The crow looked at the corpse beneath its feet and thought about the inevitability of death, and the futility of life.
Still, the crow ate on.
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Notes:
1. Written on September 19th, 2016
2. The last line is a repetition of the last line of Tale #34: The Lonely Heart
The swift is an entirely airborne bird. It feeds on moths and bees. It does not nest, and sleeps as it flies. Its feet never touch the ground.
A swift is born in the sky. Unlike other birds, swifts give birth to live young, and as they fall the wind wakes them. They must take wing before they hit the sea or else they will drown.
Even in death the swift remains aloft. Its dead body floats upon the warming air. Around it, clouds form, and it is as rain that it is returned to earth.
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Notes:
1. Written on July 23rd, 2018
__________There was a sailor who, while drunk, went out to sea, where he lost control of his boat, and he lost control of his bowels.
But the truth of his story was that claiming drunkenness was merely an attempt to lessen his shame.
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Notes:
1. Written on June 26th, 2018
__________Over the hills, beyond the sea, there is said to be an island. And on the island there is said to be a spring, the waters of which grant new life, riches unimaginable, and the heart’s greatest desire.
And it is also said those that search for it never find it, those that find it never drink from it, and those that drink from it are never seen again.
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Notes:
1. Written on June 22nd, 2018
__________Beyond the ocean, past the known, out upon the unseen sparkling seas, there travels a silver ship, its sails spun from golden thread, its oars carved from bone.
It is crewed by the people it rescues from the depths – the lost and the lonely; the imprisoned and the condemned; the innocent proclaimed guilty by the guilty; the free enslaved by those that talk, always, of freedom; the dead that should not have died; the living that could not save them, no matter how much they tried.
And it seeks out others, too, across the waters of the world. These people it does not save. It leaves them to drown, their ships sunk, their crimes finally punished, their names forever now forgotten.
___________
Notes:
1. Written on August 8th, 2018
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