Fairy Stories & Other Tales

There was once a tree that had stood for a very long time looking out off the edge of a forest.     It was perhaps strange for it do so, for many of his brothers had been cut down for standing so boldly.     But, however the danger, it stood firmly at the edge.     For it was far better to take the risk and be able to see.

 A little child held a light close, for she loved it very much.     But when she saw the darkness, she let go her hands.     And she saw that it was much better to let it shine.

 Once upon a time there was a woman who insisted on looking at the world like a child.     She refused to take politics seriously, for it all seemed to repeat itself in circles no matter who was in charge. She cared very little for money. When she saw someone hungry, she remembered what it was like to be hungry herself and gave her food away. If someone was unkind, she told them so. If someone was very kind, she told them that, too. She ran when she had somewhere to be, and when she found herself tired, she lay down to sleep. Play was a serious business, and a thing she called 'work.' And if something didn't go her way, well, she held her body tightly with her fists clenched while her heart beat fiercely, held her breath and closed her ears until it passed.     She was quite annoying to some people.     But when she died, there was no doubt about it: she had truly lived.

 The village healer was a little old woman, and at the moment she found herself sitting in her worn, patched chair by the fire.       She sighed.      It seemed the world had gone mad today.     The village itself was plagued by an illness, and half of the populace wouldn't take the medicines she prepared for them that would ensure an ease of pain. The kingdom was getting ready to go to war due to unscrupulous behavior - but on whose part, the healer didn't know. Regardless, many would be needlessly wounded or slaughtered or both. Food would be scarcer than usual. People would starve. And to top off the end of a truly horrid day, she had burnt the soup and under-cooked the bread.      Well, she thought to herself, it was hard to go wrong with a bit of cheese.     The old woman bit into the small wedge she had cut for herself, wiggled her toes in their darned wool socks, and then took a sip of hot tea as she watched the flames flicker.     The world may be going mad, but there w

 Once upon a time there was a woman who had had enough of the complications of life. There were so many things to worry about, so many things demanding her attention, all amassing in and about her in a way that made her shrink into herself.      The more she looked about her and saw the chaotic whirl of her spinning life, the more it appeared as though it were a magnet attracting more and more until the weight of it all lead to remorse and sorrow and desperation. The day came when she had sunk so low that she found herself asking a very particular question. What was it that she truly needed on her spinning axis of life?     Very little came the answer.     Less still if she changed the essence of herself.      So she threw herself into the sky and became a star.     And there she found herself surrounded by those of like-minds, who had eschewed complexity to do a simple thing: shine.