The Future

 Once upon a time a small child sat crying. There were so many tears that they pooled into a puddle at her feet. When she was done crying, she looked into the puddle. There she saw the future. And it scared her very much.

This was not helped by the wind that blew ominously at her legs, nor by the black cat that began to prowl before her, yowling in a quiet way that sent shivers up the little girl's spine.

Some might have called these curious coincidences omens.

The little girl didn't have time for omens, she decided. There was cleaning to do and books to read and books to be written and life to be lived. Thus, the little girl grew up.

And when the future came, staring at her without the comfort of a puddle of tears, whatever it was didn't matter so much because she had been living.

Popular posts from this blog

The Library at the Edge of the Universe

 There was, of course, a library at the edge of the universe. It was built to fit the space. That space, for the moment, was infinite. But it was the kind of infinite that was smaller than other kinds of infinite — both space and libraries are funny that way.     This library had an agenda. Most do. But this one's was more specific than most. It wanted to hold all the books in the universe, whether they liked it or not. And it got the books by poking and prodding the universe in all kinds of different ways, until it gave up the literary ghost. Well, all the literary ghosts.     So. There sat a library at the edge of space that housed all the books in the universe. It mostly sat, anyway. Sometimes it stood. Occasionally it stretched a bit. And on two occasions, yawns were recorded as galaxies doing a funny little seismic shift.     It might yawn again. In an eon or two.     Because it is waiting.     It's been waiting for an infinite amount of time. One of the smaller infinites
Read more

The Shadows

The light shown on Anya’s fingers. It curled around her palm and danced. This, she thought, was the sheer pleasure of having magic.       But in the midst of her play, a shadow grew.   It was not unexpected; it was the cost of doing magic, for it always begot shadows.   But it never ceased to offer discomfort.   If she could find a way to practice her craft and leave behind the adjacent darkness, she would.          Anya was not fond of the dark, or shadows, or of the sense of unease that grew whenever she let the flickering brightness dance.   But, too, there was a feeling of wholeness in her work.   How could that be, such fulfillment when darkness lay about her?   A constant wonder—the weight of it only born by extinguishing the light for a time until she could bear it again.       Today was such a time.          Anya took the light, and threw it at the darkness.   The next breath, and it was gone.   Elimination brought palpable relief, while at the same time she felt the loss of
Read more

The Old Queen and the New One

 Once there was a little girl who wandered into an enchanted forest. That's obvious. Of course she did. How else do you get into an enchanted forest? The interesting part is what happened when she got there. Which was this:     She came upon an unkindness of ravens. They were singing. Naturally it was a dirge. That's the only thing a raven can sing. As it happens, they were the queen's ravens.      Which queen?      The one who ruled over all the enchanted lands. Haven't you heard of her? She's testy. Aged. Bit of a handful, really. Likes her ravens.      The ravens liked the little girl better. They followed her instead. So... that made her queen.     What happened to the other one? The testy one?      Well, this is a fairy tale, so I think you can guess.     But you'd be wrong.      This is a new kind of fairy tale. One of those modern ones. Where the old women aren't nasty, poisonous old crones (well... not always). Where old women have a lovely, motherl
Read more