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| Oh my very beloved, rest your eyes and hearken unto me, and I shall tell you a story. At the time that the story I shall presently relate to you takes place, all of Europe---and in those days, when you said all of Europe, you might as well say all the world---was experiencing a momentous upheaval. The mob had seized the reins of power in France, and all across the continent, long files of soldiers marched to become food for powder. But let us not concern ourselves with the movements of armies, with weather-gauges and sailing ships crammed full of cannon and lime-laced rum. Tom Unlikely had been born about as far from the sea as could reasonably be expected in a land sometimes called the Isle of Avalon, to a father and mother dreadfully impoverished who had yet still hoped for a son to carry on their family name and in whom their love would be reflected. As is usual in tales of this sort, they had waited to long in an attempt to accumulate a reserve of capital to finance this project, and were left unable to conceive; thus they turned to an old woman known for undertaking certain magical tasks sub rosa, and so Tom Unlikely, as he was subsequently known, came into this world from within a pumpkin of unusual size. Do not be distracted by this minor detail, my dear one. It has no bearing upon the story, although we may stop to ponder the curiosity of birth from a pumpkin as opposed to the more traditional nutshell. No explanation will be offered, however, so it is perhaps best to cast it from your mind. In stories like this, there is always a girl. I am not one to defy tradition so openly and in such a fashion, and so in this story too, oh my beloved, there is also a girl, who was always sad, and who they called Too-Thin, or the Too-Thin-Girl, although of course this was not her given name, which was Eunice. So perhaps the popular appellation was an improvement. Tom Unlikely was by nature a humorous fellow (and perhaps I mislead you, for there are those who suspect his good nature came in part from his gestation within a squash of the order Cucurbitales) and his natural inclination was to try and cheer up the Too-Thin-Girl. (In the interest of brevity, we have skipped forward some twenty years at this point; although this deprives you of some of young Tom Unlikely's youthful adventures, it is easier on the hands of your humble scribe, and gets us somewhat nearer to being in media res.) "Eunice," said Tom Unlikely one day---for only he was scrupulous about using her given name---"Eunice, you're always so sad. Isn't there something I could do to cheer you up?" "Oh, Tom Unlikely," said Eunice, "I am not sure if there is anything that can cheer me up, but a star I wished upon has fallen from the sky into seaside, or so I have heard, and if it can be brought to me, perhaps it can cure my sadness." "Well," said Tom, "I had thought more like telling you a particularly droll joke, but I can do this instead." And so he set out into the world to seek the fallen star. He walk for days and days. At this time, it was impressive for a coach to travel more than seven miles an hour, and so---not to inject an unromantic note of factual accuracy into the proceedings---this was not unexpected. Along the way, he saw many curious sights: fencibles building towers on hills to relay heliograph signals, should the Ogre of Corsica invade, impressed faeries fortifying a mound, redcoats drilling on town commons, bridge trolls parley-vousing francais, and other such things. The whole country was preparing for war, it seemed. "Well," said Tom Unlikely to himself, "here is a pretty thing, for while everyone around me is going to war to strike a blow for King and Country, I am trying to find a star that has fallen by the sea-side. It's a funny old world, isn't it?" After many days and many adventures to be detailed later under separate cover, Tom unlikely came to the sea-side. There, as he had hoped, was the fallen star, half buried in the sand with the tide lapping up to it and back again, glinting dully in the late afternoon sun. Surrounding it were a number of soldiers, wearing blue. "Hum!" said Tom Unlikely to himself. "I don't believe those are British soldiers at all!" Indeed they were not; they were in fact soldiers in service to the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (or di Bounaparte, as he was then often called by many people of Tom Unlikely's acquaintance). The Emperor himself, it happened, had also seen the star fall, and Empress Marie Louise of Austria had assured him that its retrieval would make her cold heart warm to him. "Hallo," said a French soldier, speaking English with a French accent for the sake of