“For great services rendered to the gods, I will grant you any wish that is mine to grant,” he said.
I thought for a moment only. “I would like Olivia to love me as much as I love her.”
He shifted on the balls of his feet. “That,” he said, “is not within my power.”
I tried again. “I’d like to be twice as smart.”
But he shook his head. “Try again?” he said, timidly.
“Money,” I shrugged. He signaled negative. “What kind of god are you?” I asked.
“A very small one indeed,” he said, smiling bravely.
When his hated aunt died, a devil appeared to Tom and said, “you did this by the power of your will alone,” and after that Tom willed death on many, and they all died. But when Tom died the devil appeared again and said, “Tom, you are mine now, forever,” and Tom said, “yes, I have killed many.”
But the devil shook his long head and said, “no Tom, you have murdered no one. Each time it was me that took a life when you willed it.” And Tom said, “then I am no murderer, let me be free, devil!” But the devil said, “you are damned not for your deeds but for your thoughts.” And the devil beckoned and Tom burned for eternity.
I had not been back to Philadelphia until she fluttered into my life, intoned her plea, and passed away, delicately, the way a flower might exhale. A powder like pollen showered from her wings, and I knew then that I must go. It did not take long. The trains are very fast these days.
When I am asked for hep it is not for me to turn away. It is not what I do, though perhaps in old age I have forgotten kindness, traded it for habit. My daughters used to tell me that, would tell me that a good deed from me was not as valuable as the good deeds of others. Then of course I left them, and the parts of me that shine, those bits I took with me.
I said the train was fast. I found the house, it was not too much trouble. An old thing, neglected. A golden powder shimmered in the window. I saw the nets of soft cloth, the tattered wings, the pins and glass frames and the smell an old man makes in the kitchen. And so I broke the window with my fist, and they flew from the house, fled upwards to the sun, those golden, showering, shimmering lights.
A fairy tale.
The demon Mahishasura, at birth, was gifted with two bodies - one the body of a man, the second was the body of man’s enemy, the tiger. Mahishasura the man had none of the fierce powers of his brothers, nor was he so strong as to keep back the chill hand of death. But when his human body was slain, a tiger would roar forth from the corpse, and when the tiger fell out crawled the man again.
At this time tomorrow I’ll be posting my first fairy tale.
Just a heads up <3
