Tag Archives: modern fables

July 8, 2014 · 2:25 am

The King Who Ate Twenty Poison Apples per Day

Once upon a time, there was a very brave king who got very sick.

He was so sick, he went to the wizard’s castle. The wizard took one good look at him and said, “You will have to eat the poison apples.”

The apples came in the mail. They were so poisoned the king had to sign for them. No one else was allowed to receive them or even touch them.

Picking up his first deadly apple and taking a bite the king said to his queen, “My life will never be the same again.”

It wasn’t.

The wizard loaded him up on poison apples. After a time he was eating twenty per day.

The wizard sat him on his throne and said, ” I’m going to kill you so you can live,” and he drained his blood.

Then the wizard locked him up in a small room in the castle and fed him one poisoned apple after another. The king got so sick that no one could see him, not even the queen.

The king lay silent in his bed. He was alive, but he wasn’t. He slept a poisoned sleep.

Then a princess came to him, in disguise, and bending over him, she filled him back up with his own blood.

When he awoke, the wizard was there.

“You are alive,” said the wizard, “but you will have to eat the poison apples every day for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll eat them,” said the brave King, “so that I can be king and love my queen and play with my grandchildren again.”

And he ate them, every day, and he lived happily ever after — for a while.

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April 15, 2014 · 12:40 am

The Sun

Looking south, the sun cast one arm over the Amazon basin.

Looking north, it put the other, covered with golden bracelets, lightly on the Sierra Nevada. It draped itself upon the earth.

Sliding through the jungle and slipping off the peaks it withdrew to the rumpled Pacific, and pausing there, and reaching its hands down to the west coast beaches, it ran its fingers through the tidal pools. They turned pure gold.

“And there, and there and also there,” the sun said softly, and it laid tender fingers of light across the stirring sand.

We are the best,” said the mountains, always first and last to warm and be warmed. ”

Then the palms and pines along the western beaches whispered, running their fingers through their lovely hair.

“What about us? What about us?” they called out.

The sun flipped its fingers playfully and splashed sunlight up into all of the leafy trees lining the beaches, and seeing this they rose up on their pointy root toes, grabbed pieces of the light and fixed it in their hair.

Suddenly, each wore a sparkling tiara.

“Oh,” the trees murmured softly. “Give us more!”

But there was too much for them to hold.

Big pieces of the sun broke free and sailed toward the east.

The great sun slid along, pulling a shade across the Pacific ocean. It rans fast now towards Asia and Australia, crying out for Europe, calling out for Africa.

It ran, singing out for the Himalayas, the Tien Shan, the Urals, laying itself down upon the Tibetan Plateau and the West Siberian Plain.

“I’m coming now,” it whispered softly to Lake Baikal, to the Bay of Bengal and to the great Sundarbans.

“We are waiting,” they called back, “for you.”

Jealous, the great peninsulas of Europe, the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan, beckoned to the light. “But us, but us, but what about all of us!”

“Fall on our peaks too!” called the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines, Dinaric Alps, Balkans, and Carpathians,

And the sun, with a total, complete and utter equanimity, sang out softly to the glowing earth, “But you know so well my precious ones from all my time with you, that I … I have no favorites.”

And then it fell with a laughing, loyal, lasting love upon the whole of the great Serengeti.

 

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March 27, 2014 · 12:15 pm

Heaven Minus Church

When he arrived in heaven there was a bit of a stir. It wasn’t that there was any question of him getting in or not. He had no merit, but he pleaded the proper plea, “Guilty as charged!” and the “It’s on him,” and he was good to go.

The problem was that he didn’t want to be there.

“No, you’ll have to stay now,” they said. “We can’t reverse a plea once it has been accepted.”

“I won’t go to church!” he yelled.

“There is no church here,” they told him.

“Thank God!” He exclaimed.

“So what’s the deal with you?” They asked, “Why all the drama?”

