It was so powerful that even the strongest man was reduced to tears. It was so transformative that the women left changed. It was so marvelous that the children stared at it for hours, mouths agape with wonder and adoration of such beauty. It appeared different to each person, yet still the same, and throughout the years many tales had been circulated about it everywhere. The object was so widely discussed that people from the entire kingdom flocked to see it, each person experiencing a mass of emotions when they finally set their eyes on the iconic entity. Even the king himself believed in its power, and he observed that it had much more influence and power than he had ever possessed over his people. It was rumored that he once observed quietly to a lord, “I cannot make them cry just by looking at them. It is too powerful so it has to be destroyed.”
    The king wanted to rule with an iron fist. He felt it was his divine right to be viewed as the supreme being in the land and he certainly was not going to be less powerful than a mere inanimate thing. Desiring influence and the respect due to him, the king in jealousy demanded that the object be taken far away and never seen within the borders of his land again. The servants had no choice but to obey, for once the object was covered up, the beauty, the valor and the self-confidence it gave to them vanished as well. It was thrown off a cliff and it fell hundreds of feet downward until it reached the ocean, where it drifted far away.
     The people once again listened to their king just as he desired. They did so because they felt the object’s disappearance had erased all beauty from their lives. They became timid and as the days wore on they became less concerned with their appearance and the meaning of life. They were dissatisfied and complained that joy could not be found. In fact, some even began to assert that there would never be anything as beautiful as the object had been and they could not find beauty outside of it.
     One day a worn mirror washed up onto the beach from the ocean.