George had been alone all of his life. Each day, he asked every maiden in turn for a kiss, and always they would say no. But the next day he would ask them again all the same, and the next, and the next. Never, of course, did they say yes.

Eventually all the maidens were married, and George had nobody left to ask. One night soon after he sat in the town square and cried beneath the moon. Out in the woods a spirit heard his cries and came forth to see the source of such despair.

“Why do you cry?” the spirit asked him, for never had it seen such a sight of abandonment and anguish.

“I have been alone all my life, and never known the touch of another,” said George. “I would like to know what it is like to kiss another, just once, before I die.”

And so the spirit kissed him, and granted him his wish, and returned from whence it came.

***

The next morning George was found in the square, his heart caught between his teeth. His lungs fluttered in the branches of a tree, and when the people of the town touched his body, his skin fell away like pages from a book.

His bones were placed in a box for the schoolchildren to play with, and he was never mentioned again.

__________

Notes:

1. Written ages ago
2. But I can’t find exactly when
3. 2015, maybe
4. But I’m sure it was before
5. The real Lonesome George was a tortoise
6. And a hundred and something years old