narrative convenience, "this star is ours. We are to bring it to the Emperor himself." "Oh-ho!" said Tom Unlikely. "That star's mine, and I shall take it myself to make a girl named Eunice happy in her heart, or my name's not Tom Unlikely." "We are armed," replied the Frenchman, levelling his musket, "and thus our arguments carry a greater weight." "Well, that doesn't seem very egalitarian of you," said Tom Unlikely, reasonably. "True. I am of course open to suggestions, should you have one, though." "Well, I'm a bit of a dab hand at jumping," said Tom Unlikely, who was no such thing. "Perhaps we should jump for the star?" "That's the most absurd offer I've ever heard," replied the Frenchman, and then, perhaps remembering he was in a faerie story, he added: "I like it!" "Splendid," said Tom Unlikely. "Then we're agreed. You first." "It's only right," said the Frenchman, "for France is first among nations." And so saying, he leapt right over the star and landed neatly on his feat. "I'm not in my prime any more," he said, "but I think you'll agree that was pretty good." "Oh yes, very good," said Tom Unlikely, who was a little worried now. "Can I have a moment to prepare?" "But of course," said the Frenchman. "You'll probably be wanting to catch your breath after that leap of mine anyway." Tom Unlikely placed his palms against the fallen star. It was cool to the touch. He closed his eyes. "Listen, star," said Tom Unlikely, under his breath, "I'm not very important. I haven't come as far as this foreign fellow. I'm not going to take you back to an Emperor with a fancy court. But there's this girl, isn't there always? I'm sure you've heard this a hundred thousand times before, but I mean it, I really do, there's this girl and I am mad for her, star, I absolutely am, and I have waited my whole life to see her smile. So if you're more than a lump of cooling iron, if there really is a little magic and a little romance to you, help me out, I beseech you." "Are you ready, English boy? I am patient, considering my Gallic antecedents, but you know, that only goes so far." "I am ready," said Tom Unlikely, without opening his eyes. He wrapped his arms around the star, as far as they could go. He bent his knees slightly, took a deep breath and jumped. Up into the sky he rose, until the shouting of the French below him and the crackle of musketry died away, until he could feel the clouds brush past his skin, and then he came back down, slowly, carefully, the star still clutched tight against him, until at last he felt the familiar fields of home beneath his feet. The too-thin girl was waiting for him, eating a stalk of celery. "Hullo, Tom Unlikely," she said, half-smiling. "I see you've brought me a star." "I have, and let me assure you, miss, that this business of retrieving fallen stars is lunacy." The too-thin girl laughed until tears came. "Oh Tom," she said, "that is a terrible pun." | | |
| The sky decided on rain around noon, and it caught me on my way back to work, fat droplets of water---a description like "rosy-fingered dawn" for the modern era, I think---hitting the pavement with audible popping noises, like heavy fingers drumming on a cheap table. I was also getting wet, of course, but I'd been sweating in the weak heat already, so it hardly mattered. The city is growing on me, with all of its palpable absurdity. It will never be Waukegan, which, though not the home of my birth, is where, ultimately, I consider myself to be from, but it has a certain insane charm to it. I maneuver through crowds of TFK hipsters and office fixture personal asssistants to go on my lunchtime walk, watch tourists ride horse-drawn carriages, once even saw a woman riding on the armrest of--- I presume--- her boyfriend's motorized wheelchair as it crossed the street against the flow of traffic. Madness! I couldn't feel anything close to at home here if it weren't for that kind of surreality. A woman's not beautiful unless she can say strange and beautiful things, and so too for cities. These days, my heart hurts like nobody's business but somehow I can't help but smiling through it all; sometimes just knowing there's someone out there is enough, that fragments of me are with them always, even if I never see them again. Other days, of course, it's a bit harder to take. But let's not dwell on our present miseries. Have a story instead: Some time before you were born, oh dearest to my heart, the first things appeared on this earth---never mind how, for that's another story---and decided to become themselves. This wasn't as easy as it sounds, because back then there were no lions or tigers or bears, or even the shapes of them that we know now. They had to figure all of these things out themselves, and