A Man Could Live

 There was a man. He was young. It goes without saying that his level of naivete was on par with baby elephants and new born sloths. He saw the world, which is to say that he saw chaos, confusion, ready shifts, and no explanation.

    There was power to be had there, in all that disarray. An order to be made, and he could have his hand in it.

    There was anger, too. His. So much that he could taste the slam of his fist against it all.

    Power and anger were going to fuel him, and let him take his place in a kind of sorcery that would bend people to his strength. He could rule them.

    But he stretched out his hand, instead.

    He put ink in his pen.

    He began to write.

    There were no spells, no carefully concocted mechanisms designed to sway. He only told what he saw. In so doing, the world grew sharp. It had the kind of starkness that calls to mind crows and wakes melancholy.

     A man can live with melancholy, but only for so long before its walls that turn the world black and white work to turn the mind into shadow, a fuzzy disconnect that cannot possibly show real things. He did not want to have a fuzzy mind.

    So, he began to write his questions. He sent them out, and listened to what came back.

    The world went colorful, then. And clear.

    For a moment, from time to time, there was such a thing as peace.

    A man could live with peace. 

Popular posts from this blog

A Little Story About Cake

 There was once a man who baked a cake once a week. He used only the finest ingredients —rich orange egg yolks, creamy yellow butter, crunchy golden sugar, whole cream, and fine-sifted flour. Mixed together, the batter was itself a thing of beauty, but when it came out of the oven hot and cooked all the way through it was nothing short of perfection.     Though the man dearly loved to eat cake, his love was only a memory of time gone by, for he had never had a slice of his own cake. Instead, each week, he would cut the cake into seven slices, and wait to see what opportunities arose. Perhaps someone would come to tea, or a little girl would come to borrow an egg. Sometimes, especially in winter, the birds that had stayed too long would look particularly hungry, and so a slice of cake would be laid out for them, too. And, more often than anything, several slices each week would go to the old woman who lived at the end of the lane in the ramshackle house with the broke...
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....
Read more

There Be Witches

 There was a witch. And she was young and lovely.     This was a problem, of course. Witches should not be lovely. They should be old and haggard, however benevolent their heart. There was a witch. And she was old and haggard.     This was a problem, of course. Witches would do better in the general public eye if they are young and lovely. There was a witch, and she was tired and on the bitter side of sweet.     This was a problem, of course. Witches are always better taken with when they are robustly kind. There was a witch, and she was jolly and good.     This was a problem, of course. Witches are always taken more seriously if they show how hard they've work with a piercing gaze.  There was a witch.     This was a problem, of course. There were witches. There still are.     As it happens, they eat problems for breakfast.
Read more