the first piece of abstract expressionism

The Roundhead troops rode into the cathedral and smashed the vast stained glass window.

Shards of glass fell to the floor. They smashed sculptures and icons and let their horses shit on the floor and generally desecrated to the best of their abilities.

When they left the citizens came and cleaned up. They collected the glass shards and took them away and hid them, a piece here, a piece there.

The glass fragments lived on in secret, year after year.

When Cromwell died, the citizens brought their pieces of glass back to the Cathedral. They couldn’t put the original pictures back together again. There were no photos to go by. All they had was a crazy stained glass jigsaw puzzle. Rather than re-make anything figurative, they replaced the shards like a mosaic in the new window.

Strangely, although it made no sense, the new window looked even more magnificent than the one the old-timers had stored in their memories.