so there were bound to be teething troubles. No pun intended. (Would you believe, for example, that the first bear had beautiful patagia, all rainbow-hued? Perhaps not, but it was so. In the end, she felt they made her look absurd, but truth be told, in those days, bears were less clumsy, more graceful, and it was simply a matter of self-esteem.) These strange fish aside, of course, most of what we consider the important animals picked their shapes right away. "I should like to be big and strong, and a king," announced what became the first lion. "I wish to soar above the earth, and also to reign," said the eagle. "I want to sleep in mud," proclaimed the first lungfish. In those days, nobody was quite sure what being important meant, you see. However, one of the first things could not decide upon a shape or name. It was small, although in those days, smallness was a new concept and so the world was treated to the spectacle of a dragon nesting in the crook of a sapling, and also of a vole large enough to play rugby professionally. But that is not germane to this story. This particular first thing was actually quite shy, which had been invented, on a dare, some time before. As a result, it stayed well clear of the elaborate ceremonies wherein the other first things claimed their names and shapes. In doing so, it met another first thing. "Hello," it said, to the second first thing, for although it was shy, it was also scrupulously polite. Mercifully, manners had been invented right after shyness, to put an end to a rash of pinchings. "Huff!" said the second first thing, who we will call Daisy to spare ourselves from the devil's cauldron of pronoun confusion. "Huff!" said Daisy, "I hope you are not going to pinch me. Something calling itself a 'fox' has been doing so all morning. I am most distressed." "I can see why!" replied our first thing, for he had gone to finishing school with the fox and was familiar with his habits. "I am not really very fond of the fox either." "Or pinching?" asked Daisy, suspiciously. "Nor pinching." "Well!" said Daisy. "That's promising, at least." She looked as thoughtful as something of indeterminate shape and size can. "Have you decided what you'd like to be yet?" "To be honest with you? Not really. I've heard the word cozy bandied about a bit, though, and it sounds like a good thing to be." "I'm going to be prickly," said Daisy. She would have said it fiercely, but fierceness was still in the prototype stage. "That way nobody will pinch me without my consent." "I don't know," said the first thing. "I should think you might want to be ably to be not-prickly, too. For special occasions." "That's not a bad idea," said Daisy. "I think I'll have a soft tummy, too." "With fur?" "Seems only sensible." "Excuse me," said Daisy, rather primly, and she moved to interpose a largish boulder between her and the first thing. Presently, she emerged. "What do you think?" she asked. She had a pointy little nose, two shining black eyes, big round ears, white fur, and beautiful khaki-colored prickles all up and down her back like a pincushion. "It seems very nice," replied the first thing. "What are you calling yourself?" "I was thinking flibbertigibbit," she replied. "Or maybe bushpig." "Hm. I don't know about flibbertigibbit. Maybe...hedgepig?" "Oh, I rather like the sound of that. Very...regal." Daisy promptly forgot to make a mental note to define "regal" before anyone else could. "Do you think..." began the first thing, "do you think that I could be a hedgehog, too?" "Yes, I think so," said Daisy. "But don't tell eveyone about it. Let's keep it kind of a secret." And so they did. | | |
| I know, I know, I know. I'm a cantankerous old man and all you want is a bedtime story. Truly, no wiser man was afflicted with a worse granddaughter. This wasn't how your mother was raised, to be sure. But I will tell you a story despite your ingratitude, and it will be true, besides. I myself can attest to its veracity, for I was there. What? You are a very rude child indeed. Hush. Be still. I am beginning. Many years ago, when I was a young man, I lived in the capitol city. In those days, it was grander and more beautiful than it was now, for this was the time of the Not-Jade Emperor. They called him that, of course, because he was the first emperor to wear a crown surmounted with precious stones, instead of the sort of jade cap or corno ducale which his predecessors had worn. As it so happened, I was fortunate enough to be a scribe for the Not-Jade Emperor, one of the upper thousand who attended to his every word while he sat in the throne room of his palace, easily itself as large as a small city, with all of us sitting in a sort of semi-circle about the