lived in was nearby; and she found him there by a lake, mending nets. And the man agreed to help her. Her heart was in so many pieces that it hurt a great deal, and in the end he said it could not be mended. He gave her a new heart, and would take no payment for it. 

The new heart was made of something softer and warmer than glass, and would not shatter, but it gave her trouble and pain all her life; when she returned home her sisters shook their heads at her foolishness, and would not go to the man themselves.

The eldest sister was the wisest of the three. “It is the brokenness that makes our hearts sing so beautifully,” she said. She put her thoughts into a book of poems, which were set to music by one of the foremost composers; although, she said, the music was not anything so beautiful as the chiming and shattering she heard in her own ears. The poems and songs were much loved by all of the glass heart people, and when she died a year later they did not forget her for a long time.