| The Little Red Riding Hood's father killed the wolf | | | | She thought that she was responsible for what he |
| that had tried to eat her. On their way back home, | | | | was doing and saying. And while she was willing to let |
| he admonished her. "You are too gullible," he said. | | | | him do whatever he was going to do to her, she |
| "You must exercise discretion about whom you | | | | refused to let him destroy their children. So that, |
| should trust." She said, "But Daddy, the wolf was | | | | when he made it his project to do to their children |
| hungry." Her father replied, "Yes, the wolf was | | | | what he had been doing to her - and when her |
| hungry. But that doesn't mean that I'll let him eat my | | | | children told her that they would rather live in a dump |
| daughter. The world is cruel, and we have to survive. | | | | than in that hell house - the Riding Hood left her |
| If it's wolf against you, it better be you." | | | | husband and set off on her own. |
| But the Little Red Riding Hood felt guilty over the | | | | Her father was at first angry at her, but as she |
| death of the wolf. She knew in her heart that there | | | | explained to him what had happened he became |
| had to be a better way to live, and she tried to | | | | more understanding. Her mother said that she had |
| make life better for everyone. She would take birds | | | | been unlucky. After they saw what had happened, |
| with broken wings in her home and care for them | | | | they said that she had gotten taken advantage of |
| until their wings grew together and they could fly | | | | because of her trusting nature - and tried to tell her |
| away. She picked a squirrel that boys were beating | | | | what she needed to do to make sure that people did |
| and brought her home and made her a pet. She | | | | not take advantage of her again. |
| would play with geese during the summer and cry | | | | On her own, she again started painting. Her |
| when they were slaughtered in autumn. | | | | experience allowed her works to have depth that |
| She had long curly blond hair and giant, sensitive blue | | | | they had not had before, and many people found it |
| eyes. She had an elegant manner and beautiful | | | | fascinating to see her new message: Of beauty that |
| posture. She drew beautiful pictures and made | | | | passes through horror and retains its hope, |
| beautiful sculptures. She would climb trees and swim | | | | tenderness and love. And while the town women |
| in the lake for hours, lost in her thoughts. | | | | were still grumbling about her, more people were able |
| One day she watched people beating a goat. "What | | | | to appreciate her and what she was doing. |
| are you doing?" she asked. "He's the scapegoat," was | | | | One day a troubadour from the Never-Neverland |
| the answer. "We beat him when we feel angry." | | | | was traveling through the village. He sang sad songs |
| "How can you do that?" she shouted. "He is a living | | | | about love lost, about injustice in the world, about |
| being. He feels pain just like you do." | | | | tragic fates of people in his country. She came to |
| When the people left, she hugged the goat and cried. | | | | talk to him, and he fell in love with her instantly. He |
| "I am so sorry," she said looking into his big brown | | | | saw her spirit - tender, warm, gentle, caring, and |
| eyes, eyes full of pain and confusion. She kissed him | | | | unbelievably beautiful - and he knew that he had |
| on the forehead, then all over his face, and petted | | | | discovered the most magnificent human being he'd |
| him on his fur. "I know, these people are cruel. But | | | | ever known. Someone who was loving, spectacular |
| you are free now. Be free and enjoy your life." The | | | | and heroic. Someone who was beautiful all the way |
| goat hobbled away. | | | | to the bone and had kept that beauty alive in |
| All the boys in town wanted to be with her. She was | | | | impossible circumstances. Who was in her very being |
| emanating warmth, tenderness, softness and | | | | a principle of what the world can and should be. |
| gentleness - a pink cloud about her that felt like | | | | He started writing her songs that celebrated her spirit |
| cherry blossoms or orchids - and while she knew she | | | | and unbelievable beauty. Songs that put into words |
| could not be with everyone, she wanted to share | | | | the goodness and tenderness and kindness she had |
| with people the beauty inside her so that they too | | | | within. Songs that expressed in words what she |
| could see what she saw and be kind and joyful like | | | | sought to express in her paintings and what she had |
| her. Her parents said that she needed to toughen | | | | in her soul. Songs that sought to impart, in writing, |
