A thousand and one tales

Tale #60: The Lure

I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I really don’t.

Every night he comes out here on his little boat and sits under the stars and I’ve tried everything but nothing will work.

I’ve sung my heart out for him, I’ve whispered his name on the breeze, I’ve swum seductive circles round his ship. Quick coquettish flashes of bare skin between the waves, playful splashes with my hands, with my tail, even with my whole body on occasion, leaping high overhead, spiralling in a perfect arc above his boat, rolling and turning and winking as I go, like some desperate theme park whale performing for her lunch, before finally landing in a theatrically lavish way, a plume of water rising up after me in the shape of a heart, perhaps, or replicating my arc in reverse like a rainbow, the edges of it raining down in a fine mist on his upturned face like a caress.

None of it works.

He looks so lonely, too. That’s the funny thing. Usually the lonely ones are the easiest. But not this one. I’ve never known anyone this difficult to seduce.

I fear I’m going to have to resort to brute force soon, smash his ship against the rocks and pull him down to the depths in all the commotion and the carnage of the waves I’ve raised against him. But oh god, the embarrassment of it all, to resort to such crass tactics. The shame.

I’ll never live it down.

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Notes:

1. Written in January 2018

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Tale #59: (fragment)

When I can talk again
I’ll call for you

When I can see again
I’ll look for you

When I can walk again
I will come for you

And when I’ve had my revenge
the crows can bury you

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Notes:

1. Written in November 2017

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Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

Tale #58: The Tree

In the mountains, a few days walk from here, there’s a valley, barely known to the world. It’s cut off by snow and ice for most of the year, and by the rushing meltwaters of its river for much of the rest.

But if you somehow find your way to it, there grows a tree in the clearing there, all crooked and cold and bare. It will listen to your whispers, take them into its heart, and turn, by some dark magic, your lies to truth, or your truth to lies.

Once you’ve said your piece you turn and walk away, back to the world that has changed around you. Only you remember how things were before. Only you remember when your newly borne truth was a lie, when your new lie was true.

Slowly you are driven mad.

While the trees roots grow ever deeper.

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Notes:

1. Written in October 2017

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Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

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Tale #57: The Thaw

Every March, after the thaw, the river that runs through the valley bursts its banks.

And in the fields to the north the dead bodies emerge from beneath the snow: rodents, rabbits, hares; pigeons, sparrows, starlings, crows; a fox, a cat, a dog; a drunk, a suicide; an unidentified child.

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Notes:

1. Written on February 15th, 2018
2. I should have timed this better so it was published in March rather than in June
3. But I did not
4. And it’s too late now

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Tale #56: In the woods in the winter

In the woods. In the winter.

Snow on the bridge. The river frozen below. Wind in the trees.

All beneath a birdless sky.

The wolf limped forward, one footprint in four as red as the moon. In her jaws, a child.

She held the child delicately between her teeth, kept her warm with her tongue, with her breath.

Silence at the camp. The sound of sleep, of the watch going unwatched.

The wolf placed the child by the fire. Licked the blood from her face. Then retreated to the shadows, made enough noise to raise the dead.

She watched as they came. As they shouted, as they panicked. As took the child delicately in their arms, took her back inside to keep her warm by the fire.

The child’s cries were carried on the wind, through the trees, over the bridge, across the river, through the dark and on and on through the night.

Back to where I fell, to where she was found. Back to where I died, where she was born.

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Notes:

1. Written on September 25th, 2017

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Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!