TRUE! Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, and not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night about midnight I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern all closed, closed so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! Would a madman have been so wise as this? And then when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously -- oh, so cautiously -- cautiously (for the hinges creaked), I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights, every night just at midnight, but I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was opening the door little by little and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back -- but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out, "Who's there?"
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed, listening; just as I have done night after night hearkening to the death watches in the wall.
Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief -- oh, no! It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when the entire world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself, "It is nothing but the wind in the chimney, it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or, "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes he has been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions; but he had found all in vain. ALL IN VAIN, because Death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, to feel the presence of my head within the room.
When I had waited a long time very patiently without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little -- a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it -- you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily -- until at length a single dim ray like the thread of the spider shot out from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.
It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness -- all a dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones, but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.
And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? Now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder, every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! -- do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me -- the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once -- once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence.
I took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly so cunningly, that no human eye -- not even his -- could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out -- no stain of any kind -- no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that.
When I had made an end of these labours, it was four o'clock -- still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, -- for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.
I smiled, -- for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search -- search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My MANNER had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears; but still they sat, and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness -- until, at length, I found that the noise was NOT within my ears.
No doubt I now grew VERY pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND -- MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! What COULD I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! -- No, no? They heard! -- They suspected! -- They KNEW! -- They were making a mockery of my horror! -- This I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! -- And now -- again -- hark! Louder! Louder! Louder! LOUDER! --
"Villains!" I shrieked, "Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- Here, here! -- it is the beating of his hideous heart!"

"New York, September 30 CP FLASH

"Ambassador Holliwell died here today.  The end came
Suddenly as the ambassador was alone in his study...."
There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore -- they're your next-door neighbors after the streetlights go dim and the world has gone to sleep.
Alone in the quiet hours between two and four, the receiving operators doze over their sounders and the news comes in. Fires and disasters and suicides. Murders, crowds, catastrophes. Sometimes an earthquake with a casualty list as long as your arm. The night wire man takes it down almost in his sleep, picking it off on his typewriter with one finger.
Once in a long time you prick up your ears and listen. You've heard of some one you knew in Singapore, Halifax or Paris, long ago. Maybe they've been promoted, but more probably they've been murdered or drowned. Perhaps they just decided to quit and took some bizarre way out. Made it interesting enough to get in the news.
But that doesn't happen often. Most of the times you sit and doze and tap, tap on your typewriter and wish you were home in bed.
Sometimes, though, queer things happen. One did the other night, and I haven't got over it yet. I wish I could.
You see, I handle the night manager's desk in a western seaport town; what the name is doesn't matter.
There is, or rather was, only one night operator on my staff, a fellow named John Morgan, about forty years of age, I should say, and a sober, hard-working sort.
He was one of the best operators I ever knew, what is known as a "double" man. That means he could handle two instruments at once and type the stories on different typewriters at the same time. He was one of the three men I ever knew who could do it consistently, hour after hour, and never make a mistake.
Generally, we used only one wire at night, but sometimes, when it was late and the news was coming fast, the Chicago and Denver stations would open a second wire, and then Morgan would do his stuff. He was a wizard, a mechanical automatic wizard which functioned marvelously but was without imagination.
On the night of the sixteenth he complained of feeling tired. It was the first and last time I had ever heard him say a word about him, and I had known him for three years.
It was just three o'clock and we were running only one wire. I was nodding over the reports at my desk and not paying much attention to him, when he spoke.
"Jim," he said, "does it feel close in here to you?"
"Why, no, John," I answered, "but I'll open a window if you like."
"Never mind," he said. "I reckon I'm just a little tired."
That was all that was said, and I went on working. Every ten minutes or so I would walk over and take a pile of copy that had stacked up neatly beside the typewriter as the messages were printed out in triplicate.
It must have been twenty minutes after he spoke that I noticed he had opened up the other wire and was using both typewriters. I thought it was a little unusual, as there was nothing very "hot" coming in. On my next trip I picked up the copy from both machines and took it back to my desk to sort out the duplicates.
The first wire was running out the usual sort of stuff and I just looked over it hurridly. Then I turned to the second pile of copy. I remembered it particularly because the story was from a town I had never heard of: "Xebico." Here is the dispatch. I saved a duplicate of it from our files:

"Xebico, Sept 16 CP BULLETIN

"The heaviest mist in the history of the city settled over
the town at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon.  All traffic has
Stopped and the mist hangs like a pall over everything.  Lights
Of ordinary intensity fail to pierce the fog, which is
Constantly growing heavier.

"Scientists here are unable to agree as to the cause, and
The local weather bureau states that the like has never occurred
before in the history of the city.

"At 7 P.M. last night the municipal authorities...

That was all there was. Nothing out of the ordinary at a bureau headquarters, but, as I say, I noticed the story because of the name of the town.

It must have been fifteen minutes later that I went over for another batch of copy. Morgan was slumped down in his chair and had switched his green electric light shade so that the gleam missed his eyes and hit only the top of the two typewriters.
Only the usual stuff was in the righthand pile, but the lefthand batch carried another story from Xebico. All press dispatches come in "takes," meaning that parts of many different stories are strung along together, perhaps with but a few paragraphs of each coming through at a time. This second story was marked "add fog." Here is the copy:

"At 7 P.M. the fog had increased noticeably.  All lights

were now invisible and the town was shrouded in pitch darkness.

"As a peculiarity of the phenomenon, the fog is accompanied
by a sickly odor, comparable to nothing yet experienced
here."
Below that in customary press fashion was the hour, 3:27, and the initials of the operator, JM.
There was only one other story in the pile from the second wire. Here it is:

"2nd add Xebico Fog.

"Accounts as to the origin of the mist differ greatly.
Among the most unusual is that of the sexton of the local
church, who groped his way to headquarters in a hysterical
condition and declared that the fog originated in the village
churchyard.

"'It was first visible as a soft gray blanket clinging to
the earth above the graves,' he stated.  'Then it began to rise,
higher and higher.  A subterranean breeze seemed to blow it in
billows, which split up and then joined together again.

"'Fog phantoms, writhing in anguish, twisted the mist into
queer forms and figures.  And then, in the very thick midst of
the mass, something moved.

"'I turned and ran from the accursed spot.  Behind me I
heard screams coming from the houses bordering on the
graveyard.'

"Although the sexton's story is generally discredited, a
party has left to investigate.  Immediately after telling his
story, the sexton collapsed and is now in a local hospital,
unconscious."
Queer story, wasn't it. Not that we aren't used to it, for a lot of unusual stories come in over the wire. But for some reason or other, perhaps because it was so quiet that night, the report of the fog made a great impression on me.
It was almost with dread that I went over to the waiting piles of copy. Morgan did not move, and the only sound in the room was the tap-tap of the sounders. It was ominous, nerve- racking.
There was another story from Xebico in the pile of copy. I seized on it anxiously.

"New Lead Xebico Fog CP

"The rescue party which went out at 11 P.M. to investigate
a weird story of the origin of a fog which, since late
yesterday, has shrouded the city in darkness has failed to
return.  Another and larger party has been dispatched.

