Fairy Stories & Other Tales

 Once upon a time the world was ending. Again. It seemed that the world was ending all the time lately, which was quite exhausting.     In fact, the world was just about fed up with ending.     It was a tricky thing, though, being fed up with ending. The problem was that it couldn't remember an alternative. It had gone on being, almost ending, century after century. As far as it could tell, that was simply what it was to be a world. Which was, of course, a rather depressing thought.    The world wasn't exactly sure how , but it certainly knew when it was supposed to be ending. People kept saying, 'The world is ending!' in one century or another (or sometimes several times in a single century) and that was how it knew.       But, of course, it didn't actually end.      It's only natural that the world was getting fed up. Promises never kept do make it rather difficult to move on.     So when the next ending presented itself, the world took proactive steps; which

 Once, when the wind was blowing fierce from the west, an old woman sat down at her loom to weave. It was what she always did when the wind blew from the west, because that kind of wind is always particularly vicious and hard on an old woman's rheumatism. Surely, thought the villagers who saw her painstaking work through the window, there were other amusements that could entertain in the evening hours. Baking bread or something of that sort. But no one ever offered her that advice. No one offered to speak with her about anything. She was, after all, a very old woman.     That she was old was coupled with the fact that the tapestry itself was odd. There was an interweaving of curious colors and stranger patterns. The fabric had been worked and reworked so often that many threads had split, course and uneven, giving the incomplete work the illusion of moving in an uncanny way over the blurs that made up the peculiar piece.     Then there was the fact that it was never for sale.     W

 Once upon a time there was a princess who hated the world. It was easily done, from a chair in a throne room high up in a castle, the news flashing in front of her courtesy of courtiers in a continual flood.     Each day she listened to horrible stories of happenings in her kingdom and beyond, until finally she could take no more.     She left the castle.     And began to love the world.

The first frost came, and all the leaves fell to the ground dead. The second frost came, and all the ground gave up its green. The third frost came, and brittle branches sought to grow no more. And then came the snow, and all nature exhaled a sigh of relief.