“I liked earth,” he said, “I liked my family; I liked my friends. I liked church, the music, the cool concepts, helping people, but I didn’t fit with the hyper-religious types, and I really don’t want to be stuck with them here. And besides, I say bad words sometimes, and I really don’t want to stop. It’s fun!”

“So,” said the angel in charge, “And you think that’s a problem because …”

“How about this?” He asked. “How about if you send me to a little corner spot where the other bad people in heaven hang out?”

“Sure, but you don’t get sent anywhere here; you get to pick,” they said. “There is a rough crowd that hangs out down by the sand bar, a couple of ex-preachers in that group. Try them out.”

And off he went. Before long he had settled in at the sand bar and could be seen eating, drinking, waving his hands, dancing and gesticulating wildly. Over the loud music you could here him yelling crazy, wild hilarities, and you could hear loud guffawing and unrestrained hooting.

And glancing around heaven, quite a few saints could be seen looking longingly toward the sand bar, much as the wedding guests at a long wedding meal might keep glancing at the loudest, happiest, craziest table at the party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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March 27, 2014 · 12:08 pm

Hell Yes!

“I want to talk to the boss!”

“Yeah, so does everybody.”

“There has been a mistake!”

“Yeah, everybody says that.”

“I went to church!”

“Good for you.”

“I still go to church!”

“Then you are in exactly the right place.”

“What? There are churches here?”

“Are you kidding me? There are more churches in hell than any place in the cosmos. Hell, there is a church on every corner. ”

“What? That’s crazy!”

“Yup, ca-razy man, ca-razy. Little churches, big churches, mid-sized churches — you got it all here!”

“No, you’re lying!”

“No, I swear to God, with all the religious people who are here, all the priests and pastors, Sunday school teachers, elders, worship leaders and Bible study leaders — you think somebody didn’t do a church plant? You think somebody doesn’t still need to prove something? You think somebody isn’t still building the kingdom? You think somebody isn’t still taking the offering?”

“But what about the fire?”

“Fire? Fire? We got the fire, and the brimstone! Hell yes! You ain’t heard a fiery sermon ’til you’ve heard one preached in hell! And alter calls, and prayin’ and slayin’ — we got all that here! You are gonna love it here! There is no better place for a good churchman or church lady to make a permanent home and join a church than in hell!”

“People don’t want to leave?”

“Are you kidding me, church people want to leave hell? Why would they want to do that?”

“To go to heaven!”

“Man, you don’t get around much, do you? There are no good churches in heaven!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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March 9, 2014 · 4:25 pm

The Magic Surf Pebbles

Once their was a boy who went to the beach and looked down at the waves.

He didn’t go, except to look, but when he saw the waves from the top of the cliff, when he saw them curling up and bowling up and cupping up and carrying long all the little surfers, then he went down to the water.

And the waves stopped.

So he walked down the bright, hot sand and got in place in the water, and crouched down to wait for the next wave, and then the rest of the little surfers came too.

“Move over,” said a bossy redhead, “this is our beach, and you don’t belong here!”

And so he was crowded over to the outside edge of possibility by her and all her little hunching friends, and so he was scrunched there, on the outer edge of feasibility.

Suddenly, from behind him, came another girl, softly, and she said, “But you, within the you of the quintessential you, you get the magic pebbles,” and she began to drop them into his open hands. And there were so many some fell out into his lap. They didn’t look magic.

Then the wave came, and almost waking, he refused to let the womping, woofing, warming water go, but clutching his pebbles, he took it in a whoosh, and riding up, came at last within the bowl inside the very lovely blue and arcing bowl, and swooping there, down and long he rode, and it was good to the very end of all that was prepared for him.

And he was happy.

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January 29, 2014 · 11:31 am

Smoke

Once there was a girl who took a smoke and she went on a wuffle. When she got back, she took a slunk.

When she came up, she didn’t feel so good so she took another smoke and then off she went wuffling again. Wuffling changes you, and she came back changed. She knew new stuff and didn’t know old stuff.

Smoke, wuffle, slunk; smoke, wuffle, slunk — and one day she didn’t know much of anything.

So she went to her travel agent.

