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| There was once a small village where ugliness was beauty. The citizens of this town were ugly inside, and it made them ugly on the outside. The more evil they acted toward animals, each other, and themselves, the uglier they became, and thus the more they were accepted. They led sinful lives; they were always in the dark. One day, a holy person journeyed far to this village to teach them what was right and good. He was beautiful, and to the people of the Dark Town, he was different; he was the ugly one. They scorned him when he preached, they resented his existence. The good man understood these people's reaction to him, and he lived alone on the outskirts of the village, praying to God that some day he would be able to save these lost souls. His home, while always opened to the weary traveler or passer-by, was never visited. To them, this holy man was evil and dangerous. One night, a group of men assembled and decided it was time to rid their town of this man who was so evil. Sneaking around, they gathered things that were needed to start a fire. In the stillness of the Dark Town Night, the men et fire to the man's house and stood back with gluttonous satisfaction to watch it burn. While watching the smoldering ashes and dying smoke and flames, one man saw the err in his ways; no right man should have the power over the life and death of another. He flung himself past the flames and against the lamentations of his peers. The man saw the holy man huddling in a corner still un-licked by the flames. A burning book case fell and barely missed him, but sparks flew from the books aflame and danced upon the holy man's face. The good man screamed for help as the villager leaped through the flames and came to the rescue. The good man awoke in his rescuer's home, with the man's wife at his side, tending to him. She looked kind--kinder than most in the villiage--and she smiled as she wrapped his head with bandages. Word spread quickly: The different man was scarred, he was not so different any more! One of his assailants came to visit him in a friendly manner, and brought a mirror as a present. In disgust of his appearance, the Holy Man threw the mirror to the floor and found sanity in the jagged sound of the glass shattering into trillions of shards. The villiager was puzzled. Who could be disgusted at a beautiful face? For surely he must he is beautiful like us! The scarred man left the village of ugly people and returned to the people who once knew him as the beautiful holy man. When they looked upon his scarred face, they cringed and pretended not to know him. The scarred man no longer fit among beautiful people. |