"Meanwhile, the fog has, if possible, grown heavier.  It
seeps through the cracks in the doors and fills the atmosphere
with a depressing odor of decay.  It is oppressive, terrifying,
bearing with it a subtle impression of things long dead.

"Residents of the city have left their homes and gathered
in the local church, where the priests are holding services of
prayer.  The scene is beyond description.  Grown folk and
children are alike terrified and many are almost beside
themselves with fear.

"Amid the whisps of vapor which partly veil the church
auditorium, an old priest is praying for the welfare of his
flock.  They alternately wail and cross themselves.

"From the outskirts of the city may be heard cries of
unknown voices.  They echo through the fog in queer uncadenced
minor keys.  The sounds resemble nothing so much as wind
whistling through a gigantic tunnel.  But the night is calm and
there is no wind.  The second rescue party... (more)"

I am a calm man and never in a dozen years spent with the wires, have I been known to become excited, but despite myself I rose from my chair and walked to the window.
Could I be mistaken, or far down in the canyons of the city beneath me did I see a faint trace of fog? Pshaw! It was all imagination.
In the pressroom the click of the sounders seemed to have raised the tempo of their tune. Morgan alone had not stirred from his chair. His head sunk between his shoulders, he tapped the dispatches out on the typewriters with one finger of each hand.
He looked asleep, but no; endlessly, efficiently, the two machines rattled off line after line, as relentlessly and effortlessly as death itself. There was something about the monotonous movement of the typewriter keys that fascinated me. I walked over and stood behind his chair, reading over his shoulder the type as it came into being, word by word.
Ah, here was another:

"Flash Xebico CP

"There will be no more bulletins from this office.  The
impossible has happened.  No messages have come into this room
for twenty minutes.  We are cut off from the outside and even
the streets below us.

"I will stay with the wire until the end.

"It is the end, indeed.  Since 4 P.M. yesterday the fog has
hung over the city.  Following reports from the sexton of the
local church, two rescue parties were sent out to investigate
conditions on the outskirts of the city.  Neither party has ever
returned nor was any word received from them.  It is quite
certain now that they will never return.

"From my instrument I can gaze down on the city beneath me.
From the position of this room on the thirteenth floor, nearly
the entire city can be seen.  Now I can see only a thick blanket
of blackness where customarily are lights and life.

"I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly
from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the
inhabitants.  They are constantly increasing in volume and are
approaching the center of the city.

"The fog yet hangs over everything.  If possible, it is
even heavier than before, but the conditions have changed.
Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, there
now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost
human agony.  Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief
glimpse of the streets below.

"People are running to and fro, screaming in despair.  A
vast bedlam of sound flies up to my window, and above all is the
immense whistling of unseen and unfelt winds.

"The fog has again swept over the city and the whistling is
coming closer and closer.

"It is now directly beneath me.

"God!  An instant ago the mist opened and I caught a
glimpse of the streets below.

"The fog is not simply vapor -- it lives!  By the side of
each moaning and weeping human is a companion figure, an aura of
strange and vari-colored hues.  How the shapes cling!  Each to a
living thing!

"The men and women are down.  Flat on their faces.  The fog
figures caress them lovingly.  They are kneeling beside them.
They are -- but I dare not tell it.

"The prone and writhing bodies have been stripped of their
clothing.  They are being consumed -- piecemeal.

"A merciful wall of hot, steaming vapor has swept over the
whole scene.  I can see no more.

"Beneath me the wall of vapor is changing colors.  It seems
to be lighted by internal fires.  No, it isn't.  I have made a
mistake.  The colors are from above, reflections from the sky.

"Look up!  Look up!  The whole sky is in flames.  Colors as
yet unseen by man or demon.  The flames are moving; they have
started to intermix; the colors are rearranging themselves.
They are so brilliant that my eyes burn, they they are a long
way off.

"Now they have begun to swirl, to circle in and out,
twisting in intricate designs and patterns.  The lights are
racing each with each, a kaleidoscope of unearthly brilliance.

"I have made a discovery.  There is nothing harmful in the
lights.  They radiate force and friendliness, almost cheeriness.
But by their very strength, they hurt.

"As I look, they are swinging closer and closer, a million
miles at each jump.  Millions of miles with the speed of light.
Aye, it is light of quintessence of all light.  Beneath it the
fog melts into a jeweled mist radiant, rainbow-colored of a
thousand varied spectra.

"I can see the streets.  Why, they are filled with people!
The lights are coming closer.  They are all around me.  I am
enveloped.  I..."

It was the usual manic Monday morning. Her inner time clock had put her eyes on
Auto pilot whom opened of their own volition and she saw the time was 6.00am
She leapt out of bed and after her daily ablutions, was applying moisturizer on her
Legs when something way out of the blue occurred.   The week before she had
Fallen on the pavement due to fresh snowfall.  She’d fallen flat on her belly but not
A single drop fell out of her coffee mug. Weird.. Well she’d brushed off the snow
and with the help of a passerby and made her way to work.  This fall had created a scab on one of her varicose veins that ran down her  right leg  which she’d developed after pregnancy.  These angry red lines ran down both legs forcing her to cover them
In all seasons.   Now, as she applied the moisturizer, the scab came off the varicose vein which burst open and blood gushed out in full flow.  Not being fainthearted, she tried to stem the flow with towels, but the blood kept gushing.  Getting frantic now, she rushed
To the bedroom to wake her husband who was snoring gently in deep sleep.  Hubby
Had removed his hearing aids and was sort of deaf to the world.  She stuck one finger
In her vein and with the other hand shook him vigorously.  He woke up due to this
Violent shaking and after putting on his hearing aid asked whattssup?  Wifey screamed
Am bleeding to death!!  What!! Hurry quickly call 911 for emergency medical aid.
He finally realized the gravity of the situation and called 911 emergency hotline.
Help came amidst sirens waking the whole hood.  Wifey was embarrassed and sheepish
But she was bleeding to death so it was ok after all, causing all this  uproar.  She had
Lost a lot of blood having bled profusely for a good 30-45 mins and hence they gave
Her oxygen and applied a tight bandage and carried her to the emergency
Room of the nearby hospital.  There they transferred her to a bed.  A physician’s aide
Then came to her aid and cut open the bandage and said that it would require stitches
And asked her to lie on her stomach so that she could do the needful as the vein was on the
Back of the right leg.  She was quite dizzy and light headed and quietly turned over.
She started bleeding profusely again whilst the physician’s aide had left to get the
Sutures and bandages.
Suddenly, wifey felt herself floating on thin air and then she alighted in what seemed
Like a cemetery which looked very familiar.  Yes, she’d attended a wake and subsequent
Burial in this very place.  It felt like home.  The headstones on various graves seemed
Familiar markers and she felt she knew the folks buried there as well. She floated along
Until she reached the church in the building that annexed the crematorium.  Here she
Saw her hubby, her two sons, her daughter and all her near and dear ones, silently weeping  and wiping their eyes whilst looking at the coffin holding the body of the
Deceased.  Out of curiosity she crept closer to see who were they mourning and how
Come no one had informed her.  Getting upset, she crept closer and then she saw she herself was lying in the coffin in her favorite red color sari with all her finery and hands folded.
She got a bad jolt!!  When did she die? She is fine and present right here.  She shouted
Waved her hands but no one paid any heed.  What should she do now?  She then
Recalled the gateway she had entered after leaving the hospital and entering the
Cemetery.  It was funny shaped with lots of carvings and seemed to reach the sky.
It was shaped like an oriental pagoda.  She did not recall seeing the top of this gateway.  Now she sped back on the double to retrace her steps going back through the gateway.  When she reached this gateway, she tried to go through but it seemed to move out of reach.  She tried again, again it seemed to elude her.  Please, she wept, god help me cross  this gate as I need to get back home. She had lots of work pending. But the gate seemed
To move just out reach every time she crept near.  Finally tired, she fell to the ground
In a dead faint.
After what seemed like eons, she opened her eyes and found herself in the emergency
Room with oxygen tubes in both nostrils and IV in her arm and her leg was bound in a fresh bandage.  Hubby was dozing in a chair close to her bed after what seemed like another sudoku bout.  The daily crossword had not been tackled as yet.  Hubby enjoyed
Mental calisthenics in lieu of physical ones even though she nudged him constantly.
He enjoyed hot pakoras and requested them all the time.  Now, she vowed, I will ensure
That he goes for daily walks with me.  Want him around forever with me.  The children
Will soon fly out of the nest and we will only have each other for company.  
The doctor finally came around with her discharge papers and told her to be very
careful with her legs and told her to walk a lot and drink lots and lots of water to
get the circulation going.  Then the doctor said in passing, missy you really scared
All of us you know.  For a good ten minutes you were not responding to anything and even your heartbeat had stopped- We gave you shocks to revive you and gradually
You began to respond.  Your husband had started weeping a lot and seemed lost
Without you.  He wanted to call your children, but we stopped him as we had not
Given up hope.  You are a tough one and a fighter and so you came back to us.
The Gateway had finally let her pass through……….
   