“You’re a wuffie,” he said rudely.

“No ticket, no ride,” she said and winked, and she decided right there to take a snizzle.

But she wasn’t done yet.

Smoke, wuffle, slunk; smoke, wuffle, slunk. Now she was absolutely distraught, so she went to see a trusted friend.

“It’s serious!” he said.

“I’m moving on now,” she said.

“Do you want some help?” he asked.

“Sure, “she said.

Then she rose from her chair, wafted across the room, smiled slyly and drifted out of the window.

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January 18, 2014 · 4:20 am

Frida

Once a beautiful young, fractured girl fell in love with powerful old man, who was famous, and twice her age. And winning him and being won by him, she picked him up and deposited him in her heart. From this vantage point, he wrapped her in ribbon and gave her as a gift to himself.

They married.

He painted the world and became famous.

She painted herself and became famously beautiful.

He had an affair.

And then, like a girl falling from a great building, she fell as if from a great height and landed in the street below.

And thus crushed, she took her famous, selfish old husband out of her heart and she put him in her head, right between her eyes, and from there he sent out his ropes and wrapped them around her neck, and she died quite completely.

He reached out to the world for praise, and received it.

She reached out to herself and touched her own face, and she gently tugged it off.

Her face in her hands, she crumbled it up into tiny pieces, added oil to it, and brushed it on a canvass.

She looked at her beautiful, dark, vibrant skin tones, her black shinning hair, her gorgeous eyebrows, and smiled. There she was, alive, lovely, bordered with deep, rich color, defiant on the canvass.

This soothed her, the removal of her face, the smearing it on canvass, the surrounding it in rich color, so she did it, again and again, removing her face, her hair, her eyes, her skin and her mighty eye brows and applying them to canvasses. She painted her feeling face, her stolid face, her thinking face, her angry face, her sad face, her dominated face, her proud face, her dead face, her being born face, her brave face and her terribly trapped and her lovely dying face too.

And so went her life; it was love and death and pain and beautiful paint.

And when she finally died at last, death was nothing at all to her, for she had died many times before. Dying was just like painting; it was just peeling off one of your faces and attaching it to a canvass so that you might put back on yet another of your many beautiful faces once again.

And what about her lovely face? Like her husband — it out lived her.

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January 14, 2014 · 12:41 am

The Hurt Thing

Once there was a girl who found a hurt thing. She picked it up and put it in her heart.

There in her heart, it hurt, like a baby bird fallen from its nest.

The police were called. They couldn’t help. One of the officers said to her, “Hopefully you can pull yourself together and put this thing behind you. ”

She did that, the best she could, but the hurt still lay within her.

So she went to church. “You’ve sinned,” the church said.  “You have to repent, and never to do  that again.” She was struck to the quick, and she did as she was told, and said what she was supposed to say.

She actually felt better, but when she left, the hurt thing still flapped a broken wing within.

She looked around desperately for more help. She went to a therapist.  “You need to talk about it,” said the therapist, “and grieve.”

She did, and it helped, but still the hurt didn’t leave her.

A friend told her to go to the doctor. She did. The doctor gave her some pills. They helped, but she could still apprehend the hurt thing, as if it was calling to her from the room next door.

She lived, and worked, and took care of herself, and survived.

Years later, she met someone who after they had gotten to know her a bit, asked her what was wrong.

“Nothing,’ she said.

“What happened to you?” they asked.

“You can tell?” she said.

“Yes,” her new friend said, “it’s in your eyes.”

“I put some hurt in my heart,” she said.

“I am so sorry,” her new friend said. “I did the same thing.”

And then, just like that the new friend climbed into her heart.

“What are you doing?” asked to he girl who had tried everything, shocked and alarmed by what was happening.

And answering from inside of her heart, her new friend said, “I’m holding your hurt.”

And then they both began to cry.

“I’m so sorry,” the one in her heart sobbed, that this happened to you.”

There was some more crying, both of them were crying, and then there was a long silence.

Then the girl who had tried everything said quietly, “It’s not hurting right now.”

