Fairy Stories & Other Tales

 Once upon a time there was a tree that had upon its branches three apples. One was red, another green, and the last was golden.      When the time came for the apples to be plucked, three cloaked figures approached the tree, each selecting for themselves the one they desired most. The first selected the red, in hopes that it's shiny, vibrant skin would grant long life. The second selected the green, in hopes that its tart newness would grant adventure. And the third selected the golden, in hopes that its warmth would provide a contented state.      Indeed, when the first hooded figure threw back its hood, a gnarled, warted woman revealed herself. Crunching into the gleaming red apple, the woman waited, then began to change. Suddenly, where the old bent beldam had once been standing, in her place stood a girl with hair as black as night, and lips as red as the apple she had just eaten. Feeling the strength and vigor of youth coursing through ...

The monster that lived on the suspect side of the Enchanted Forest wasn't as scary as people supposed. Sure, there were the mutilated corpses, the bodies of which decayed outside her front doorstep. Too, there was the fact that she put her pointedly sharp teeth to use by razing nearby villages. And, yes, she did refrain from bathing at all costs, which made the smell something more than putrid. But she had been going through some things. She was single, again. Which was fine, because he had become a very large dinner. Her siblings refused to talk to her. Which was fine, because their success in life, and her mother's constant praise of their virtues, just made her feel morbid. And she hadn't been sleeping nights. Which was fine, because nights were a good time to raze villages. Except that none of it was fine. There was something about the corpses that made her feel off. Something about the screaming plights of the villagers that made her think something wasn't quite ri...

 The small offerings were unusual. Bent. Broken. Nothing more than trinkets. Not the kind of objects that should be offered to a god.     A pity that gods often deal in shoulds.     A pity that gods are often wrong.     But then, what does a god know? A god is nothing more than human foibles lived larger, longer, stronger, sadder, couched in a case that is beautiful. So very beautiful. It's the beauty that brings about the worship. A perfect human foible, finding hope in beauty.     Small, broken, trinkets didn't tell the story of the god; they told the story of the bringer of tiny nothing gifts. No self-important man would offer such things. He should offer something big. Something grand. Gold. Or a great promise. Or blood. How dull such a person must be, all filled with shoulds. No, these small bits came from a beating heart. They had nothing to do with the god. Beating hearts don't deal with gods. They give anyway. They...

  Once upon a time there stood a tree.        Where it stood is much in question. But that it stood is not in question at all. For it was from this tree that the first leaf fell.        It fell in bitter mourning, ripped from its mother branch. Its body had changed, no longer yellow-green and fertile, with a crispness to its bearing. And so it was that with the first breath of the wind, it was plucked with ease—for it had already begun to die.        With grave sorrow the leaf turned to the ground.         But the wind sighed unexpectedly.      Up and about it twirled, higher and higher, and it could see the sun before it rose and the stars in all their massed splendor.          Higher still it flew until green lands faded into blue sea and all the world looked round.      The leaf did not notice that its color had changed from green to ora...

 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.