 
 
The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates
 in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness.
 Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to
 less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness
 and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable
 together reveal a man’s thoughts.
Louis Aragon
1897-1982, French Poet
Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.

Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of the day; and as of any other king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, "he is sitting in council," it was always said of him; "The Emperor is sitting in his wardrobe."
Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns, the clothes manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of remaining invisible to everyone who was unfit for the office he held, or who was extraordinarily simple in character.
"These must, indeed, be splendid clothes!" thought the Emperor. "Had I such a suit, I might at once find out what men in my realms are unfit for their office, and also be able to distinguish the wise from the foolish! This stuff must be woven for me immediately." And he caused large sums of money to be given to both the weavers in order that they might begin their work directly.
So the two pretended weavers set up two looms, and affected to work very busily, though in reality they did nothing at all. They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms until late at night.
"I should like to know how the weavers are getting on with my cloth," said the Emperor to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, however, rather embarrassed, when he remembered that a simpleton, or one unfit for his office, would be unable to see the manufacture. To be sure, he thought he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet, he would prefer sending somebody else, to bring him intelligence about the weavers, and their work, before he troubled himself in the affair. All the people throughout the city had heard of the wonderful property the cloth was to possess; and all were anxious to learn how wise, or how ignorant, their neighbors might prove to be.
"I will send my faithful old minister to the weavers," said the Emperor at last, after some deliberation, "he will be best able to see how the cloth looks; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable for his office than be is."
So the faithful old minister went into the hall, where the knaves were working with all their might, at their empty looms. "What can be the meaning of this?" thought the old man, opening his eyes very wide. "I cannot discover the least bit of thread on the looms." However, he did not express his thoughts aloud.
The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to come nearer their looms; and then asked him whether the design pleased him, and whether the colors were not very beautiful; at the same time pointing to the empty frames. The poor old minister looked and looked, he could not discover anything on the looms, for a very good reason, viz: there was nothing there. "What!" thought he again. "Is it possible that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see the stuff."
"Well, Sir Minister!" said one of the knaves, still pretending to work. "You do not say whether the stuff pleases you."
"Oh, it is excellent!" replied the old minister, looking at the loom through his spectacles. "This pattern, and the colors, yes, I will tell the Emperor without delay, how very beautiful I think them."
"We shall be much obliged to you," said the impostors, and then they named the different colors and described the pattern of the pretended stuff. The old minister listened attentively to their words, in order that he might repeat them to the Emperor; and then the knaves asked for more silk and gold, saying that it was necessary to complete what they had begun. However, they put all that was given them into their knapsacks; and continued to work with as much apparent diligence as before at their empty looms.
The Emperor now sent another officer of his court to see how the men were getting on, and to ascertain whether the cloth would soon be ready. It was just the same with this gentleman as with the minister; he surveyed the looms on all sides, but could see nothing at all but the empty frames.
"Does not the stuff appear as beautiful to you, as it did to my lord the minister?" asked the impostors of the Emperor's second ambassador; at the same time making the same gestures as before, and talking of the design and colors which were not there.
"I certainly am not stupid!" thought the messenger. "It must be, that I am not fit for my good, profitable office! That is very odd; however, no one shall know anything about it." And accordingly he praised the stuff he could not see, and declared that he was delighted with both colors and patterns. "Indeed, please your Imperial Majesty," said he to his sovereign when he returned, "the cloth which the weavers are preparing is extraordinarily magnificent."
The whole city was talking of the splendid cloth which the Emperor had ordered to be woven at his own expense.
And now the Emperor himself wished to see the costly manufacture, while it was still in the loom. Accompanied by a select number of officers of the court, among whom were the two honest men who had already admired the cloth, he went to the crafty impostors, who, as soon as they were aware of the Emperor's approach, went on working more diligently than ever; although they still did not pass a single thread through the looms.
"Is not the work absolutely magnificent?" said the two officers of the crown, already mentioned. "If your Majesty will only be pleased to look at it! What a splendid design! What glorious colors!" and at the same time they pointed to the empty frames; for they imagined that everyone else could see this exquisite piece of workmanship.
"How is this?" said the Emperor to himself. "I can see nothing! This is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be an Emperor? That would be the worst thing that could happen--Oh! the cloth is charming," said he, aloud. "It has my complete approbation." And he smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the empty looms; for on no account would he say that he could not see what two of the officers of his court had praised so much. All his retinue now strained their eyes, hoping to discover something on the looms, but they could see no more than the others; nevertheless, they all exclaimed, "Oh, how beautiful!" and advised his majesty to have some new clothes made from this splendid material, for the approaching procession. "Magnificent! Charming! Excellent!" resounded on all sides; and everyone was uncommonly gay. The Emperor shared in the general satisfaction; and presented the impostors with the riband of an order of knighthood, to be worn in their button-holes, and the title of "Gentlemen Weavers."
The rogues sat up the whole of the night before the day on which the procession was to take place, and had sixteen lights burning, so that everyone might see how anxious they were to finish the Emperor's new suit. They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them. "See!" cried they, at last. "The Emperor's new clothes are ready!"
And now the Emperor, with all the grandees of his court, came to the weavers; and the rogues raised their arms, as if in the act of holding something up, saying, "Here are your Majesty's trousers! Here is the scarf! Here is the mantle! The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; one might fancy one has nothing at all on, when dressed in it; that, however, is the great virtue of this delicate cloth."
"Yes indeed!" said all the courtiers, although not one of them could see anything of this exquisite manufacture.
"If your Imperial Majesty will be graciously pleased to take off your clothes, we will fit on the new suit, in front of the looking glass."
The Emperor was accordingly undressed, and the rogues pretended to array him in his new suit; the Emperor turning round, from side to side, before the looking glass.
"How splendid his Majesty looks in his new clothes, and how well they fit!" everyone cried out. "What a design! What colors! These are indeed royal robes!"
"The canopy which is to be borne over your Majesty, in the procession, is waiting," announced the chief master of the ceremonies.
"I am quite ready," answered the Emperor. "Do my new clothes fit well?" asked he, turning himself round again before the looking glass, in order that he might appear to be examining his handsome suit.
The lords of the bedchamber, who were to carry his Majesty's train felt about on the ground, as if they were lifting up the ends of the mantle; and pretended to be carrying something; for they would by no means betray anything like simplicity, or unfitness for their office.
So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, "Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor's new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to the mantle; and how gracefully the scarf hangs!" in short, no one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor's various suits, had ever made so great an impression, as these invisible ones.
"But the Emperor has nothing at all on!" said a little child.
"Listen to the voice of innocence!" exclaimed his father; and what the child had said was whispered from one to another.
"But he has nothing at all on!" at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.

