Tale #88: To Ponder Infinity

There lived an expansionist king, whose policies of growth ensured his kingdom doubled in reach every single year of his reign.

In the 64th year of his rule, having seen the extent of his domain grow from the single planet of his birth to the 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets of its current jurisdiction, he called upon his most trusted advisor, and asked her how many more years would it take until he commanded power over the whole infinite expanse of the limitless universe in which they lived. For he wished one day to retire, and he wondered how many more years he needed to remain upon the throne before his dream of complete dominion over all was achieved.

“Infinity cannot be reached by multiplication, no matter how vast in scope the numbers are,” she advised. “So you could reign forever, less a day, and still not achieve your dream of an infinite kingdom.”

The King bade his advisor farewell, for he wished for solitude in which to ponder her words. He sat on his throne and spent the night contemplating the nature of the infinite. The King soon went mad, and died.

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Notes:

1. Written on 1st April, 2019

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The Man Who Ripped His Own Guts Out In Disgust

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Notes:

1. Written on 12th June, 2009
2. A pre-emptive comic for tonight, tomorrow, the rest of our lives

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Crabs

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Notes:

1. Written on 27th April, 2009

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Tale #78: On Hansel And Gretel, And Horror

For me, perhaps for everyone, what I find to be the most dreadful part of Hansel and Gretel, the most horrifying bit, where it ultimately turns it into a tale of horror beyond compare, is the happy-ever-after ending.

There is an escalation of horrors throughout the story, of course – their mother’s death; the jealous malevolence of their stepmother; their abandonment in the woods; the pitcher-plant lure of the gingerbread house; the witch; the imprisonment; the slavery; the threatened (but never actualised) death by cannibalism.

But in a way this is all for show, a deft piece of misdirection, obscuring the real horror at the heart of the tale, the monster lurking at the edge of the screen as the credits roll, that final moment of dread as the screen goes black, that gnaws at you all night.

For here is our happy ending: the witch is dead, the stepmother is dead, and Hansel and Gretel return home to their father.

Their father, who took them to the woods and abandoned them, not once but twice.

Their father, who was perfectly willing to let them die, simply to appease his new wife.

Hansel and Gretel escape from the forest, and they escape the witch. But can there be any possible escape for them from their father. From his blankness, from his pliability, his disinterest and neglect. From his next, inevitable, betrayal.

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Notes:

1. Written in 2017 sometime
2. I remember starting it in January 2017
3. While ill
4. At the Eden Project
5. But I have no idea when I finished it

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Magic Trick

Our mother was a magician. She performed on stage and everything. She was brilliant. One day we came home from school and she had bricked herself up in the chimney.

“I’m in here,” she said cheerily.

“What are you doing in there,” I said.

“Hiding,” she replied.

“From who?” I asked.

“Everyone,” she said.

“How did you get in there, anyway?” Jane asked. “It’s tiny in there.”

Jane knew that cause once she’d crawled in the fireplace and pushed her head up there looking for fairies, and she’d almost got her head stuck.

“It was a bit of a squeeze,” Mum admitted.

She must have done some impressive contortions to slide herself up there. I could see Jane looking up and down the wall, imagining Mum’s body all stretched out up the pipe, standing on tiptoes, her arms pointing right up to heaven.

This still didn’t explain how she’d bricked up the fireplace behind her, but then Mum never did like explaining her tricks. She said it’d spoil them.

“Now go outside and watch this,” she told us, and we went and sat in the garden and waited. Eventually there was a puff of smoke, and a great fat pigeon flew out of the chimney pot and fluttered away across the street.

Two weeks later child protection arrived, and we’ve been in the orphanage ever since. They’re still looking for Dad.

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Notes:

1. Written on August 8th, 2019

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