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January 8, 2014 · 2:48 am

The Word Factory

Once upon a time, in a deep, dark hardwood forest, far from any city, town or homestead, a word factory suddenly exploded into full-production.

With a clunk, and a hiss of steam from the engines of invention, cogs, levers, pulleys and rattling conveyors poured out a line of beautiful, freshly-honed words that absolutely covered the ground and filled the air.

Sheer chaos and order appeared. There were vocables escaping into the forest, rhymes dancing in the air, alliterations chasing each other through the clearing, neologisms running back up the conveyors, repurposed kennings doing high-fives on the sidelines and a whole pack of parallel structures forming a chorus line around the warehouse. In the middle of all this chaos was the master word-chef running around snatching up words and stuffing them into his lovelies — his proverbs and anti-proverbs, fables and antifables, a few dislocated-soliloquies, some expositions and bunch of hyperattentive narrativities.

Like bright candies spilled on a kitchen table to decorate gingerbread houses, the forest plant churned out its colorful linguistic astonishments. With sophisticated electronics and complex robotics, the master thrashed about in the middle of the words, running and laughing and crying and gesticulating manically. He was here and there and everywhere. He tested and retested his lovelies , arranged and rearranged them, unpacked and repacked them and frosted and candied and glazed them until they were near perfect — lightening, bon mot, dessert, the cats meow and the flicking tail too. Then with a flourish of mind, all his rhetoricals were packed, boxed, labeled and stacked in neat piles in the factory warehouse.

No one came to shop, but the factory just kept pumping out product, crazy with energy, like the broom in the sorcerers apprentice.

Then finally, one day a friend of the master word chef came to visit. Toured by the chef, she looked over the clattering conveyors. She snatched at a few of the words flying around her head. She peered in the door of the warehouse at all the high stacks. A nearby pallet of words shifted and seemed to move toward her.

“I don’t get it,” she said, stepping backwards — from what felt like a hot oven — into the open space of the yard. Even there, however, the words, phrase and sentences swarmed around her and she seemed a bit confused.

“Are you marketing these?” she asked.

“I make them for myself,” the word-man responded, “and a few friends.”

“Well, feel free to take a break,” she replied swatting at a metaphor, “especially if you notice that there are some other things you need to be doing.”

“I can’t,” he replied, and then glancing over his shoulder and seeing the newly coined words beginning to pile up at the end of a conveyor line, he rushed off laughing and gesticulating wild-a-phonically.

The friend went home, through the forest, ringing with odd vocables. She was as traumatized as Gretel, pursued as she was, for some distance by a personally relevant and particularly persistent axiomatic phrase.

“That was disconcerting,” she said to herself quietly upon arriving home and locking the door.

The word-maker looked up from his conveyors for a moment, a syllable in one hand and a word in the other, smiled softly to himself, and slamming them together said, “Va-va-voom suave-a-ka-boom!”

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December 14, 2013 · 2:23 pm

Falling

He stepped to the edge, paused for 78 years, and then leaning forward, fell, off the cliff.

Below him, thousands of meters below, angled and jagged like the Alps, peaks, points, and particularized pro-frontal promontories rose to meet him; prior plans, past promenades and particularly attractive pouts, pips, pants and pie charts, familiar all, shot upward to meet him.

Falling fast, he looked to the sky above — nothing — then glanced down again at his fall. The jutting razor-sharp edges below were nearer now, and they seemed to be knifing up towards him as if alive, coming at him now like vicious sets of teeth, gnashing the air he would soon fall into and pass through.

He extended his arms, he closed his eyes, he relaxed his body, and swan-diving, he opened, and fell fast now, symmetrically, cutting through the hissing air, and then — as if his feet had exploded with fire — his trajectory altered, and he swooped, back up, began to ascend, and suddenly as if powered up, he rocketed back the way he’d fallen, shooting skyward like a small bottle rocket, flying upward now like a great space craft, charged now like a superman, he put his hands together in front of him and disappeared into the universe.

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