The Weight of the World
We all have things in our lives that we'd rather forget. This is a story about a small village, hidden away in the mountains of Europe. It is a story of long ago, when big dreams were not expected to be possible, so people only had little, tiny, safe dreams. Dreams that could be expected to come true, at least part of the time.
In this village, called Broom-roar by its youngest members and Bromore by the grownups, lived an old lady who was only 3-1/2 feet tall. She was this short because she was very bent over and seemed always to be looking at the ground instead of the people and things in front of her. When asked why her back was so bowed, she would say only that she was carrying the weight of the world upon her shoulders and it had become so heavy that she was bent nearly double. "When I finally get bent completely over," she added, "the end of the world will come, so beware!" This frightened the youngest among the village folk, and they would run away from the old lady and hide their faces in the aprons of their mothers. The villagers only shook their heads slowly, dabbed their children's tears away and sometimes gave them a treat to eat so they would be happy again.
One summer, a peddler came to the village, selling herbs and elixirs for all the aches and pains the villagers were sure to want healed. He set up his wagon to look like a store and when he was ready, he stood upon a box and began calling out to the villagers -- "Come see! I have salves to take away your pains. I have elixirs to bring your youth back. I have herbs to calm the nerves and bring love into your life again! Why, I even have waters of forgetfulness that will make your sadness disappear. Come see!"
The villagers had begun to gather around the wagon, trying to get a close look at the young peddler and his wares. Even the old woman had toddled up to stand before the young man and listen to his claims (for she could not see him, all bent over as she was). She listened as he talked about his salves and heard the others murmur their approval. She listened as he mentioned the benefits of his elixirs and heard the crowd chuckle at his jokes. She listened as he described the herbs he had brought and all the many problems they might solve. But most of all, she listened when he talked about the waters of forgetfulness. "Oh, my," she thought to herself. "If only I had some of these waters to drink, I could forget the weight of the world on my shoulders and maybe I would not be so stooped over." But when he mentioned the price -- a goat or 8 chickens -- her sadness returned, for this was more than she could possibly afford. She turned away and began walking back toward her little hut on the edge of the village.
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