throne in a trench or pit, so that we would never enter the emperor's sight unless he so wished. In those days, respect was paid. We recorded many things. I myself cataloged the endless procession of curious and fantastical beasts which the Not-Jade Emperor received as tribute. These were animals which had never been seen before, all of them, sent by lesser kings who feared to anger our distant but powerful land. Sparrows, wyverns, ocelots, a cyclops, creatures with hides or plumages of gold and silver, a sphinx, oh yes, all these and many others did I see in my time. But it was the sphinx who caused the most trouble, and that is the tale I am presently relating to you. Although her lower half was the body of a brutal beast, the sphinx had the face of a woman and a pleasant manner of speaking which even we scribes could see delighted the emperor. She was immortal, and was unimpressed by kings. She had been, she told the Not-Jade Emperor, a gift to the King of Araby, but she asked him a riddle which had driven him mad. "The new king of Araby feared both yourself and me," she told the Not-Jade Emperor, in a soft voice that could lull a tired man to sleep. "They have made a gift of me to you in the hopes of ridding themselves of both of us." At this, the Not-Jade Emperor laughed uproariously. For, you see, he was not the sort of man to be driven mad, not by sphinxes or their riddles or for women or from wine. "I fear," he said, cheerfully, for he was a man of good-humor, as any ruler of the known world might reasonably be expected to be, "that I must disappoint them, for I shall not be driven mad. I would punish them for this plot were it not so amusing and if not for the fact that you, my dear sphinx, are not entirely to be trusted." For the sphinx would tell a lie as easily as she would tell the truth. She was not unlike granddaughters in that respect. "You are most sagacious, oh Not-Jade Emperor," purred the Sphinx, which was of course base flattery, but of the sort which pleases potentates. "May I tell your majesty a secret?" Now, the Not-Jade Emperor had a weakness: he loved secrets. More precisely, he loved other people's secrets, and his agents collected them assidously, which means, all the time. "I insist," said the Not-Jade Emperor, and this is where the trouble really began. "I am a sphinx," said the sphinx, "and as such I know many secrets. But it seems to me that the secret which would most interest your majesty is this: there is an island, and there live the first scribes, who record all the secrets of the world." "Where is this island?" demanded the Not-Jade Emperor, entirely interested. "I will tell you," said the sphinx. And she did. Of course, the Not-Jade Emperor could hardly bear the thought of not knowing all the secrets of the world since the first times, and so he determined to journey to these islands. Being a prudent empror, he brought a large retinue with him, myself amongst them. He had with him a thousand scribes, to record the secrets he would find, ten thousand soldiers, to protect his person, and nine thousand courtiers and nobles, to provide him with company, for he was a gregarious as well as an inquisitive potentate. We voyaged for days and nights in our coracles or cogs, as befitted our rank, a great flotilla stretching across the horizon. We saw many things along the way which have now faded from the knowledge of the world, sea monsters and mermaids and manatees, which liars will tell you are the same. Presently, after adventures which I shall relate to you at another time---if you behave, which I consider most unlikely---we reached the island of which the sphinx spoke. I could try to describe this island to you, but your untutored mind could not possibly comprehend the fantastic nature of what we saw there. Many of our company perished as we made our way from the shore of that place to the citadel at the center, but at last we reached our, or perhaps I should say the Not-Jade Emperor's, goal. The citadel itself was beaten out of gold into the shape of an inverted bowl, quite simple in appearance. The gold aside, of course. But during the first times, they did not think so much of gold as we do now. Its doors were barred, but the soldiers saw to that; they felled trees and produced battering rams. Gold is a soft metal, my beloved but insolent granddaughter, and if you are ever called upon to build a citadel, you would be well-served to use a less ostentatious but more sturdy metal. Be this as it may, the Not-Jade Emperor entered the citadel in a state of great excitement, and as many of us, sages, soldiers and retainers, as could fit, followed. We found ourselves before a throne, carved of some glittering black substance, sitting on a sort of dais or pedastal. Sitting upon it was a man, after a fashion, whom all of us at once recognized for who he was. "It is the Lord of Wickedness!" gasped some fool courtier, and quick as you please, the Lord of Wickedness (for that is indeed who it was, of course) leapt from his seat and wrenched the man who spoke's head off. It is very rude of you to challenge an old man's syntax. Show proper respect! At any rate, all was cast into confusion. Soldiers threw down their weapons---for what arrow could pierce the armor of the Lord of Wickedness? What sword could parry his blade?