Fairy tales often appear to be one of the ancestor genres to fantasy, and readers, reviewers, and even sometimes critics often draw connections between the two. How much water that argument holds is open to debate; Maria Nikolajeva argues in "Fairy Tale and Fantasy: From Archaic to Postmodern" that the commercial fantasy genre is, in most cases, not much like fairy tales at all. Some works, though, show an obvious connection: fairy tales are a perennial source for retellings and adaptations.

Between those intentional fairy tale retellings and the kind of fantasy Nikolajeva discusses, there's a middle ground of texts whose nature is less distinct. Works like Meredith Ann Pierce's The Darkangel simply feel like fairy tales, even when they don't retell a particular story. How justified is that comparison, and what inspires it? The Darkangel evokes more than one genre, including the gothic and (in certain places) science fiction, so what quality are we pointing to when we say it echoes the feel of a fairy tale? Answering that question means first determining what a fairy tale is—a question which has occupied folklorists for centuries. By looking to that body of scholarship, we can begin to tease out how a novel like The Darkangel might relate to this other genre.

One of the most well-known works of folktale (or fairy-tale) scholarship is the Tale-Type Index, assembled by Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, and recently updated by Hans-Jörg Uther. The Tale-Type Index groups texts as variant renditions of particular plots. By looking at it, we can see that The Darkangel bears a relationship to a tale-type most commonly known in the West as "Beauty and the Beast," but this comparison only gets us so far; that type is an extremely broad one, known in many diverse forms around the world. The Darkangel is not so closely related to any particular variant that we could call it a retelling. Stith Thompson's Motif Index might be more useful; it's an organized listing of plot elements and objects that commonly appear in folktales. We would certainly recognize details from The Darkangel if we perused it. But since many of the motifs in the index occur throughout fantasy, their presence doesn't move us much closer to understanding why this novel, more than many of its neighbors on the shelves, has a distinctly fairy-tale feel.

Vladamir Propp's book The Morphology of the Folktale shows much more promise. In that influential work, Propp analyzed Russian folktales and boiled their plots down to a series of what he called "functions," which might be story events and/or character roles, such as the donor figure. Propp's breakthrough was to show that, though no folktale has all of the functions, those functions it does have will inevitably occur in a particular order. The story might skip over a broad swath of them, or loop around to repeat a particular series as an episode in the broader tale, but on the whole, the functions form a coherent "grammar" of folktale plot, which is at least partially the means by which we identify the genre as distinct from others.

Analyzing The Darkangel according to Propp's scheme might be productive, but it can be a tedious process. Instead, I would like to point out the shortcoming of such an effort, which is that Propp's analysis is fairly culturally specific. He built his list by analyzing Russian folktales, and for those texts, it works brilliantly. Its effectiveness, however, diminishes the farther one gets from Russia. There are cross-cultural morphologies, but they are of necessity so broad and generic that they don't have much practical use. Propp's work has also been critiqued on gender lines, for a failure to address female heroines (like that of The Darkangel) very effectively.

By contrast, Max Luthi's work The European Folktale: Form and Nature offers an approach that is far less culturally bounded. He bases his analysis on stories from all over Europe, giving us as close to a description of the "Western" tradition as we're likely to get. And Luthi's focus in this case is not the plot or components of a folktale, but rather the style in which those elements are rendered. What happens when we apply his ideas to The Darkangel?
Luthi gives a number of descriptors for the folktale style, including one-dimensionality, depthlessness, abstract style, isolation and universal interconnection, sublimation and all-inclusiveness. We can take these in the order he presents them, and test them one by one against Pierce's writing. The Darkangel is the first novel of a trilogy, but I'll be analyzing it independently. Like many first parts of trilogies, it stands on its own very well, and to analyze all three books would complicate the picture prematurely.

We begin with "one-dimensionality." Luthi indicates two qualities with this term. The first is that, while the wondrous creatures and otherworldly beings of legends exist at home, in familiar locales, their counterparts in folktales exist in distant locations. The hero encounters a talking bear while on his quest, not in his backyard. The second characteristic Luthi classes under "one-dimensionality" is a lack of fear or curiosity when the numinous appears: instead of marveling or cowering, the way a hero in a legend would, the hero of a folktale takes such events in stride. As Luthi points out, "He is even calmed when a wild beast begins to speak, for a wild beast frightens him—it could tear him apart—while he finds nothing uncanny about an animal who speaks" (7). Together, these two qualities mean that a folktale expresses spiritual distance through spatial distance. Instead of being nearby and spiritually strange, otherworldly things are physically distant and spiritually unremarkable.

Aeriel, the main character of The Darkangel, begins the novel in the familiar village where she's lived as a slave for most of her life. Strangeness begins when she and her mistress Eoduin climb the steeps of Terrain, the nearby mountain. It seems to be a journey of at least several hours (though the peculiar cycles of day and night in the novel interfere with that calculation). On the mountainside, they encounter the darkangel (also called an icarus). He's a vampiric man with twelve black wings, who carries Eoduin off to be his bride. Later Aeriel returns to the mountain in hopes of killing him, and is in turn carried off, this time to be the tiring-woman for Eoduin and the darkangel's twelve other brides.

Aeriel therefore goes far away from the village, and in fact never returns to it. From the initial encounter in the mountains, she goes to the darkangel's castle, where she meets gargoyles, the duarough Talb, and the wraiths who are the remnants of the icarus's brides, after he drank their blood and put their souls into the necklace he wears. From the castle, she later journeys to the desert in search of the legendary starhorse, and encounters other strange beings there. This would seem to more or less fit Luthi's criterion of distance.

