The house at dusk stands out black against the reddening sky, a lone monument upon the hill. The house at dawn looks much the same, yet who can tell what fresh horrors have occurred within its walls during those long hours between.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on November 18th, 2019
__________There once was a town that was besieged by beasts. Cats caught the fish from the lake, curling their paws beneath the waters and hooking them out with a quick swipe of their claws. Foxes ate the chickens in the hen house, biting off their heads with a single snap of their jaws. And packs of wolves… well, they would eat your own grandmother in her bed if they caught so much as a sniff of her.
So to keep themselves safe, the people of the town built a wall that stretched around the whole of the town.
In the days that followed its completion, the cats climbed over it, the foxes burrowed under it, and the wolves bit through the wires as if they were string. Only the people of the town were stopped by the wall, trapped inside and unable to escape.
“What’s wrong with the wall?” they wondered, and together set about identifying where they had gone wrong. It needs to be higher, they said. Deeper. Stronger.
Those were the faults they identified. Those were the faults they vowed to fix.
__________
Notes:
1. Written December 2019
__________A prince set off in search of the spring of eternal life. Even though his navigator would assure him each morning that it was just a little further, and soon his journey would be complete, the prince travelled for many years without ever seeming to find himself any closer to his destination.
One day, the prince was overcome with thirst as they toiled across the shifting desert sands. He drank the last of the water, and then declared that they must arrive soon, else surely they would die beneath the merciless sun.
The prince’s navigator once again assured the prince that they were almost there. He spread out his maps on the burning sand and said, “Look, my Lord and Master. You are here, and the spring of eternal life is there, and this path will lead us there by nightfall.”
The prince studied the maps, and it was apparent that they were not here, that their destination was not there, and the path, if it existed at all, would lead them only in spirals. It was only now, after so many years of ceaseless toil, that the prince realised that the navigator was mad.
He offered his navigator to the gods, but neither blood nor prayers were enough to grant the prince his salvation. By the time he was found, his skin had burned to dust, his bones to sand, and the only evidence of his existence was the gold of his many rings, which still shone out from the shifting desert sands as brightly after a thousand years as did the unceasing sun above.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on November 12th, 2019
2. And based on true events
3. Also the title is derived from Beyond A Steel Sky
4. Which I’ve never been able to complete
My mother, my wife, and my daughter were returning from my funeral when they decided to stop at an inn for the evening.
After they had eaten, bathed, and dressed themselves for bed, I thought I would surprise them with my presence.
But rather than delight at my miraculous return, the three of them instead expressed severe displeasure at my appearance. My mother blew out the lamps, my wife closed her eyes, and my daughter feigned sleep.
In the morning they left without me.
__________
Notes:
1. Written in December 2019
2. This and Lavenham Ghost Story were my attempts at writing Japanese-style folk ghost stories.
3. They were probably not a success.
4. But I quite like them anyway
A Thousand And One Tales is A Hundred And One Tales old (plus a few more now), so here’s a nice convenient big list of them all in a row.
Tale #1: The Unhappy Bride
Tale #2: Wun, Mun and Undun
Tale #3: The Cat Wife
Tale #4: To Follow A Cat
Tale #5: Lonely Isobel
Tale #6: The Farmer’s Daughters
Tale #7: The Woman Who Was Granted Her Wish
Tale #8: The Three Wishes
Tale #9: The Saddest King of All
Tale #10: The Old Lady And The Three Brothers
Tale #11: The Old Lady And The Thief
Tale #12: The Old Woman Who Lived In The Woods
Tale #13: God, The Devil, And The Man Upon The Road
Tale #14: The Jealous Lord
Tale #15: (fragment)
Tale #16: The Man Who Made Himself A Wife
Tale #17: The Woman Who Lived Alone In The Woods
Tale #18: The King And His Weeping Wife
Tale #19: The Three Doors And The Fourth
Tale #20: (fragment)
Tale #21: The Wolves In The Woods
Tale #22: A Long Winter’s Night
Tale #23: Old Tales Are Made New In The Telling
Tale #24: The Lunar Queen
Tale #25: The King And The Light
Tale #26: The Seven Sisters
Tale #27: The Three Sorrowful Sisters
Tale #28: The Wolf In The Woods
Tale #29: The Wolf In The Woods
Tale #30: The King’s Daughter And The King’s Son
Tale #31: The castle was a prison in a sea of untouched snow
Tale #32: The Grief Stricken King
Tale #33: The Offered Daughter And The Promised Sons
Tale #34: The Lonely Heart
Tale #35: The Lonely Man’s Tale
Tale #36: The Old Woman’s Tale
Tale #37: To Lose Your Faith
Tale #38: The Idle Wish
Tale #39: The town, the forest, the past
Tale #40: Methods Of Torture, Methods Of Death (extract)
Tale #41: (fragment)
Tale #42: The Bear In The Cage
Tale #43: The Girl In The Bear
Tale #44: The Falling
Tale #45: The Floating
Tale #46: (fragment)
Tale #47: The Old Lady And The Woodcutter
Tale #48: The Old Lady And The Crows
Tale #49: The Innkeeper And The Woman
Tale #50: The Stolen Child (A Tale Told In Tales)
Tale #51: The Cat In The Graveyard
Tale #52: The Silk Gloves
Tale #53: A Finger For A Favour
Tale #54: The Search For Lost Things
Tale #55: The Forgetful Prince And The Regretful Bride
Tale #56: In The Woods In The Winter
Tale #57: The Thaw
Tale #58: The Tree
Tale #59: (fragment)
Tale #60: The Lure
Tale #61: (fragment)
Tale #62: Lessons For My Children
Tale #63: And We Went To War
Tale #64: Memorial For The Executed Generals Of The Siege Of Colchester
Tale #65: And In Their Ships They Sailed Out Across The Sea
Tale #66: The Silver Ship
Tale #67: The Fountain
Tale #68: The Drunken Sailor
Tale #69: The Swift
Tale #70: The Crow
Tale #71: The Crow Tree
Tale #72: Our paths trace out behind us
Tale #73: (fragment)
Tale #74: The Woman In The Woods
Tale #75: The Woods In The Woman
Tale #76: Of Wolves And Women
Tale #77: The Wolf And The Girl
Tale #78: On Hansel And Gretel, And Horror
Tale #79: Trail Of Breadcrumbs
Tale #80: A Labyrinth of Streets
Tale #81: How to escape from every maze in the world
Tale #82: Ariadne’s Web
Tale #83: Above the clouds, beneath the sun
Tale #84: The Fairy Tale Heart
Tale #85: Married Hearts
Tale #86: (blue plaque on ruined wall)
Tale #87: To Follow A Child
Tale #88: To Ponder Infinity
Tale #89: The Poor Woman
Tale #90: The Woman Who Lived In The Woods
Tale #91: The King’s Wives
Tale #92: The Morning Birds Free The Soul, The Night Ones Take Them
Tale #93: A circle, whispering time
Tale #94: Beneath the weeping willow she sat down and wept
Tale #95: In The Garden Between
Tale #96: On her shoulders, ravens (a dream of judgement)
Tale #97: The Lord And His Angel
Tale #98: The Woman Of Small Miracles
Tale #99: The Protection of Bees
Tale #100: Old Hope
Tale #101: A Story In The Afternoon
Tale #102: You Don’t Have To Read This, But I Hope You Do
Tale #103: Lavenham Ghost Story
__________
Notes:
1. The tales can mostly be read in any order, but a couple come in pairs – Tales #28 and #29 are two versions of the same story, and Tale #43 follows on directly from Tale #42.
2. There will be more to come
3. So many more