---in their haste to escape. Courtiers threw aside their diamond-covered fans and discarded their coronets as they ran. Even my fellow scribes, I am sorry to say, tossed aside their wax tablets and styluses and fled. Only I and the Not-Jade Emperor remained. So you may be certain that no other version of what I shall now relate to you is the truth. For I was there. "It would seem," said the Not-Jade Emperor in a conversational tone, for he was not without sang-froid, "that the sphinx has mislead me." "So it would seem," replied the Lord of Wickedness, who was engaged in wiping a late courtier's blood onto his magnificent robes. "I have never killed an emperor before, much less a Not-Jade one. I suppose you would like to beg for mercy?" From his tone, he and the emperor might have been discussing the price of oats. "I am afraid," replied the Not-Jade Emperor, "that to do so would be incompatible with my position. I don't suppose, however, that you would like to riddle me for my life or some such thing?" "Oh no," said the Lord of Wickedness. "I no longer do such things. Too many people were spending all their time becoming clever at riddles, and it became quite frustrating for me. If I were to devote all my time to the solution of insoluble riddles, I should be no good at wrenching heads off, and that would hardly do." "No, not at all," murmured the Not-Jade Emperor. "Well," he continued, "I must say, I am disappointed. My splendid soldiers have abandoned me for fear of you, my fawning courtiers have raced to save their own skins (and no doubt argue amongst themselves as to who will be the next emperor), and my indispendable scribes have all fled but for this fellow," by which he meant me. "Ah, yes," said the Lord of Wickedness, "well, it's nothing personal, you understand, but I am going to wrench all of their heads off too, if only to stay in practice." "It rather serves them right," said the Not-Jade Emperor, "running off like that. Those who seek only to save their own skins never prosper." "Well, let's not pursue that avenue of thinking too far," replied the Lord of Wickedness. "After all, I'm going to wrench your head off, too." "Fair enough," said the Not-Jade Emperor. "However, I think I should like to try my luck with a sword, first, if you have no objections." "None at all," replied the Lord of Wickedness, cheerily, "for as you know, I am quite impervious to such things." "It just seems right to set an example," said the emperor, and he drew his sword. I have not told you, oh unworthy child, of this sword, until now. The sword of the Not-Jade Emperor was like no other sword. It had been forged from steel, as any sword might be, but it had been taken home by the blacksmith, and his wife sang to it every night, not of war, as you might imagine she would, but of stars and sky and sea, and all of those old love songs which you will claim you hate until you start to meet highly unsuitable young men. The sword was not magic---the idea of a magic sword is absurd!---but as with any young man---or disobediant young lady!---the addition of an education had greatly improved it. So when the Not-Jade Emperor drew the Educated Sword from its sheath and struck the Lord of Wickedness with it, that most remarkable blade did, in fact, draw blood. The Lord of Wickedness looked quite cross. "Now, you have gone about and had foolish women sing of romantic notions to this sword. Well, if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is a romantic notion. Now I really am going to wrench your head off, no two ways about it. I greatly dislike being cut." "Well," replied the Not-Jade Emperor, whose dander was also a bit up, "I think I would greatly dislike having my head wrenched off, so there you have it. In fact, I think if you try it, I will run you through." "This is most indecorous of you," said the Lord of Wickedness, in a rather outraged tone of voice. "I suppose next you are going to reveal that your scribe has a dragonwing cloak, and you're about to make your escape?" Now, as it happens, I did indeed have a dragonwing cloak. I wore it under my ceremonial robes to keep warm; it was a gift