The Tale of the Box

Once upon a time, there was a box (or an urn or a jar, it doesn't matter). This box used to hold hope, but now it was empty. All that was inside was the dust of ages.

And yet, the woman still carried it around with her as a reminder of what she had let loose upon the world.

Didn't you ever wonder? Why, in all those portrayals of witches, they always had cats? The cats went looking for them, found them. The cats were looking for the woman, for the box.

The woman carries the box and the cat searches for it. The box is empty, but over the years, it has gained something of a mind. A longing, a desire, a hope. This hope has changed the box until something twisted, something wrong.

So the cat spreads its vile hope and the box leeches hope from others. Two sides of the same coin.

One day, the cat will find the box and it will enter it. Whether it will die then or not, we do not know. Perhaps the box will become something else, something even more twisted and vile. Perhaps hope will be made right and the fears of the world will go back into the box, but I do not think so. 

Some things, once out, cannot be put back.

please let me go

Not yet. There's so many of us it has chosen. You are only the latest. Sure, we haven't found the box yet.

But I have hope.

i dug the grave

and took out the box containing my old dead cat. It was an old shoe box and over the years, it had decomposed until now it was so flimsy, it fell apart in my hands. the skeleton of my cat fell to the ground.

the cat-thing was all over the skeleton. it sniffed it like other cats sniff each other. then it looked up at the remains of the shoebox in my hands.

its not your box. its not your coffin.

please dont please dont hurt me

just let me go i dont know where it is i dont know anything

timetogo timetomove

timetofindanotherbox

The Tale of the Cat

Once upon a time, there was a cat. This cat was special for it was also hope.

Unfortunately, the cat died. There was an accident or perhaps he died of old age, it doesn't matter. He was dead. He was buried in a wooden box (or perhaps his ashes were put into an urn) and that was that.

Until it was decided that his coffin would be used to hold all the fears of the world. Until this coffin was given to a man and a woman.

Until the cat came back.

It was not a cat any longer. It was not the same hope it had been either. Its death and resurrection changed it. The cat came back and spread its new hope around: a strange sickness that caused people to hope for things they had never wanted before, money and wealth and power. Hope became a plague and the cat was at the center.

One day, the cat realized what it had been doing. It looked back and saw the the pain it had made and knew it was wrong. It was supposed to be dead. It was supposed to be buried.

It tried to die, but it couldn't. Nothing could kill it, not beasts nor bullets. Even the others, the fears that had lived in its coffin, would not kill it. They merely ignored it, for hope had nothing to do with them.

So it went in search of its coffin, its box. It went in search of a place to lie down and die.

Open the box. 

opentheboxopentheboxopenthebox

it brought me to my garden

that old spot at the back of my garden where, when i was nine, we buried our cat after it had been run over by a car. we buried him here and i cried for days until my parents bought me a new cat.

the cat-thing brought me here. why? for what reason? does it want me to dig up my old dead cat? does it want someone to play with?

fuck it fine ill do it

let me get a shovel and

tellthetale

okay fine ill do both

tellthetale then digthegrave

The Tale of the Apple

Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman and a tree.

On this tree, some special fruit grew. Some said it was a fig, but we will call it an apple. The man and the woman were both told to never ever pick this apple and eat it. (This is what we call 'schmuck bait.' Of course, they were going to eat it. As soon as the words 'don't eat that apple' came out of God's mouth, the man was probably all 'Oh that apple? That one there?' and went to gobble it up.)

In any case, it wasn't long before both the man and the woman had eaten the fruit and were kicked out of paradise (although how they could call it paradise, but then kick them out after one infraction is something I don't understand). And so they went forth to live their lives somewhere else.

what does this have to do with

I'm getting to that. The woman ate the apple, the woman opened the box. Do you see a pattern here? She is the one who let out evil or at least the knowledge of evil. She is blamed for it all. Do you see? The woman is always blamed.

i dont understand

The apple had to be eaten. The box had to be opened. The woman was merely a scapegoat. The cat was dead already. There was no hope. She had brought something back that was never meant to be.

Hope was dead and buried and the box was it's coffin.

when is a door not a door

it wants me to go outside. it wants to lead me somewhere.

the door was open and it was waiting outside. it looked at me with those beady eyes and i felt the need to go with it. the need to follow it.

im sitting here trying not to go and its still waiting for me.

i thought you wanted me to tellthetale?

i was going to tellthetale please i was

dont make me go

dont
make
me
go

The Tale of the Djinn

Once upon a time, there was a woman who had done something very bad. She had been told not to open a box and she did. When she had done so, hope had died. She was left with an open box and a dead cat.

She was distraught. She had tried to fix things and they had just turned out worse than ever. Finally, she was told there was something that could fix all of her mistakes: there was a lamp with a djinn in it and she could wish all of her mistakes away.

With the dead cat clutched in her hands, she searched far and wide and finally, one evening, found the lamp with the djinn. She called the djinn forth and it appeared before her, its arm glowing red. 'What is it you wish, mistress?' the djinn asked.

Anesidora held forth the dead cat and asked, 'I wish for you to bring this back to life. Please, bring hope back to life.'

'One wish,' the djinn said. 'That is all you get. Are you sure this is the wish you would choose?'

Anesidora thought about the fears she had let loose, but she knew hope was more important. 'Yes,' she said. 'Bring hope back to life.'

So the djinn did and the cat came back to life in her arms.

But it was not the same life that it had before. The cat had changed. 'What is wrong with it?' Anesidora asked.

'It has tasted death,' the djinn said. 'Even though it is now alive, it will never be the same as it was. Hope was always a fragile thing. You should kill it now. It is better off dead.'

'No,' Anesidora said. 'No, I will let it loose. I will give hope to the world.'

The djinn shrugged. 'Very well, then. Don't say I didn't warn you.'

And Anesidora let the cat go, its body thin and lanky, its mind ravaged by death. Hope returned and the people wept.