Week 2 Story: Pygmalion

There was once a young girl, no more than 15, who lived with her younger brother in a farming village on the side of the mountains.  She tried her best to live a carefree life, but it was only so easy when all around her was hopelessness and desperation.  They were in a particularly bad spot where every avalanche, hurricane, or flood had the potential to wipe them out, taking weeks to recover from.  They had been blessed by nature and clear skies for years, however, this year was different.  Something told her they wouldn't come back from this one.  A particularly bad storm had hit them this year, wiping out their crops and railroads, leaving little untouched.  Their neighboring villages showed them little mercy, rightfully selfish to preserve their resources while under nature's wrath.  Her people were hungry and sick, having no means of transport outside their mountain or any food or medicine for their sick.  

One morning, she woke up early to the sound of laughter, as children played in the fields and there was commotion throughout the village.  

"Everyone seems... happier, did something happen?"  

"Some strange visitor last night.  People are praising her as the mountain's spirit, saying she brought food and medicine for us." her brother chipped, "I'm guessing she's the one that protected us from all those storms in the first place, should have known we weren't just lucky."

That night she put on the same clothes as the night before before sneaking out to the neighboring villages.  "a mountain spirit, huh? if only we were that lucky."  She stashed as much as she could before rushing home to distribute the goods.  As she was leaving the doorstep of one of the houses, she heard a child's footsteps chasing after her before finally stopping.  "Thank you, mountain spirit."

She kept this up for weeks until a voice came to her in her sleep one night.  "I cannot decide if you are selfish or selfless.  You steal from everyone yet keep nothing for yourself."

"I didn't know how else to help! And we still praise a spirit who has done nothing to help us!" she cried.

"You're mistaken.  There is no mountain spirit, until you wish to become such."

She paused.  "But what would happen to me here, could I stay here too?"

"How selfish for a people with so little.  You must be decisive if you want to help anyone."

"That was all I wanted in the first place - !"

Taking that as her answer, the voice was gone and the girl opened her eyes, paralyzed by the scene before her.  Her brother held her still body, as she witnessed the end of her physical life.  Villagers mourned and prayed, asking the mountain spirit why such a young life was stolen from them.  Rather than a life stolen, she considered it a life given.  The people were right, the mountain spirit had blessed them with food and medicine, and would continue to watch over them for the rest of time.  

Farming village surrounded by Karst Mountains, Source

Author's Note: I had no idea the main character was going to turn out this way!  I realized the main character has a questionable moral compass and I couldn't decide if becoming the mountain spirit at the end was a reward or punishment.  I basically kept nothing of the original story other than the "fake it til you make it" ideology and some "higher being" that granted it as true.  Pygmalion imagined that his ivory statue was real until Venus granted his wish and the girl in this story pretended to be a mountain spirit (that didn't even exist yet) until she literally became the mountain spirit.  The voice told her that there "was no mountain spirit" because the mountain's spirit lived in her and she had not yet died to become the mountain spirit.  That wasn't made very obvious and isn't important to the plot, but I thought it would be an interesting twist to add on!

Pygmalion from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000).