sadness

Tale #32: The Grief Stricken King

There lived a king who was being driven mad with grief.

He ripped out his heart, but the pain did not stop. He pulled out his lungs, yet still he screamed. He scratched out his eyes, but the tears still flowed.

It was only when he put a bullet in his brain that he at last found peace.

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Notes:

1. Written September 2016

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Tale #31: The castle was a prison in a sea of untouched snow

There lived a King and his daughter, alone in a castle in a land of endless snow.

“If you go outside you will die,” said the King.

“If I stay in here I will hardly have lived,” said his daughter, as she unbuttoned the door and stepped outside into a world she had never been allowed to know.

The King followed her to the door and pleaded with her not to go, and when she did not heed his cries he snapped an icicle from the eaves and hurled it straight into her heart.

“Go, then! Go!”

He wept. He went back inside. He sat on his throne.

She wept. She walked on. She walked away.

The snow before her whiter even than the sky. Her footsteps behind redder always than the last.

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Notes:

1. Written September 2016
2. This was the wintryest story I could find
3. The title was inspired by/derived from “There’s A River In The Valley Made Of Melting Snow, by A Silver Mt Zion

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Tale #28: The Wolf In The Woods

There was a woman who lived in the woods, and she had lived there so long it was all she knew. And yet occasionally she dreamt of other people and other places and worlds beyond her knowledge.

Each night a wolf came to her house, and rattled the windows and raged against the door and tried to force its way in, but her house stood firm. Each morning the woman checked the locks and tightened the latches and made sure everything was as strong and as tight as could be. And this went on for some time.

But one evening in the depths of winter the wolf rattled the windows and raged against the door and scratched so deep into the walls that eventually it found a way in. And it burst upon the old woman and knocked her to the ground and thrust its face towards hers. Its tongue ran hungrily over her lips and her cheeks, licked away the salt from her eyes, wormed its way into her ear, wormed its way deeper and deeper inside.

And it pushed itself through what it found there and into her mind and pushed out things she knew and swirled the rest around until all was confusion and all was noise and nothing quite made sense no matter how much she thought it should.

In the morning she looked around but the wolf was gone. She wanted to weep, and did not know why.

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Notes:

1. Written on May 25th, 2016
2. This story was exhibited at Nunn’s Yard Gallery, Norwich, in December 2018.
3. Alongside The Wolf In The Woods

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