What about the lack of wonder? Pierce gives at least one explicit denial of that quality, when Aeriel goes to the desert and encounters the Pendarlon, a lyon who, like the starhorse, is the guardian of his land. "Only now did she begin to wonder that she was not dead, that the lyon had rescued her from the vampyre, and that he spoke with a human manner and voice" (147). But Aeriel gets over her supposed wonder immediately after that statement, accepting a talking lyon as a matter of course.

Aeriel does show some emotional reactions to the wonders she encounters, but only occasionally are they based on the strangeness of those wonders. She pities the wraiths, and is repulsed by their mindless, pathetic behavior; the fact that they're dead women is hardly mentioned. The duarough Talb startles her when he seems to come to life from stone, but a page later, he's a trusted friend. Only the darkangel seems to keep a numinous quality for long, and even then, his cold beauty and majestic manner, not his twelve wings and blood-drinking ways, are what entrance and disturb Aeriel.

Moving on, we come next to the quality of "depthlessness." Luthi means a great many things by this term. To begin with, again contrasting with legends, Luthi says that objects in folktales are less often utensils of daily life, and moreover they're "figures without depth, that even have a tendency toward linearity" (11). The most notable objects in The Darkangel are the necklace the icarus wears, with fourteen lead vials hanging from it; a golden spindle he gives to Aeriel, that spins its user's emotions; Aeriel's walking stick she receives from the desert people; the silver hoof of the starhorse, used as a cup; and the edge adamantine, the only blade that can harm the darkangel. The hoof, in its use as a cup, violates the principle of linearity and non-depth, but the shapes of the rest fit fairly well.

Moreover, as Luthi says, "they do not bear the signs of active daily use" (12), and therefore lack depth in time.
He also says that the characters of a folktale lack depth. This is most vivid in the case of injury. Though folktales often feature gruesome mutilations, no one's ever crippled, no one ever bleeds in anything other than a symbolic fashion, and no one ever says "ow." We find in The Darkangel that Aeriel's injured three times: once when she's fleeing to the desert and the icarus bites her, once when a pack of jackal-dogs cut her arm, and at the end, a special case I'll address in a moment. She shows brief pain when her arm is hurt, but the injury's temporary; the lyon's blood heals it not long after. The bite is more serious, and Aeriel spends several months recovering from it among the desert people—but it's hard to shake the suspicion that the time elapses for the purpose of the plot, so that Aeriel can learn important lessons from the desert people and the time when the darkangel will seek his last bride will come closer.
The final injury comes at the end of the novel. Aeriel has collected the materials she needs to kill the icarus, and he's chosen her as his final bride. She poisons him on their wedding night, and he's lying vulnerable at her feet. But when she should kill him, she chooses instead to save him. The darkangel was once mortal, but his heart has been gilded with lead; that must be remedied, for him to survive. Aeriel's solution to this problem is to cut her own heart out and put it in his chest.

Pierce's narrative supplies two faint reasons why we should accept this as possible. One is that Aeriel has just drunk a life-giving draught from the starhorse's hoof (the same draught that poisoned the unnatural icarus); it gives her strength. The other is that the edge adamantine is so sharp that it makes painless cuts which don't bleed at all. Neither one diminishes the fact that Aeriel, like a proper folktale heroine, just inflicted a mortal injury on herself without batting an eyelash. Surgery accomplished, she feels very tired and lies down to die. Talb, baffled at her bizarre solution, melts the lead off the darkangel's heart—which he thought was the obvious answer—and, to save her life, places the heart in Aeriel's chest. The entire scene, like many folktale scenes of dismemberment, makes far more sense in a symbolic light than a practical one.

Aeriel gets to have greater psychological depth than most folktale heroines, though perhaps not the full range of emotional and mental complexity we might expect from a longer novel, or one written for adults. She has a past, though in this novel it's mentioned only briefly. Like many folktale characters, however, she lacks a family, and other ties binding her to the social world of her village; the only real relationship she has there is with her mistress Eoduin, whose capture by the darkangel precipitates the plot. The relationships Aeriel forms with later characters are, as Luthi suggests, expressed through external connections: Talb gives her food, information, and magical gifts, the Pendarlon gives her assistance, the leader of the desert people gives her food and a walking stick that doubles as a weapon.

As for the dimension of time, it too exists in more of a symbolic sense than a practical one. The darkangel goes out every year to find a new bride, and when he has fourteen he'll come into the fullness of his power. The novel covers the span of time between the last two brides, and Aeriel's essentially the only character who changes in that time. And although one can, to some extent, see her changes as a process of maturation, in truth there's minimal difference between Aeriel's behavior at the beginning and at the end. The real changes are in the tools she has at her disposal, and in her appearance, which refines such that the icarus eventually considers her to be a worthy bride.

The third quality Luthi describes is classed as "abstract style," a somewhat generic and unhelpful term. As with depthlessness, Luthi means several things by this. One is that the folktale only mentions what is necessary, when it becomes necessary. For example, each object generally has only one attribute: in The Darkangel we have items such as the golden spindle or the leaden chain. Long descriptions are alien to the folktale, and though Pierce gives us more than a folktale would, her style is still restrained.

The materials of objects, Luthi says, are often metallic or mineral, and especially among metals, "the folktale prefers the precious and rare: gold, silver, copper" (27). This general pattern seems to hold in the novel, with the absence of copper and the addition of lead. Though not precious or rare, it's an exemplar of the other extreme, and a love for extremes is another quality Luthi attributes to folktales. For color, "the folktale prefers clear, ultrapure colors: gold, silver, red, white, black, and sometimes blue as well . . . the only blended color to appear is gray" (28). This is nearly true for the novel. Black, white, and silver are by far the most predominant colors, with grey often expressed by lead instead of iron as Luthi suggests. Blue is the most frequent after those, possibly for reasons of setting: the world of The Darkangel is actually our planet's moon, and the Earth, called Oceanus, appears blue in the sky.

There are two striking differences, however. The first is that red, so common in folktales, is almost completely unknown in the novel, used only for the eyes of the jackal-dogs that attack Aeriel and the Pendarlon in the desert and by implication when blood appears. But blood is in one instance referred to as "rose" (Pierce 193), which leads to the other discrepancy: chromatic colors, in their rare appearances in the story, tend almost universally to be pastels, the blended shades Luthi says do not appear in folktales. Pierce may be using them to suggest the alien qualities of the setting; there are rose-colored lizards (6), and early on, examining the darkangel's black feather, one character says that "Birds are rose, or pale blue, or subtle green . . . There are no black birds" (26).

The majority of the chromatic elements occur away from the darkangel's castle, at the start of the novel or when Aeriel goes to the desert. This suggests that the castle itself is being constructed as a folkloric space, more so than its surrounding world. The other noteworthy point is that Aeriel's coloration changes in the desert: her skin, "a wan rose-tan" (2) at the beginning of the story, is burned pale by the sun (159), and her hair lightens as well. She moves from a chromatic appearance to one more in line with the monochromism of the fairy tale. And her eyes, which the icarus calls "fig-green" (42) when he first meets her, he later calls "emerald" (210). They keep the green color which Luthi says is extremely rare in folktales, but they go from an organic image to a mineral one, from a common substance to a precious one.

