CASTLE GLADE

An Allegory by Glade Hoffman

LAND OF UNCERTAINTY

Castle Glade sits on a grassy knoll overlooking a crystal lake in the Land Of Uncertainty. Halfway up a mountain called Vulnerability, in the Meadow of Mediocrity, the castle stands exposed, naked and unprotected. Unlike any of the other castles that you may have read about in other books this castle is quite different. From its outward appearance most would see Castle Glade as being small, ordinary and rather commonplace but like all who judge by outward appearances they would be wrong. For once inside, the castle takes on a grand complexity that is as vast and intricate as the very world that it is upon. You might say that the castle is in a world of its own… but I am getting ahead of myself.

It is the kind of day in which most fairytales would begin. A day children love to lie in the soft green grass and look up at the bright blue sky, imagining the different shapes in the white fluffy clouds as they float by. There is a cloud formation that resembles a rabbit, another cloud that takes the shape a great cat chasing a small bird, still another takes the shape of a huge grizzly bear reaching toward heaven… and then suddenly a black ominous cloud crawls over the pinnacle of the mountain. Near the top of the mountain riding directly under the cloud is a solitary rider on a black horse. His long black cape whips the wind as his stallion struggles to reach the summit. Once it does it rears up and stops. As the rider stops so does the cloud. The rider dismounts and walks to the edge of the precipice. The hood of his cape covers his face so he is unrecognizable. His two eyes shine like crystals of light out of the darkness reflecting the image of the castle as he peers down at it. In surveying the castle the refection of small boy sitting at a large desk mirrors in his one eye like the future emerging from a crystal ball.