Fairy Stories & Other Tales

The woman twisted wool until her fingers bled. She ran the thread through the loom, weaving it back and forth. The pattern moved under her meticulous care, battened by a repetitive force that might have been better suited to a pickaxe.     When the first blanket was finished, she began another. And then another.     It wasn't that she was cruel to herself. She was only stubborn. Blankets needed to be made, and she had a spindle, a loom, two perfectly suitable hands. And time.     Plenty of time.     Too much, and her head would think until it spun.       There was always a worry that it would suddenly spin off.     Too little time... did anyone really, truly have too little time? she wondered. Impossible, really, she decided. There was no such thing as too little time. Only destroyed time, only wasted time. She would have none of that.  Not since she had rejected quick and easy and painless; there was nothing in leisure for a mind that wanted peace.     Blankets. That is what she h

There was once a time when every flower that covered the earth died. The grasses and the trees, the shrubs and the weeds lived on, but the blooms ceased.      Some time passed before the cessation of florescence grew so significant as to achieve awareness by the general public. After the shock and awe began to fade, the world grew angry. How dare the flowers stop! Didn't they know the ugliness they've caused? They should think of the travesty, the nasty, dusty byways with nothing to brighten the eye, the dirty gardens with their torpid shoots, the blandness of it all... How dare they wallow in so selfish a fashion!     Thus were the cries of the beings of the world. And the more they cried, the more the earth refused to blossom.     But it was a little girl who sat by a flowerless shrub, and held it's leaves between her hands, and asked the question: why.     Then the earth told her.     About the sorrow, the brokenness, and, finally, the mourning. For the world had become

 Once there was a leaf that fell from a tall tree and landed on a paved road with a crinkle.     With the crinkle came a crack, which split a seam right through the leaf's tenderest section.     The leaf groaned, horrified at its unsightly blemish.     But then a child came and squealed with delight as she picked up the leaf and peered through the crack into the other side of the world.     And the leaf suddenly felt like there was nothing wrong with being broken.

 The woman was desperate. Her head hurt and spun in equal measure.     It was the noises.     The world was too loud. Far too loud.     It must come as no surprise that she sold her ears to the Reaper Man, though it took half a life-time for her to develop the terms of the sale. It was one of those offers that came only once in a life, a continued existence where the only voices she would hear in her own mind were those of her choosing. For the time had come at long last where the woman realized that the choice to listen lay entirely within her grasp. Only, she had to make the deal, and strike the bargain.     When she came to terms with it, it was nothing more than a simple exchange; she offered to go when He came for her without a fuss.     And when he saw her again at the end of her life, there were no regrets.       For she had lived half a lifetime with nothing more than her own voices.       

 Once upon a time the world spun so fast that it was nearly impossible to get off it. I say nearly . Which is to say: there was a way. A small thing, really. A trick of the mind. For if one were able to conjure an image, a recollection, a tale, it was just possible one might be able to leap beyond the world's grasp.     One might, perhaps, be swept gently up into the ether of something else entirely and placed down carefully. Into a place filled with marvels. A whole new universe.     What is this conjuring? What kind of leap? I hear you ask.     It was nothing so complex.     Nothing exactly unreal.     Only, it took a fall of hubris, a tentative humility—and this is where difficulties arose. For how uncomplicatedly complex is a fall from pride?     But, come, dear reader, and understand this: conceit was tossed into the void by those who succeeded.     Minds were allowed to work as nature intended.     And in such a way, did those who conjured and leapt venture beyond the chaotic