Last night we read Fairy Tales to raise money for breast cancer research. We sat in a yoga studio and drank pink champagne. Everyone's fairy tale was amazing, but I only have mine to share. I wrote 4 and gave myself the following parameters (rather, these parameters were dictated by T and H): (There is blood, there is improbable love, there is magic, there is a lesson or a warning, a quest, a gift, a witch, a wish. And there is not always a happy ending.)
I have been reading the Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales to prepare. He was phenomenal. He was also an aries. He died in his sleep. But before he died, he fell in love many times.
The Story of the Pencil(or Often Times There is a Gift)He takes the pencil out of his shirt pocket and gives it to her. It turns into a dragonfly and then into her only reason to live. She is poor and carries the dragonfly-pencil in her apron and writes him notes all day on paper towels. In the night, when everyone else is sleeping, her notes fly to him and cover his window with bigger messages about safety and human kindness. He is perfectly blond and shaped like a horse, like a horse-man, but also he is very gloomy. So he makes a wish he’s not supposed to make and she comes to him wearing only her dragonfly wings. They kiss and play chess. And ring bells that make songs and tell stories. Then, it seems over and happy, but it’s not. He grows bored and turns her into a pencil. She is a pencil and no longer a girl, but she can still write notes with herself when it is quiet. The next day, he goes to school and gives the pencil-dragonfly-girl to a newer, even poorer girl. This time, the pencil grows wings like a pallid bat and cannot be controlled. But this new girl is smart, and she pretends not to notice. She pretends that the pencil is only a pencil, says, Thank You and walks away.
The Honest White Flower(or Often Times There is a Warning)At first he wants to impress her. She is made out of wax petals and smells of lemons and saltine crackers. He has nothing to impress her with, so he makes something up. He says he is going to build a castle out of recycled tinderboxes. She likes this and so she gives him a single white flower. He does not know how to build a castle, so he sits and watches the flower instead. The flower watches him. Then he tells her that he will build a boat with a fore-royal mast and take to the seas. She smiles and gives him another flower. He puts it with the other by his bed and they don’t seem to wilt. They make his heart beat and ache. He tells her more lies because they seem to be working, to be winning her. He tells her he is the only man for her, he tells her he is made out of good stone. After one month of lies, he has a whole big bouquet of flowers. He believes she loves him. His heart beats bigger. But that night as he sleeps, the flowers grow mouths and sharp teeth and eat out his heart. They plant seeds there in his skin and begin to grow a field of real flowers out of his chest. They are shaped like little white hearts and they always tell the truth whether you like it or not.
The Oak and the Owl(or Often Times There is Improbable Love)When poor Johan’s father finally dies, the last thing he says is that the most important thing in the world is to find true love. His mother and his sister are both wicked women, so he takes this advice to heart. He wraps up a small loaf of bread and walks through the woods to find a girl to love in a true and honest way. His mother gives him one gold ring to give to the wealthiest girl he can find. After a long day lost in the sweet-smelling forest, he rests his head under a giant oak tree. When he wakes a small owl is resting on his shoulder. She is wide-eyed and beautiful. She is a gate to his heart. He knows immediately that he loves her. He stays there with her for days, watching her fly and telling her stories of his father. She brings him stolen food in the night and together they’re happy.
Meanwhile, having grown impatient for their new money to arrive, his sister and mother set out to find him. He has been gone for weeks and they have heard no word, nor any news of the woman he will marry. Much to their horror, they discover him in the woods unable to move. He has grown roots deep into the earth and his skin has taken on the texture of thick oak bark. In his hands that have turned branch-like and wild, he holds a beautiful owl. His mother screams as she sees the wide-eyed owl has the gold ring looped around one of her delicate talons. They beg him to drop the owl, to return to them. They cry and try to pull his roots up. But all the while Johan is smiling peacefully through his tree-face. Eventually, they leave. He spends his whole life as a tree, married to his owl. His family misses him, but he does not miss them. Sometimes, if you pay close attention you can still see him. He is the happiest tree, a steadfast tree with one giant nest in his strong leafy arms where he holds his new family very close and very dear, and sways.
The Lone Star(or Often Times There is a Witch)There once was a wickedly-fast caballero who loved the nights the most. He would ride out into the prairie and sit for hours by the fire and try desperately not to sleep. He was friends with a blue-coated coyote, a roadrunner, and the moon. He dreaded the morning and its big empty sun-blinding days. One night, as he sat up on a cold canyon look-out, an old witch with silver eyes asked to join him. As he had nothing against witches and they too seemed at home in the dark, he offered her a seat on his blanket. They talked for sometime and she was happy to be around such a quick and capable rider. As the dawn came, she asked him if there was anything she could give him in return for his company. He said, “The only thing I’ve ever wanted, was to be out here all night, to not worry about the work of the day, to not burn in the bright burdensome sun.” He laughed and she was on her way.
The next evening as the sun was setting, his horse was anxious and skittish. He decided to calm her by riding it out. He road fast, then faster, then it seemed to him that they were both sparking like flint from the heat of the sunset-race. Soon, his hat caught fire, but it didn’t hurt, then his boots. Next both he and the horse burst bright upwards and off of the horizon entirely. He was still riding when he looked down below him, he saw the ranch, the other horses, the coyote, but he was higher. He and his horse had somehow become part of the darkness. They burned like a brush-fire, they stopped racing, they hung suspended, and together let out their last breaths as they became one of the brightest stars in the night sky.
