All the Scraps of Happiness

A greedy woman learns a terrible truth about happiness and the price to be paid for it...

All the Scraps of Happiness

Once upon a time there was a girl who went by, largely unnoticed by the eyes of mortals. She slipped through the cracks of time and spirit through long forgotten passageways and in this manner she sought to add to her collection. For hers was a collection of happinesses that had once lived and burned in the hearts of mortals but then slipped by the wayside once the joyous event had passed.

She never knew where she might find another used happiness, on the floor of a cottage or near the base of an old cherry tree. They were like very bright puzzle pieces to her, never a single hint of black or grey, but always radiant and bold. There were crimsons and greens and blues and golds and oranges, but never a dull color in the mix, for such is not the nature of happiness. 

The girl at first was naked and bare but soon had collected so many scraps of happiness that her whole body was covered in patches, the vibrant hues becoming a second skin. But soon that wasn’t enough, the more happinesses she found, the more she wanted to find and to stick to herself to make herself bright and beautiful. She covered her hair in the scraps and soon the happinesses extended further than her own natural hair, forming two long tails of shining rainbow hair that extended to the ground. Then she fashioned herself a fine dress to wear, out of more scraps still, of purples and pinks and silvers. And so the girl wandered, in all her bright glory, earning more glances from the eyes of mortals the more she would pass by with the growing collection.

One day, there was a very rich woman who sat on the balcony of her lavish house. She looked down and saw the collector of happiness standing at her front door. She was captivated by how incredibly beautiful the young girl looked, and how the light from her happinesses shone brighter than any of her own jewels.

“I must have those happinesses!” the woman thought greedily, “I can’t allow this wastrel to outshine me, the wealthiest of all! I’ll pay her whatever she wants for them.”

And so the woman ran into her house and flew down the stairs to meet the collector at the door. The collector had been looking around intently at the grounds outside the home, but now seemed to be leaving.

“Wait!” the wealthy woman called to her, “Please child, come back!”

The collector turned back to face the woman, and with a soft light in her golden eyes explained, “I’m sorry for the intrusion madame, I was looking for something, but I’ve realized that it won’t be found in this house. Please excuse me.”

“Don’t leave!” exclaimed the woman, “No need for that my dear. Please, come in and sit down. I was hoping that we could discuss a deal.”

“A deal? What kind of deal? Please tell me,” the collector girl said softly, preferring to stay outside where there was still a chance some wayward happiness might drift by. 

“I’ll give you anything!” the woman cried, becoming more jealous and more desperate as she saw the collector girl gleaming from head to toe in the sun, “My home, my clothes, my jewels, even my husband, only please sell me your happinesses!”

“I’m sorry,” apologized the girl politely, “But my happinesses are not for sale. However, since you’ve asked so nicely, I will let you have one of them for free. Which ever one you like.”

The woman did not know whether to feel grateful or insulted, and with every passing second she felt more of the latter. She curtseyed as a forced show of thanks and then walked up close to the girl to more closely examine the happinesses. She struggled to select her favorite until she finally settled on a glowing silver square on the hem of the girl’s dress. 

The woman gently reached out and pulled the small happiness from the rest of the garment, but no sooner had she grasped it in her hands than she saw a vision in her mind of the genesis of this happiness. She could see so clearly in her mind’s eye the young maiden who lived in town getting married to her true love, an event that had passed many months ago. 

The rich woman was overcome by the proxied happiness, intoxicating her like a drug. That’s when she looked down and saw a brilliant sapphire blue triangle scrap higher up on the dress. How could she have not seen that one? Truly it put the silver scrap to shame. The woman felt it was unfair, like she’d been tricked, and felt simply entitled to trade up to the more brilliant scrap.

She tossed the silver scrap to the ground, not noticing that it had dissolved the moment it left her hand, and quickly snatched off the sapphire scrap. This scrap gave the woman goosebumps, as she felt a surge of joy wash over her. In her mind she could see the town baker’s first successful cake as a youth and his subsequent rejoicing. 

Immediately after the joy had passed, she noticed a bold crimson patch even higher up on the dress. This time she didn’t hesitate at all as she lunged for it, roughly tearing it from the dress of the silent collector. In this scrap she felt the thrill of a young girl’s first kiss, but soon it was dissolved into nothing like all the other scraps she had collected.

It wasn’t long before the woman had worked herself into a mad frenzy, ravishing the poor collector girl with her greedy hands. She tore away scrap after scrap, lilac, emerald, snowy blue, blazing orange: a mother’s joy at her newborn baby, a man’s successful business venture, a small boy’s smile at receiving a new pet, a couple’s laughter as they held each other.

It wasn’t long before the collector’s dress had been destroyed completely, then her beautiful long tails of hair. And the final indignity after being stripped naked and forced bald, the rich woman could simply not control herself and began to pick away all the scraps that formed the collector’s second skin. 

Because of her silence, the rich woman had all but forgotten that the girl she was ravishing was even there. Finally, the last two scraps that were worn over the girl’s natural face, the second skin that served as a mask, were torn away.

The rich woman was in such a dizzied, euphoric high from experiencing so much happiness, that she didn’t notice something very important until it was too late...

For you see, underneath all of the brightly colored happinesses that had cloaked her body completely, the young girl was not the maiden Happiness at all, but the demon Sorrow. Sorrow had been collecting happiness to comfort itself, but now had no mask to hide behind. She had glowing red eyes and a body of dark black mist, all framed around an enormous hungry mouth, razor teeth jetting out all about it. 

The rich woman screamed and tried to run away, but the demon sorrow had imprisoned her.

“You humans are all the same,” Sorrow told the woman, speaking sad and cruel truths, “Once the moment has passed, you toss all of the happiness you felt so strongly to the wayside as soon as my sister Adversity comes to visit you. And wherever Adversity goes, you invite me in, and I collect and steal away what you no longer seem to want.”

In the dark mist created by Sorrow, that surrounded the terrified rich woman, she saw yet more visions, but these terrible and sad. That same young maiden had left her husband and true love and ran away to kill herself at the first indication that he was unfaithful; when in fact he was not. The baker was crying out in misery when a rival bakery fared better than he. The girl who was so happy to get her first kiss soon got carried away when kissing was no longer enough and despaired when she became with child out of marriage. When the mother of the newborn baby realized that he had been born deaf and mute, she smothered him one night in his sleep in her grief, and so forth until every happiness the woman had experienced seemed to be completely forsaken by those who had created them. 

“I worked so hard to build up that collection and you have ruined it!” Sorrow screamed in anger, “But I could not eat under that mask. It’s been so long since I’ve had a meal...”

And so the demon Sorrow gobbled up the woman in her sharp teeth. The rich woman was never heard from again, and the town rejoiced that the woman who had scorned them so was gone - of course, not for long. 

Author's Note

The fifth in the "No One Special Fairy Tales" set. Please see my website for illustrations and more details. Story meant to be told like a classic fairy tale.

Reviews

[thoughts of jade]

wow this such a great story.. i've never read anything like this before. 2 thumbs up!

[Omegax45]

You have a very good imagination. I didn't even think of trying something like this, using emotions as characters.