Returning to the plot, we find that events in The Darkangel occur with the precision of a folktale. Aeriel encounters all the necessary helpers; they're never omniscient, but they always know or have exactly what she needs, and show up exactly when she needs them. Her magical objects have specific uses, and go away once their use is over. The walking stick serves its purpose when Aeriel knocks a jackal out with it, but then she leaves it behind. The boat Talb made to take her to the desert transforms into a heron and flies away when she gets out, though it'll violate this rule in later books when it returns to her in different forms. As Luthi says, "everything 'clicks'" (31). Aeriel returns to the darkangel's castle with precisely enough time to finish her preparations to kill him; there's no last-instant rushing or twiddling of thumbs.

As Luthi moves through his analysis, he begins to circle back on his own points, approaching them again from different directions. This begins as he discusses "isolation and universal interconnection." The question of extremes, brought up in his discussion of abstract style, returns as a facet of isolation; extreme things are in a sense isolated. Characters are orphans, or youngest children; they're at the royal heights of society or they're utterly common. Aeriel, orphan and slave-girl, matches this description. Luthi's point in highlighting the way in which folktale characters are isolated is then to emphasize how that isolation allows them to immediately and without trouble enter into any relationship which the plot might require. Aeriel's easy friendships along the way might seem to support this.
Isolation does not, however, express itself as strongly in the plot of The Darkangel. Luthi claims that folktale characters fail to learn anything from one another—the third brother is successful at a task because he's the third brother, not because he learned from his siblings' mistakes—or to learn from their own experiences. The episodic structure of many folktales demonstrates this quality, with characters repeating their mistakes or going through a series of identical challenges. It's less true in the novel; Aeriel remembers her past experiences, and details introduced earlier may become relevant later. Pierce also gives us more background and temporal depth than a folktale would. A story Aeriel tells the icarus turns out to be the story of how he, as a little boy, was transformed into a darkangel; Talb has a past that relates to the icarus's. These interrelationships are unlike a folktale.

The issue of motivation also shows a blending of styles. Luthi indicates that folktale heroes are propelled into action not by their own desires—lacking interior depth, they have none—but by external forces and characters. Much of the plot of The Darkangel conforms to this. Events happen because the icarus carries Aeriel off, the wraiths ask her to kill him, the duarough sends her to the desert, the icarus chooses her as a bride. There are two pivotal decisions Aeriel makes for herself, though. She chooses to go for a second time to the steeps of Terrain; nothing forces her, and had she stayed home, the plot wouldn't have happened. Then, when she's defeated the darkangel, she chooses to save his life instead of killing him. Both of these actions are motivated by inner life: a desire to avenge Eoduin, and a love for those aspects of the icarus that are not evil.

As Luthi reaches his final points, about sublimation and all-inclusiveness, he directly addresses the way that "folktale motifs are emptied of their usual substance" (73) or sublimated, calling it both an advantage and a disadvantage. "The folktale loses in concreteness and realism, in nuance and in fullness of content, and in ability to express the deeper dimension of human experience and relationships, but it gains in formal definition and clarity" (73). During the discussion of isolation, Luthi noted that the isolating qualities of the plot are "striking and objectionable" (39) to the modern reader. In these comments, we find the key to understanding the ways in which the novel does and does not map to the qualities of a folktale.
Reading Luthi's book, I found myself feeling at times that he was speaking negatively of folktales. I soon realized that reaction was based in my experience as a fantasy writer: the qualities Luthi attributes to folktales are the sorts of things likely to draw unfavorable responses from members of a critique group. The brief, unsupported statement that Aeriel wondered at a talking lyon is telling, not showing, and her behavior doesn't match its description; furthermore, for a young woman to take such odd things in stride isn't believable.

Modern fantasy partakes more of the characteristics Luthi attributes in passing to legends. Despite its fantastical content, it's realistic in style. Characters marvel at strange things, cry out when they get hurt, and (amnesiac heroes aside) have a past. They learn from their experiences, and the environments they move through are interconnected, with different elements impinging on each other. They suffer difficulties, and magical helpers don't always show up promptly with assistance. When we read stories that fail these standards, we often feel they're poorly written or facile. As a case in point, one review of The Darkangel on the Borders website complains that Aeriel is "flat and uninteresting," "unengaging," "with no backstory and no depth to her"—exactly like a fairy-tale heroine, as the reviewer points out.

Looking at folktales, we find that modern people often don't enjoy reading them. Tales that have gone through literary embellishment may provide the detail that we find interesting, but as a folklorist, I've seen others read transcriptions of oral texts, and they often find them unengaging. Modern fiction trains us to expect certain qualities, as we in turn with our expectations shape the qualities of modern fiction, and the style of today is not a folktale style.

Pierce's novel occupies a middle ground between the folktale style and modern fiction. Her description is simple rather than lush, and the objects in the story are few and iconic. Her characters spend relatively little time on introspection, and at suitably wondrous moments, such as when Aeriel gives the darkangel her heart, they abandon plausible human reactions of pain and fear. But Pierce leavens this with background on the setting and characters and interconnections of those details that help draw the reader in, and she allows her main character a few, pivotal decisions that come from within.

The question, of course, is why the novel's written this way. Clearly, using elements of a fiction style helps Pierce engage her readers, but what does she gain from the folktale style? Scholars have been arguing the purpose of folktales almost as long as they've been arguing the definition of them, with even less agreement, and most of their efforts have focused on the plot rather than the style. Bruno Bettelheim, for example, would tell us that the stories still speak to us today because they resolve the oedipal conflicts of children. Pierce's borrowing, though, focuses on style more than plot. We can only speculate, but I suspect that by echoing the style of folktales, whether deliberately or reflexively, Pierce evokes specific connections for us, drawing on the weight of tradition and the legitimacy we attach to the genre. By giving her work a fairy-tale feel, she attempts to persuade us that The Darkangel is more than just a novel, that it speaks with the modernized voice of the folkloric tradition.

TEENAGERS Harry Wild and Ryan Hurley have bounced back without any ill-effects despite being lost in rugged Victorian bushland for four days.
The 19-year-olds who went missing while trying to sneak into the Falls Festival, near Lorne on Victoria's southwest coast, have joined up with their mates again to continue their holiday.
Mr Wild, who is originally from Melbourne, and Mr Hurley, from Mildura, spent yesterday with their parents but had since ditched them, Harry's mother Jennifer Wild said today.

"They are carrying on their holiday with their mates, it was clear to us they wanted to make up for what they had missed out on rather than spend it with us," Mrs Wild said.

The pair could not be contacted on today as they holidayed at Torquay with friends.

Mrs Wild said her husband and Mr Hurley's parents were "amazed" at the make-shift hut the men had built for shelter by Tuesday night.

"It was an absolute beauty, we were amazed they kept out the rain and kept warm," she said.
"Harry's training as a scuba diver instructor, survival skills, and first aid skills all helped and Ryan depended on them.

"Ryan's father said that if Ryan had to get lost he would want Harry to be the one with him.

"It has cemented their friendship, very much so, they will be friends for life."

Harry said yesterday "we're idiots" for trying to sneak into the music festival and getting lost.

The pair jumped out of their car after becoming impatient in traffic and left their mates to trek across bush to try and sneak into the festival without a ticket.

