Puddle Metamorphosis

Once upon a time there was a little girl who liked to play in puddles and dance in the rain. She was quirky and exuberantly happy. Until the evil wizard found her. The wizard put a box around her. “You have to be contained!” he thundered, “You are too much to handle!” The girl went into the box happily. She took her toys and used her colored pens to draw on the walls making it a pretty little box. She thought she could leave the box when she wanted to. She couldn’t. The first time she tried, when she wanted to jump into a puddle, she felt the constraint of the box. “Don’t jump into that puddle!” yelled a voice. The girl got scared and hid in the box. After a while, it seemed that she could only be safe in the box. She learned that all sorts of dangers were lurking out there. She got hurt, after all, whenever she tried to leave the box. She didn’t realize that it was the box that hurt her, that kept her contained, restricted.

Then she grew up. She got shoved even deeper into the box. She was grown up now. Grown ups aren’t supposed to like puddles. She still did – but didn’t dare show that. Until one day when she was wearing her rainboots. She decided to jump into a puddle. It was dark, after all. Who would see her? At first, she was careful. Then she became bolder. A big smile appeared on her face. And then she heard it again. That voice. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” he hollered, “Disgusting!” She stopped in her tracks. Was she going to let this voice of her childhood stop her? Carefully, she moved the box. It was hard. Hard, painful work. Harder than anything she’d ever done before. Slowly, she inched closer. Until the whole box was in the puddle. It soaked up the water and started to fall apart. She kicked it a little more until the walls collapsed. She was out of the box. Finally. It was like coming back to life after a long time in zombieland. She took a deep breath of fresh night air and with all her energy jumped into the puddle. Silence. The voice was gone. She was free at last!

Share this post with others: