It's Okay to Not Be Okay

Finding the Real Face

Once upon a time in a castle in the deep forest, there lived three people who had their real faces stolen by the Shadow Witch.

The Box Man spoke,

“If we want to stop fighting and find happiness, we must retrieve our stolen faces.”

So they hopped on their camping car and began their journey to find their real faces.

Then one day, they run into a mother fox who was bawling, curled up on the snow.

The Masked Boy asked the mother fox,

“Ma’am, why do you keep crying?”

“Oh I came out here to find some food but dropped my baby whom I was carrying on my back somewhere in the snow,”

the mother fox’s tears had run dry.

She wailed while beating her chest.

When the masked boy saw that, warm tears started gushing from his eyes.

Then the snow began to melt quickly and the baby fox who was frozen under the snow soon appeared.

The three of them resumed their journey.

Soon, they ran into a clown who was dancing naked in a field of thorny flowers.

The Emotionless Princess asked,

“Why are you dancing with all your might knowing you’ll be pricked by the thorns?”

“I feel that this is the only way to make people look at me.

But it hurts and no one’s looking at me,”
he answered.

The Emotional Princess walked into the field of thorny flowers and started dancing with the clown,

“I am an empty can so I won’t be hurt even if I get pricked by the thorns.”

When she began hopping and dancing, loud clanking noises echoed from her empty torso.

And upon hearing those sounds, the people began to flock to where they were.

The crowd watched their dance and applauded them.

They began a new journey to find their stolen faces and the evil Shadow Witch appeared in front of them once again.

She kidnapped the Masked Boy who shed tears on behalf of the mother fox, as well as the Emotional Princess who danced with the clown,

“The two of you will never be able to find your happy faces.”

After putting such a curse on them, she locked them in a deep, dark mole tunnel.

The Box Man found the mole tunnel a few days later but the entrance was so narrow that he couldn’t go in.

“What do I do? I need to take this box off my head in order to go into the tunnel.”

That moment, the Masked Boy’s voice reached him from the inside of the tunnel,

“Mister, don’t worry about us. Just ran far away.

The Shadow Witch will return soon.”

However, the Box Man mustered up the courage to take the box off his head.

He went inside the tunnel and save the Masked Boy and the Emotional Princess.

Upon getting out of the dark tunnel, the two of them saw the man’s face covered with dirt and grime instead of the box and burst out laughing.

They laughed and giggled.

While laughing uncontrollably, the Masked Boy’s mask suddenly fell off.

The can surrounding the Emotional Princess’ torso also fell off and made a clanking noise.

The Box Man, now out of his box, said this when he saw the two of them finding their true faces while laughing,

“I’m happy.”

What the Shadow Witch had stolen from them was not their true faces but their courage to find happiness.

It teaches us to always take the courage in finding our own happiness, as well as in overcoming the struggles of life.

The journey of life is not easy at all. There are lots of bumpy roads and confusing paths that we need to face in order to be directed in the right direction.