They became lost and disoriented trying to follow the music, were rained on throughout the first night without shelter and lost mobile phone contact with police.

A police helicopter spotted the boys early yesterday.

Harry and Ryan admitted that by Wednesday night, the third night of their bush ordeal without any food, they had feared they might die.

Late! Late again!

Minutes before the deadline I send the two-megabyte file, and now -- mere moments after finishing an exhausting project -- I am reminded about an urgent meeting, thanks to ingenious life-planning software and its relentless symphony of emails, jingles, and beeps. The countdown timer reveals a fleeting 1200 seconds to prepare.

I laughed at the stress: It is more important to be well-dressed than on time. Glancing at the online calendar -- “Colleagues at the meeting: conservative” -- I remove my “Obama 2008” T-shirt and then turn it inside out to match the zeitgeist of my belligerent audience. In bold letters, the shirt’s front delivers the message: “My Messiah can beat up your Messiah.”

Swiftly now, I convert some pertinent articles from formats text to mp3 then move them to an audio player. These are read to me aloud, as I grab dinner (one energy bar) from a bookshelf filled with hundreds of these bars, sorted by the chewy decimal system: by protein-content, flavor and size. In one click, I pay three bills with online bill pay. Now to my wife’s phone message (“Do something about the leak in the bedroom ceiling, and water the plants.”) -- with hurried poise I place a potted philodendron underneath the leak. Still listening to the mp3ed articles, I snatch four ice cubes and drop them into clay pots to water my thirsty plants.

Timer tells me there is one minute, one precious minute, of time free. I toss some old books on top of a beautiful wooden desk in my living room, the desk which I call my “cemetery of dreams”. Here I deposit sacred heaps of notebooks, scraps of paper notes, someday books to read, CDs of music to listen to and languages to learn, photos of friends to contact, titles of books to write, quotations from classic novelists and philosophers, names of charities and causes to learn more about. All the impassioned projects I would tackle wholeheartedly, if some great cosmic power would eliminate the necessity for money and work.

Haunted am I by information in never-ending waves.

Crossing the doorway threshold I hear my computer beep-beep-beep the wild cry of an UNA: an urgent news alert. Is it another wasteful war? The immanent economic meltdown? Some indispensable innovation in one of the fields of my expertise? ... Thinking about my profession -- where to be uninformed is hara-kiri -- I rush indoors to the giant screen. The news alerts me to the fact that a gust of wind has blown a giant inflatable dog turd beyond the bounds of a Swiss art museum, where it flew 200 meters, broke some windows, and took down a power line. The work of art had been equipped with a bad-weather safety system, which of course had utterly failed to perform.

Walking, walking to the meeting, I watch a squirrel make a breathtaking leap between two tall trees. The motto of Goethe strikes me: “Remember to Live.” You see, every day during my working hours (which is almost all my waking hours), I entertain the faraway feeling that I have forgotten something. Something essential for me to understand.

I turn off the audio player in the middle of an article about trends in electronic publishing. An old man is walking -- slower than snail --- in the middle of the street, bent in half like the Greek letter gamma. He drops his cane; and when I pick up the cane and hand it back to him he shakes his head and says: “You work your life away. And then this.”

And then he squeezed my hand and I remembered.

****

Some years ago I traveled around the world with a backpack and a bike. I had been wondering what would happen to me if I turned off the incessant noise: the computer, the phone, the television, the advertising propaganda, the terabytes of trivial facts, nonsense, and news. I hoped to find cultures, peoples, and individuals who were living a more natural life, a life vastly different from our comfortable — and some might say vicarious, buy-crazy, over-refined — existence in the West. As a traveling Thoreau, I lived simply: sleeping under the stars, eating whatever I could forage or buy inexpensively from farmers or shops, and cycling or hiking to undeveloped places that the guidebooks would never recommend.

During this year-long journey there was only one time when I found precisely what I was looking for. I had gotten myself lost, thoroughly off the map, and had wandered into a small village in a valley between great mountains. On a dirt road, when I first approached the village, I saw enormous blue herons who made nests on top of telephone poles. As I wheeled past them they flew into the sky, flapping their wings awkwardly and ever-so-slowly, graceful reminders of a timeless world. From the pole-tops they would land on what first resembled pillars, thirty feet tall, like stacks of giant mudpies. Hundreds of these heaps surrounded me, all made of dung and straw: I soon learned that this was the preferred fuel for cooking and for heat.

Quickly I began to wonder about the people who welcomed the blue birds and created these practical and hilarious towers. The men in this village wore dark caps with gold sewing needles stuck inside, and spent much of their day yammering in the lone café, and no more than twenty hours per week working in their fields. Though the women worked constantly they laughed more, and seemed even happier than the men. Early in the mornings I would watch five of these women — sitting in a circle around a deep earthen pit — talking and working together to make the bread for the day, the same way their ancestors had worked for centuries before. The first woman started the fire in the bottom of the pit and kept it burning; the second woman mixed the flour and water; the third rolled this mixture into round balls; the fourth flattened the balls into thin circle-shaped doughs the size of a small pizza pie; the fifth placed the flat round dough on the sides of the pit then took it out at just the right moment when the bread was done. There was no word in their language for ‘leftovers’ — the bread and all the meals would be made fresh every day. These simple people believed that food, like life, needed always to be made new.

As the village guest, I was treated with grand hospitality and kinglike esteem. In a week I was able to learn enough of their language to explain where I was from, what my life in America was like, and why I was a-traveling. And after the explanation a young boy, perhaps ten years old, took me by the hand and told me that he wanted to show me something, and that this sight would be the best and most interesting attraction that I would find anywhere in his entire town.

He led me to his great-grandfather, an old man working in a field. The moment the old man saw me he removed his hat and placed his hand over his heart. He called to his family to make a feast for me, and to chop wood for my warm bath. By Western standards he had few reasons to be happy, and yet all the time I observed him, in all moments, he was radiant with joyfulness.

I stayed the night in his best room, and in the morning I loaded my bicycle, pointing the front wheel to the west. I described my destination (a large lake in the mountains); I explained that although I carried a map I had become entirely lost. With a great smile, he told me some words which I carefully wrote down -- it would be months later before I understood. “My son,” he said, placing an arm around my shoulder. “My son, listen to an old fool who in his whole life has learned one thing alone. No matter how far you’ve traveled on the wrong road, turn back.”

****

My summer of unending labor continued, and nothing eventful happened until a certain Tuesday in the Fall, the fourth day of November in the year 2008. Gripped by my computer screen, I watched the early election returns. Those of us who had suffered over the past eight years felt that this night could change the course of history. It would be a revolution, a genuine revolution, an expansion of consciousness in America and the entire world.

My wife played a piano version of Sarasate’s “Gypsy Airs” as I tallied electoral votes. I had wandered to my cemetery of dreams, and unconsciously began to sort the heap of papers into project piles. I picked up a biography of Goethe, where long ago I had bookmarked a page with the gem: “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

What would I do if I could paint my paradise and walk in? ... I would master the arts of loving and being kind. I would center my life about relationships: with family, neighbors, and friends. I would balance my life with Dr. Montagu’s prescription: “Health is the ability to love, to work, to play, and to think soundly.” I would use my encyclopedic knowledge and savvy about the latest technologies -- not to worship and improve technology itself -- to advance a sustainable lifestyle, a healthy planet, safe havens for all species, freedom, peace, justice, education, great books, and the creative arts. I would live more simply and wisely, and encourage others to do the same. Like Noah, I would start huge foolish projects, and not care a damn what other people might think.

