Fairy Stories & Other Tales

  When the wind blows gently through the trees, and the air smells almost sweet, that is when the burden shifts in beating hearts; it becomes almost impossible to bear. This is when a tingle moves through any living creature, and all of them, they know.        They know she is coming.      She comes swooping, but in silence. Soft, but biting. And when she strikes, all stop in her wake. For how could anything move against such a being? How could anyone move at all? For they fear her. All living creatures fear her. For it seems that where she visits, there is sorrow and pain and fear.        But that is not so. No, it is only a fault of poor causality.        She is not cruel.      She ambles, but not slowly. She swaggers, but not carefully. She starts small and hunched, but carries a full burden. It is a burden she is ready to shed lightly. Just as lightly, she will carry away with her what she needs. Crone-like, but not a single fragile bone, she cannot stop her work un

 Once upon a time, the universe grew so hungry, it ate the whole world. It is painfully impossible to explain the details of the digestion. But this is a fairy tale. And in fairy tales, explanations are merely things other tales have... The world, then, was nothing more than a distant thought. It was nothing more than nothing, really. It point of fact, it seemed content that way. For a time. It's previous existence had been nothing more than a struggle, and to be nothing but an absent breath felt like a much deserved holiday. But also like holidays, it they go on too long, the vacationer starts to feel a twitch. Then a rumble. Then a blast of energy that must desperately go somewhere or it will burst into an explosion that will, very likely, shake the entirety of the universe. Which is what the world did. And that is the story of the big bang.

 Once upon a time there was a little girl who liked to visit the enchanted forest. Mostly she went because she wanted to visit the Wise Old Witch who lived in a cottage near the edge of the forest. It wasn't that the witch had toys or trinkets or anything of that sort. What she did have were strange smells and curious potions in green stoppered bottles. It also helped that the old woman had cream buns to which the little girl was particularly partial. On a day that was not one of her usual visiting days, the little girl made her way to the witch's cottage - in hopes of a little lesson and something to fill her stomach - when out of the brush came a monster so hideous the little girl shrieked. It looked almost like a bear, with claws the size of the girl's arms. The snarling, toothy, rage-filled roar that thundered into her face was enough to send her body shaking in stunned paralysis - which everyone knows marks the final step before prey becomes a meal. But just as the lit

Once upon a time there lived a man whose bones were withered with age.   This was not due to any course of nature.   Rather, it was because he had found himself on the wrong side of an argument with a fairy.   She had welled with rage and cast her spell.   But that had been a long time ago.   For though he was now cursed with the detriments of age, he had been blessed with unnatural long life since birth.   And now, bent, wrinkled, and alone, he spent his days in slow simmering anger.    Yet, what could he do?   He could not find the fairy who had done this to him.   She had abandoned him to his fate.   As for remedies, he had long ago ceased his search—there was nothing to avail him.   And so, it was this thought that kept him company: if he came across her again, he would make her pay.     He had made himself a home of logs in the midst of a thick wood, shunning all the world.   For youth taunted him and age made a mockery of him—thus there was no company to keep.   He wallowed