What to Do in a Bottle

Magpie Tale 115

I was bored. After all, I’d only read the same book a few thousand times, maybe a million, maybe more. I flipped another page, taking care to turn it from the top. The next page I’d turn would be from the bottom, after that I’d go for the one seventy-eighth mark. When turning pages is all you do for centuries, you get picky about how you do it.

It had been a great book once, before I had it memorized and could quote every word of the text. Now it was dull and about some guy with a genie doing impossible feats. Once that genie had been me. I guess I should have known reading about myself would get boring after the first century. If I’d even been in here a century.

I guess that’s the worst thing about being a genie in a bottle. Time slips away from you. It wasn’t so bad when my bottle was new and I a freshly caught genie. Oh, I’d been angry and fearsome then. I’d fly screaming out of the bottle, hissing insults and trying to turn the tables on those who called themselves my master. Then I missed my first two hundred years of history. After that I learned to scream with joy when the seal on my bottle was broken. I’d been a busy genie, granting wishes, building golden castles and destroying them again. And then nothing.

Sometimes, I’m not sure why, I can get a glimpse of the world outside my bottle. I’m not sure if this makes confinement worse, or if it eases the monotony to see something new. Either way, from what I’ve seen, and because of all this water that keeps leaking in, I’m at the bottom of the sea.

So I was bored. Until I felt my bottle move. I’ve gotten good at telling what moves my bottle. Sea tides, an animal, a human hand. This was a hand. I strained to hear sounds from the outside world. There was something about a shipwreck recovery and learning about an age gone by. They were excited about my bottle, wondering how old it was. Older than the ship they guessed. What’s inside I heard them ask.

Now I’m just waiting for my bottle to be opened. There will be great deeds for me to do once more. And before I get sealed away again, I’m going to bring a lot more books.

The Valley

Magpie Tale #98

Still.

That’s what it is up here. Oh, there’s a cool breeze the plays with the leaves, but it dies quickly. And a few birds join it every now and then and I think I saw a squirrel a while back. But down in the valley, there’s all the movement. Constant, obvious movement. It starts with the river that cuts the valley in half, and flows fast. Horses stamping and tossing their heads, dogs running between legs and once in a while I can see a cat dart through the crowd. The people mill around; from up here it seems senseless, but I suppose they know what they’re doing.

Yes, it’s very still up here. And quiet. I can’t hear the clamor coming from the valley floor. The shouting, and barking dogs and neighing horses and clashing metal. All I can hear are a few birds. The wind. The crunch of snow as my comrades left; it was quiet enough that I could hear it. The waterfall as it plunges into the river. No, I can’t hear that, it’s too far. But I like to think I can.

I have a good view of the mountains on the other side of the valley. Sharp peeked and with lingering snow, just like the ones on my side. But it’s spring now not winter. Even the aspens have leaves, so it’s no longer just the pines that are green. I say it’s spring; it’s spring up here. Cold and fresh and clean with the glint of snow; damp and moist. Down in the valley it’s already been spring and now it’s summer and hot and dry. I could almost be glad to be up here.

Stillborn, that’s how I think of the valley. It could have been beautiful. I think it wanted to be beautiful. But it’s in the wrong place. This valley, it’s the only pass through these mountains. It’s been eager to welcome everyone who passes through. The people haven’t been welcoming though. And whenever the valley seeks to give life, it gets death. Oh, yes, there’s been battles here, famous ones. Guntram died here. And so did Ratimir and Fenrir and Cynbel. The great sword Amund was broken here. There’ll be more; like as not we’ll have one before summer’s over. That’s why I’m up here; keeping watch.

Of Shoes and Hearts

shared with dVerse

A silver shoe abandoned on the stair
A token to be followed through the night
Single shoe and lonely heart each pining for its pair
A silver shoe abandoned on the stair
Once the mate was found - there
Two broken hearts would heal and reunite
A sliver shoe abandoned on the stair
A token to be followed through the night