“He’s winning,” I told my wife, after adding the prospective votes from Washington,Oregon, and California. “Let’s walk.”

The streets in our little town were quiet until an hour before midnight. Then, from the center of the town known as “the Commons”, we heard a cheer -- an enormous roar. What joyful freedom sounded in that colossal cheer! My wife squeezed my hand. Two young black teenagers, both female, came running down the street shouting “Obama! Obama! Obama!” Some Autumn leaves must have fallen from the trees into my eyes: how else could I explain my wet cheeks, now covered with streams and streams of tears?

And I tell you now, that despite all the obstacles our culture throws at us, and all the struggles our creative spirits must endure -- that night I promised myself I would remember. And act every day on that remembering, and begin my life anew. It would mean sacrifice: I would have less, I would be more.

There is so much good in all of us, so much kindness, so many noble dreams. I know now that Goethe meant: “Remember to live sincerely, passionately, intensely.” The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years or the most wealth, but the one with the richest experiences. To remember to live is one thing mainly: to remember to love.

This is our moment. This is our time.

THE death of a woman whose body was found following a house fire is now being treated as murder after a post-mortem examination revealed she was dead before the blaze.

The 37-year-old woman was discovered in the house in Darling Street, Narre Warren, in Melbourne's southeast, on December 14.

Police initially believed her death was not suspicious but the post-mortem examination revealed her injuries indicated she was the victim of foul play.

Homicide detectives are hoping to hear from a witness who is believed to have seen a green Ford sedan flee from the area shortly before the fire was reported.

My eyes came open.
Soft light came in, a window, perhaps, a turquoise sky.
Serah was sitting at my bedside.
  "It's okay, you are fine. You have arrived, everything's fine, “she said.
Liar, I thought. I focussed on her face; she looked troubled. What's the problem, I thought, aren't you pleased to see me? But I said nothing.
I lifted up my arm; it was wrapped in polymer and cooling fluid. Inside the wrap my skin was hot, like new baked bread.
  "Whuguh?" I said, speaking round some soft tube in my mouth I couldn't spit out. Serah took it out for me.
  "You need to put on another ten kilograms but you are doing fine. Well. Here you are "
  "Yes, here I am."
  " I didn't really expect you so soon. You said you were going to send a copy after six months, once you had finished your ocean research."
Liar, I thought. You didn't expect me at all.
"I exercised my option early."
  "Good, good. How are you getting on back on Terranova? How am I getting on as well? I mean my original. How is she doing?" she asked.
  "Fine," I said. I can lie too.
  "I - she hasn't written to me for more than a month. Last thing she said, you were all going on a trip in that old yacht round the islands."
  "Yes. We did that." Oh, yes, we did that.
I pretended to be bored. "So this is Roanoke, is it? Pretty sky you've got here."
  "It's artificial, a membrane to keep the atmosphere in. They change the color every so often. This is a small world, it can't keep hold of its atmosphere very well without a membrane to hold it in; but it is a small community, everybody knows everybody, you know what I mean. You will like it here, I think," she said. "Did you send a copy to the other worlds as well?"
  "Yes. I expect I am waking up on Nadia and Hammerstein and Twinkle around about now, and talking to you, just like this. It is more personal than writing a letter."
I wanted to scratch my new body under the plastic, but my fingers were too clumsy.
"It is odd how she hasn't written to me," Serah said.
  "You’re original?" I asked her, in what I hoped was an innocent voice.
  "Yes, she used to write every week. Of course I wrote back, but my mails won't get to Terranova for another twenty years. But there is no time lag from there to here, is there? Mail travels at light speed, just like full copies for engeneration, doesn't it?"
  "Yes, just like me. I have just beamed across twenty light years like an e-mail just to see you."
A copy of a person's mind state, and of their DNA, can be sent by laser from one system to another; here, on Audubon and on a number of other new worlds a new body can be grown in a matter of days. It is much easier than sending us by starship. However, it feels a little odd, to say the least. I was literally growing a new body moment by moment, and was as weak as a kitten. For now.
She didn't seem too happy to see me.
  "Was Thom on the boat with you? With us? Round the islands?" she asked, nervously.
  "Yes, for a while. Then he ran off with some island woman; we never saw him again." Another lie.
  "I was worried, the three of you in that rickety old boat, with no computers."
Yes, you would worry, wouldn't you, after a month with no word about how your sordid little plan had unfolded.
  "About Thom... we are seeing each other, here on Roanoke," she said, carefully. “You did know he had sent his copies to these new worlds as well, didn't you?"
  "Oh, yes."
  "Actually, we want to get married, I really need to talk to you about a divorce. I'm sorry," she said. That was no surprise at all, of course.
Ha! You never realised that my wristwatch had a personality as well. A little partial copy of myself to keep an eye on the wind and the tides while I was asleep; a little cheat to keep us safe. You didn't realise that my watch would see both of you when you crept in and killed me.
I don't think you even realised I had a backup copy of myself in the University library. You didn't realise that my watch would communicate with my virtual in the library, and that my copy would tell the rickety old boat to scuttle itself.
With you, and him, on it.
Far from land.
It was my duty as a husband to arrange for my only remaining conciousness, the University Library copy, to be sent to the four distant worlds where you were still alive, and break the bad news in person.
Yes. I will tell you, and Thom. Just before I kill you.
Again.
An eye for an eye for an eye for an eye.

I can remember stories, those things my mother said
She told me fairy tales, before I went to bed
She spoke of happy endings, then tucked me in real tight
She turned my night light on, and kissed my face good night
My mind would fill with visions, of perfect paradise
She told me everything, she said he’d be so nice
He’d ride up on his horse and, take me away one night
I’d be so happy with him, we’d ride clean out of sight
She never said that we would, curse, cry and scream and lie
She never said that maybe, someday he’d say goodbye
The story ends, as stories do
Reality steps into view
No longer living life in paradise - of fairy tales - uh
No, uh - huh - mmm - mmm
She spoke about happy endings, of stories not like this
She said he’d slay all dragons, defeat the evil prince
She said he’d come to save me, swim through the stormy seas
I’d understand the story, it would be good for me
You never came to save me, you let me stand alone
Out in the wilderness, alone in the cold
My story end, as stories do
Reality steps into view
No longer living life in paradise - no fairy tales - yes
I don’t look for pie up in the sky, baby
Need reality, now, said I
Don’t feel the need to be pacified, don’t cha try
Honey, I know you lied
You never came to save me, you let me stand alone
Out in the wilderness, alone in the cold
I found no magic POTION, no horse with wings to fly
I found the poison apple, my destiny to die
No royal kiss could save me, no magic spell to spin
My fantasy is over, my life must now begin
My story end, as stories do
Reality steps into view
No longer living life in paradise - no fairy tales