Self-Redemption
Continuing the story of a glass mosaic broken by others and who broke with it.
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Self-Destruction - February 2020
A small glass mosaic hangs in the corner of my room. A single red rose is pictured in the mosaic, in a glass case that illuminates the gleam of the rose into the night, similar to the one the Beast kept in Beauty and the Beast. The rose that lost petals one-by-one when time was running out.
The first time a piece of the mosaic broke off was when I was eleven years old. It was a small, yet distinguishable part of the piece that came off of the corner after it was hit by a soccer ball. The soccer player who kicked the ball laughed. I remember trying to play off my concern by laughing with him.
When the soccer player left, I quickly glued back the peice before the mosaic could be destroyed anymore.
Two years later, the same broken piece that I glued on was being picked at by someone who all my friends called ‘The Beast.’ But this Beast was different from the one in the fairytale. His bloodshot eyes mocked me when I asked him to stop destroying the mosaic, so I let him do as he pleased—even knowing that there was no goodness in him.
Once the small piece broke off, he began destroying the other pieces, now punching at the glass rather than picking at it. I asked him if it hurts his fists and he told me that he liked the pain, and that I will too. So, he took my hand and showed me how to break off the glass from the hard plaster. We began destroying the mosaic together. Him, punching the pieces and me, timidly scratching them off.
Nothing remained of the mosaic, it became meaningless broken pieces of glass on my room’s floor.
The Beast laughed at me when I accidentally stepped on a sharp piece and shrieked in pain. He took the same piece of glass that I stepped on and placed it in my palm.
“Now, fix it.” He said and walked out of my glass-covered room.
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Since then, I’ve been trying to glue each piece back to the way it was, but it’s never been the same. A small chipmunk snuck into my room and took some of the pieces I didn’t have a chance to glue back yet; I’m still waiting for it to return them.
The glued pieces always fall off the mosaic, so I often have to stand by it and hold them together.
I was once given a box with stronger glue to use. I was so excited. I asked the owner of the box to help me. He said yes but when he helped, the shards of broken glass were too sharp, and he was afraid of hurting himself. He left the stronger glue with me and said he would come back after his hands healed. He never returned.
And so, I stand by the mosaic, holding up the broken pieces and trying my best to make it what it once was. It will never be the same, and I think it’s almost time that I destroy it completely.
Self-Redemption - February 2023
I prick my fingers as I put up the last broken piece of the mosaic, letting the sharp edge of the glass seethe into my skin. Blood spills down the open wound, down my palm, and into the pool of dried up blood beneath me. A pond of blood that has been accumulating for the past three years as I became numb to the feeling of the glass stuck under my skin in attempts to fix my broken mosaic.
At first, I simply just stood against the wall trying to keep all the broken pieces together. My arms became senseless and fell by my sides; and as they did, the broken glass pieces fell onto my face one by one, and cut through my cheeks. The pain was unbearable as I fell to the ground, letting all the broken glass pierce my entire body through my clothes and into my flesh. I stayed there, I stayed there as years went by and my hair grew longer and my room got older and everyone around me evolved. I lay in the same place, my wounds were rotting and my heart felt so numb that I couldn’t tell if it was there anymore.
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There were so many pieces of glass in me that it felt like a waste to let the rest of the shards lay without purpose against the hard tiles of my room. So, I picked up each one and plunged it into unharmed skin on my body, the force I did it at reminded me of the force of the Beast’s punches.
I used the pieces to cut off my hair as its length was making it hard for me to reach some parts of my skin. I’d chop off a strand of hair and then prick myself in the same spot where my hair initially went up to. I’d been doing it for years that new skin was beginning to grow over some of the places where the first pieces of glass were.
One day, the Beast came to see me once again. He was so sure that I’d still be in the same place, holding up the mosaic and waiting for someone to come help me. When he opened my door and I looked his way, he stepped back in terror. Between the two of us, he was no longer the Beast. I was. Before he could run, I punched him in the nose so hard it gushed blood.
“Now, fix it.” I said, as I pushed away from my almost glass-covered body.
The chipmunk came back with the missing pieces. It had grown thicker hair and its round eyes stared at me in astonishment when it placed the pieces down beside me. I picked up the pieces, stabbed them into my chest before closing the window. From time to time, I see the chipmunk watch me from the closed window.
The box owner came back to retrieve his box and upon seeing me, he came closer to examine the mosaic pieces in me. He told me I was fixing it the wrong way, and attempted to take a piece out. Seeing how it cut his now healed hand once again, he shoved it back into my skin and called me a freak. Right before he could leave I made sure I threw his box at him, it hit his head. His head bled, I hope it knocks some sense into him.
I’m finally done putting back the pieces of my mosaic.
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The glass pieces gleam under my skin, from my flesh. When I take a glimpse at myself in the mirror, I see the rose that looked like the one from Beauty and the Beast. It illuminates even brighter than when it was on the wall, from my chest downward to my legs. I cover it like the glass case, and by it being inside of me, no one can dare break my mosaic again.