from my mother. She was a thoughtful woman and is doubtless turning in her grave at the thoughtlessness of her great-granddaughter. I would not make thoses faces at me, if I were you. "I do," I said, nervously, "have a dragonwing cloak." "Well, this is a how-de-do," snapped the Lord of Wickedness. "I suppose you've not yet used it to fly, either?" "No sir, I have not." At this, the Emperor seized me by the scruff of the neck---as I will do to you, if you do not stop that---and shook me quite firmly. This, as you know, is how to get a dragonwing cloak to fly, and that is exactly what happened. Oh, the Lord of Wickedness chased us for as long as he could; he ran along the treetops as if they were the ground, and he leapt for us like a tiger. But of course he could not fly, and when we crossed over the sea, he could not follow, for he is as much a prisoner on his island as he is lord of it. In fact, he was in such an ill humor, that he did not take the time to wrench the heads off of all the soldiers, scribes and courtiers, and they returned to court in a few months time, looking appropriately sheepish. In the interim, I was showered with riches and honors, and was raised to a largely inactive but highly lucrative ceremonial position, which served me well, for in those days, it was best not to be too prominent. That is my story. I am sorry that you did not like it or its lack of a moral, but as you have shown yourself incapable of appreciating morals, I thought you might prefer something that at least had the virtue of truth. Go to sleep. | | |
| The internet is a godsend for recondite introverts like myself, the sort of people who will happily spend an hour within the confines of their skull constructing the sort of airy observation that the wits of an earlier generation could generate in realtime. Thanks to the power of text-based communication, the esprit d'escalier is no longer a going concern. I originally had a way to seque from this to what I've been thinking about recently, but as I write this in between pretending to work, that's been lost to me now. Pretend, if you will, that I've constructed some linking sentence or paragraphthat perfectly encapsulates the correlation between a preference for paper conversations and that for paper heroics. The beauty of wargaming, when it's done in properly engrossing style, is that it provides a (highly dubious) insight into how the players handle the trials of command and combat, along with the pleasant knowledge that nothing more than pride will be mortally injured. Some players are motivated to transports of suicidal daring, rather like Union General Judson Kilpatrick, nicknamed "Kill-Cavalry" by his men. They will happily engage the enemy in any force with any weapon, at any time. Others are cautious entrenchers by nature, reluctant to commit reserves, always concerned with what the enemy may be about to do to them. Some are genuine commanders, able to unite a fractious band of wargamers (and even the most rigidly proauthoritarian member of this subspecies chafes mightily under the yoke of authority) into a common goal. I myself, in keeping with my general lack of moral fiber, do not share any of the traits of the last-mentioned, and would generally rate myself as one of those useless impediments of war, waiting to be lead. I like to think of myself of the spiritual descendent of those overexcitable souls who veered between thinking a battle lost or won based on the positions of the flags and the sounds of trumpets. Long before the fleet-footed messenger of Marathon arrived to tell of victory as a certainty, twenty of my kind had told twenty different tales, you may rest assured. Of course, that only means we usually survive to write the histories, no small consolation. | | |
| I don't want to get too wrapped up in any alleged poetry of this city; right now I work in the nicest part, but I've worked in other places, places that weren't so nice, and really, when you come right down to it, the essence of Chicago is permanently filthy sidewalks and an emaciated old man with a broom begging for cash to sweep them off. That being said, there are, every now and then, these peculiar, almost Lynchian moments, if David Lynch were in truth a deeply whimsical man whose favorite film was Mary Poppins. Today, I watched a young woman riding on the armrest of a man's motorized wheelchair as they crossed the street against traffic to the cacophonous accompaniment of car horns. I wasn't wearing my glasses, and that and distance combined to give her a radiance that cynical souls may well assume she did not possess as she triumphantly extended her middle finger towards traffic. | | |
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