Shimsha giggled. Her tiny brown hands rose to her face, covering a raspberry stained mouth, still full and endeavoring to chew. Her eyes followed the storyteller, but she did not shift like the rest of the children in the story circle.

The storyteller's hair was tall and round, rising like a curly sun orbiting his thin head, somehow drawing attention to the tightness of his face, cheeks which were sunken in, and lips which were full and slightly chapped from his habit of licking them during dramatic pauses required at certain points of any given tale.

His voice was deep, and rumbled like the terra when he wanted it to be so.

"Creation begins with love's reaching hand. Only a quest of love can ever initiate manifestation. The glassmaker knew this in his heart. He reached in and released that familiar urge, that Divine intent and put all his will, his passion into creating the Glassman. But he hadn't thought this well through. How could a Glassman ever know freedom? And without freedom how can one know happiness?"

The storyteller paused. A large almond eye rested intently on Shimsha. Her eyes large and wreathed in lashes long and fit to be curtains for them, had widened in anticipation, but her mouth was formed to hold back an answer that wanted to be spoken. She had stopped chewing, and paused as if everything depended on that moment. Her will was not well concealed.

"How could a Glassman survive without breaking? What kind of life could a creation so fragile enjoy?"

The storyteller grinned. Most of the children in the circle wanted him to answer. The delay of the answer was good only to a point. His lips stretched then into a marvelous smile that surely revealed he was the sun, or a piece of it.
The children giggled, taking the cue that the answer would come.

"Perhaps you think like the glassmaker? Is that maybe how you think? Do you suppose freedom can only be a physical thing?"

His eyes grew mockingly sly. Narrowing slightly, confusing to the children ready to give an automated answer that did not required thought.
Shimsha was not among them. Her head bobbed with an involuntary nod of understanding.

"You...Perhaps you think the glassmaker was right to be afraid, little one?"

He placed his attention full on Shimsha. She was the runt of the village. Two lopsided braids, one higher than the other, spilled from either side of her head, thick at the very top and growing thinner as each braid ended at her elbows.
Hesitantly

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Short stories: Creation?
We want to hear your view. Write now!