Fairy Stories & Other Tales

 Once upon a time the world burst into chaos. This is unsurprising, as it happens, for it rarely affects humans (at least of the upper classes).       Only this time, even the very rich felt its fells and shakes. The rivers ran wild and drank up fields. The mountains laughed uproariously and spewed their chortles at great lengths. The vines ran up and down, in thick briars, covering square footage in the same way that a sip of whiskey floods the body. The animals went off their rocker, and it is enough to say that the sheer tonnage of their feces was legion. Which is all to say, everyone felt it. How could they not when even the birds sang their tunes to the beat of drums that came up from the depths of dark places?       The people traveled up to avoid damage. But up, for mass, does not last forever, and chaos cannot sustain perpetuity.      It all settled down. Eventually. When the wind kissed the chaos and told it to hush. ...

 There was once a boy who, at times, tended toward the depths of despair. The tendency made itself known around 4pm on a Wednesday, which was the day and time his father sent him each week with bread for the old witch. The boy was not at his best around old witches.      He had seen that a witch's potion could bring back someone from the brink of death. Too, he had seen what a witch's curse could do. Just last year the blacksmith had been cursed for letting his wife suffer illness without remedy too long. He would get an anvil to the foot, the witch had said. It was no surprise when it happened three weeks later. And just last week, the tailor had turned away a widow who could only pay half. The witch had given him a verbal shake down, and the next day he had sewed himself by both trousers and drawers right into the suit he was making for a lord. His assistant had to cut him loose. What, the boy often wondered, might she do to him?       The boy t...

 What she wanted was this: to add beauty.       What that meant was confusing.       Beauty in print and practice was wise and witty, without obnoxious overtones. Clever, though not obviously so. Beautiful in essence and form, while both hinted at sultry. Old enough, but not to look it. Gentle, with gravity. Sarcastic, with levity.      Exhausting, she thought.       Why? she wondered.      Did anyone care enough about all this to form it?      Oh, she had tried. Trying that came from peeking out from behind corners and wanting to avoid the bitter. In her first moments, she had thought that beauty was something else entirely. Print and practice gave her the recipe, and try as she might, the cake fell, was too dense, not light enough, not sweet enough. All of it lacked the new thing, the clever bit that made all attempts seem like oil in cracks, the authenticity that was yet anot...

 There was once a woman who was lucky enough to have a small, quiet space. She could also, should the mood strike her, go down the street and purchase a bagel of a mid-morning. Her small space had a small herb garden, and from it she brewed many a potion. And of a night, she could attend a lecture in a great hall if she walked down the street a bit further. Her low walls were lined with comely bookshelves, and too, if she had the mind (and she often did) to put on a pair of boots and hike a bit, it wasn't far to the grand library. Not too far from anywhere at all, and nowhere to go to have a cup of tea.      I suppose this is what they mean by having it all?      And I'm afraid leaning in had nothing do with it.