The Harping Tree by Karen Sorce

...From the Dark Fairy Tale Series

A man hears beautiful harp music playing from somewhere in the woods.  Following the sound, he finds that it comes from a tree with ancient, twisted limbs.  Entranced he studies the tree, he begins to see a woman’s face within the bark. He feels the strong pangs of love as the music plays.

“I’d give anything to hear your voice,” he whispers to the woman in the tree.

He is so enchanted that he forgets his work, the day, the night, the rain. Time means nothing to him as the days go by.

“I’d give anything,” he begs the tree, hearing the graceful tunes of unseen harp strings.

He lays flowers at the base of the tree, entwined with ivy.

“My Irish rose, please, I beg to hear your voice,” he pleads.

Only the fair tunes sound to his ears. What gift does she desire, he beseeches, to make her speak to him?

He brings the prettiest ribbons he can find and ties them to the tree limbs, brightly-colored offerings to blow in the gentle Connemara breezes.

“My love, please,” he pleads.

But still, only beautiful music reaches his ears.

“Perhaps it’s coin you desire,” he says.

Coming back with as many coins as he can, he starts to dig a hole near the roots of the tree, careful not to cut them.

He finds his way, deeper and deeper beneath the tree, unable to stop his digging, like a man possessed.

He hears the music, on and on, as he digs. His soiled hands cannot stop digging, as the music plays.

All at once, as he stands deep within the roots of the tree, the soil and leaves cover him, bury him. As much as he tries to move, the earth and tree roots will not let him go, though music still reaches his ears.

Words start coming through as well, a voice, a woman’s sweet song reaching him at last.  

He hears her words, bewitched singing to accompany the sound of the harp strings.

“My love forever, come, lay with me, my love for all eternity…..”

Copyright 2015 – Material may be reprinted or distributed only with author permission.

Fairytale – The Harping Tree.docx

Dark Fairytale series – June 27, 2015 – Karen J. Sorce

FROM: Patient A-240 by John McGuire

An Alternate Response to George Orwell's 1984

Dear Death Panelists of the Mental Hygiene Department:

I am in receipt of the Euthanization Determination Appeal Form.

Do not await my submission. Await anything else. Await springtime or sunrise. Await grace or peace. Await roses or rainbows. Await snarks or grumpkins. Await nymphs or dryads. Await hobgoblins. Await Jove. Await all manner of mystery and life-giving wonder.

Be sure that you see that me you have not known, and you I have not needed. You I consider unreal, a zombie entity, a puppet propped up by your education monopoly you shamelessly leverage to instill counterintuitive nauseas and paralyzing terrors. All this you do to cultivate a few emotionally crippled dependents and useful idiots whom you ridicule privately and call on occasionally.

Feel free, then, to keep your audience captive, but do take care, if and when our paths cross. If they do, then I am happy to report there will be something you can expect from me, so do not tempt me to part that veil for all to see the diminutive dog-and-pony showman it harbors.

They call you “Big Brother”, but in truth you’re neither big nor a brother, but simply a hybrid of small-time con artist and sanctimonious control freak, that is, a classic gangster (or more appropriately “bankster”). You so loved the bribes, the lies and the insurance that you gave up all hope of Purpose, much less Meaning, consigning these and all subtle sensibilities to the file you psychopathically labeled “UNPRODUCTIVE AND ANTISOCIAL OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS”. You never honestly intended progress to connote common improvement but strictly elitist dominance, didn’t you? We both know better than the worker bees, you and I, don’t we?

As such, esteemed Panelists, if hypothetically I valued your well-being any more than you value mine, I would ask you to lock it in your mind that all those you despise as livestock, I cherish as neighbors, and they can always count on me.

Sincerely not yours,

Patient A-240

Copyright © 2015 John McGuire, www.untrain.org

Material may be printed or distributed only with author's permission.