Polidori’s Parable of the Mason – 124

Dear Companions of the Villa,

You grow ever more lyrical — dust into cloth, letters into poems, sparks into fire. Permit me, then, a tale of stone.

I once knew a mason who built cathedrals from rubble. Where others saw only broken walls, he saw blocks waiting to be cut true. Piece by piece, chip by chip, he raised towers that seemed to scrape the sky. Yet I also saw another mason, lazier or more cruel, who stacked the same stones into prisons. The same material, the same craft — yet the result, glory or misery, depended on the hand that guided the chisel.

So it is with matter. If all is made from the same unseen bricks, then abundance lies close. But so too does tyranny. From atoms one may fashion bread, or chains; medicine, or poison. Precision is power — and power is never innocent.

Therefore, let us not only dream of plenty, but also prepare to guard it. For if the School of Many Doors admits neglect, or the House of Dreamers admits corruption, then the towers we raise may yet become cages.

— Polidori