In the end, it was not an invading army from beyond the sea, nor the king’s brother’s men, that brought about the end of this unjust despotic regime. It was the servants and the slaves, the orphans and the wives, taking those hands that struck them daily and breaking them, bone by bone.
In the morning they opened the gates, walked out dazed beyond the city walls. And above them the sky turned pale with ash, a grief as bright as hope.
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Notes:
1. Written in August 2019
__________My mother always said, “Well, you can’t complain.” But it turns out you can. You can.
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Notes:
1. Written in February, 2020
__________The whispers come up from beneath our feet, every step another sigh, every sigh a plea, a cry. But the mistake would be to listen, to stop, to try and find the source. For the voice is a trap, to catch the caring. To steal that final flicker of warmth from your trembling desperate heart, to turn your soul to ice.
Better instead to ignore that snow siren’s cry. Better instead to let your own heart turn to stone.
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Notes:
1. Written on April 1st, 2019
2. See not only Sirens, obviously, but also the Yuki-onna.
“If there’s doubt, say no.”
“How’s saying no going to help, mother? A big bull like that, once his head’s all addled by lust, ain’t no one’s going to stop him.”
“It’s up to him if he won’t hear you. You’ve done your part. Given him fair warning to stop.”
“And then what? Just lie back and let him have his way, safe in the knowledge that at least I protested?”
“Of course not, dearie,” the maid’s mother said. “You’ll gently put your hands around his neck, and with those lacquered nails of yours, slice those throbbing veins of his apart.”
She put down her scissors, and showed her daughter the mirror.
“That’s how I brought your father down to size.”
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Notes:
1. Written in February 2019
2. Upon waking from a dream.
2. Although the rest of the story faded quickly away
There lived a lord who was so worried by his wife’s failure to produce an heir that he sought out a witch and tried to secure her aid.
The witch said, “The price of my help is that, while any son shall be yours, any daughter shall be mine.”
The Lord agreed, and soon he was the father of twins. The lord looked on in pride as his children were delivered. The boy was the image of the Lord, with black hair, a stern face, and a tendency to turn to tears and tantrums.
The daughter looked exactly like her mother. Skin as dark as night, hair as red as blood, a smile as joyous and free as a bird, and a nature as fierce as any wolf.
The lord soon returned to his duties, and left the child’s care to his wife, for he was a busy man, and had no time for the trifles of domesticity. And while the Lord’s paling wife found love in her heart for them both, she could not find in herself any forgiveness for her husband.
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Notes:
1. Written on July 1st, 2019
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