Once upon a time, there were two close friends who looked very much alike.
Both had luscious, long flowing blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. One of the friends, named Narcissus, was enamored with the beauty of the soul, and decided to dedicate his life to looking deep within. The other, named GoldDrumpf, was enamored with himself, and decided to wander the world to see if he could find anyone as great as he, and pick up girls.
One day, they were playing by a pristine pond, skipping stones across it. Narcissus asked GoldDrumpf to stop tossing rocks for a second, so they could look at their reflections in the perfectly still water. Narcissus leaned over the pond, and mistook his reflection for the other side of his soul, reaching out to it. He became numb, and prayed by the water’s edge, and decided to open a monastery on that very spot.
GoldDrumpf, on the other hand, looked at his reflection and was smitten. He brushed his blond hair up into a bouffant on the top of his head. He observed how each smile would be returned with one just like it; each scowl, could be commanded to come in bunches and not as single spies. He was so impressed by what he saw in the pond that he set off to see if such beauty and greatness existed anywhere else.
Narcissus built his simple monastery out of sticks and leaves, while GoldDrumpf headed off to seek fortune, fame, and fawning followers around the world. In City after City, where there were no ponds, GoldDrumpf build towers of shiny gold reflective glass. Each time he walked past one of the glitzy towers he built, he looked at the image of his face in the window, pushed his glowing blonde hair up into a bouffant, and searched for anyone as great as he. He sung to and seduced many people, but each evening he came home alone and feeling empty.
So GoldDrumpf decided to find the nearest pond and contemplate his life. He pulled a bright red silk sweatshirt over his head, tied the golden string tightly around his neck and headed to the swamps of New Jersey. He sat by the edge of the Jersey swamps, peering into the murky water to see his reflection. All he saw was endless darkness. There was no beauty there. He could not see his face, nor his golden hair. Suddenly, he heard a deep throated, wailing sound.
“Chris-et,” the sound said. “Chris-et.”
GoldDrumpf looked down into the mud, and there, burrowed deep within was the ugliest creature he had ever seen. He picked up the creature in his hand, and stared at it.
“Chris-et,” the creature said. “Chris-et.”
He put the creature in his back pocket and decided to carry it home to show Narcissus. Surely this lowly life form must be a sign of something. When he arrived back home near the pristine pond, he found Narcissus sitting cross-legged at the door of his monastery, as if anticipating his return.
Narcissus, listened to GoldDrumpf’s tales of sturm und drang, of how he searched for one as great and beautiful as he, but always came up empty. Narcissus shook his head, held his hand out and asked GoldDrumpf to give him the lowly creature of the Jersey Swamp.
“You must set this lowly creature free,” said Narcissus. “He is your soul. He represents all the bad memories of your deformed and wretched father which you have repressed, and run from these many years. You must face up to what a covetous, hateful creature your father was, to what you have inherited from him, and to what you want to be. You can find yourself here, in peace.”
And so, GoldDrumpf agreed to stay at the monastery with Narcissus and set his feelings free by sculpting massive statues of his father, sheathed in white, with towering white conical caps upon each statue’s head. GoldDrumpf built the statues, higher and thicker, connecting them into a huge wall; encircling himself, until the tips of all the hats met, making a yuge dome—the biggest dome anyone had ever seen–shutting out all light and air, and entombing GoldDrumpf forever, like a Pharoah.
And for all anyone ever knew, he lived happily ever after.