| herself, so she swam in ice-cold river, hiked long | | | | the magnificence that she was. |
| distances in the mountains, jumped off of cliffs and | | | | She loved him, and he loved her. One day he held |
| walked through brambles. And throughout all this she | | | | her, and as he let go she started walking away with |
| remained as she was: Loving, compassionate, soft. | | | | a heartbroken look on her face. "No," he said, and |
| She meditated in a tree, and it came to her that all | | | | held her again, and kept holding her until the pain was |
| that the world needed was love. She decided to test | | | | gone. "I want to burn up in my love for you," he told |
| that idea by going out into the forest and finding | | | | her on another morning. They went to the mountains |
| wolves. At the sight of a person they started | | | | and held each other on the ground amid blooming |
| howling; however she radiated so much warmth from | | | | clovers and daisies, as the setting sun in the west |
| her heart, that the wolves came to her and let her | | | | sent its last rays through the clouds and alit them in |
| pet them. After that she said, "Wolves are actually | | | | pink. They swam in the river, and, saying "let me be |
| very sweet. I know how to tame them with love." | | | | your ocean," she let him recline into her. He placed his |
| But people did not believe her, and town people saw | | | | soul inside of hers and from it sculpted his songs. |
| all this with disturbance. In effect, they saw someone | | | | Meanwhile the people in town said that there was a |
| whose very existence - whose very nature - was a | | | | scandal. They said that the town princess was having |
| refutation to their worldview. So they attacked her. | | | | a romance with a crazy troubadour. Town people - |
| She did not know how to answer these people. And | | | | wife-beaters, philanderers, child-molesters, nagging |
| although she was right - what she was, was right, | | | | wives, people in loveless marriages - looked down on |
| and what the world needed and had long needed - | | | | them and said they were freaks and claimed their |
| she started to think that there was something wrong | | | | relationship to be sick when it was the only loving |
| with her. So that, although every man in town | | | | relationship in town. Her children told her that they |
| wanted to be with her, she left the town and | | | | needed to protect her from the troubadour - the |
| married the hunter in a village far away. He was | | | | man who loved her beyond anything in the world - |
| obviously unhappy, and she thought that she could | | | | after having done nothing to protect her from her |
| make him happy by loving him. That was a bad | | | | brute of a husband. Her brothers were cruel to her, |
| mistake. | | | | and her parents beseeched her to go back to the |
| He wanted her for all the wrong reasons. He saw her | | | | town of her birth, where they said people were |
| outer beauty, even as he had no value at all for the | | | | more appreciative and more understanding of her and |
| beauty she had inside. Seeing her gentleness, he | | | | would treat her better. |
| thought she would be compliant and obedient. | | | | The troubadour realized that he would be unable to |
| However, when he tried to make her abort their | | | | keep the Riding Hood, and he let her go back to her |
| infant and she refused, he turned into a monster. For | | | | parents' town while continuing to write songs about |
| fifteen years he made it his project to completely | | | | her. She had shown him beauty beyond his wildest |
| destroy her and wipe from the world everything for | | | | imagination; and as he saw and celebrated this |
| which she stood. He brutalized her, tortured her | | | | beauty his eyes were opened to the sublime in the |
| emotionally, attacked everything in her and even | | | | universe. A whole new dimension of life opened up |
| shouted at her any time she laughed. The love that | | | | for him - a dimension he had not known before, and |
| made it possible for her to tame wolves, he saw as | | | | that contained enough inspiration for a lifetime of |
| a threat to his project: To control everything and | | | | songs and a lifetime of beauty and joy. And though |
| everyone in his environment and make them believe | | | | the troubadour and the Riding Hood were apart, she |
| the kind of love and beauty and promise she gave to | | | | continued inspiring him for years thereafter, and his |
| be nonexistent, so that they would acquiesce to a | | | | works found appreciative audiences among people in |
| bestial existence in which he was in control. | | | | different towns and villages all around the land. |