| "Parables" |
11 |
A man was imprisoned for years in China. One day in the shop where he worked in prison, his eye caught small bits of bright wire amidst the shavings on the floor. He began gathering them and saving them in a bottle in his room to brighten things up a bit in his cell. After years of confinement, he was finally released from prison and brought the bottle full of wires with him to remind him of his years there. Now an old man and unable to work, he spent days waking at the exact hour the warden had decreed that the prisoners should awake and going to sleep at the usual prison lights-out time. He paced back and forth in his room in the same pattern he had while confined in his cell, four steps forward and four steps back. After some time of this, he grew frustrated and one day, smashed the bottle. He found the mass of rusted wires stuck together in the shape of a bottle. |
imprisonment routine ritual habit |
