Straw to Gold; Flax to Linen

The serf, intimidated by the palace representative’s rich velvet livery, sipped a cup of courage and rechecked his supplies. “You want straw? For spinning? It’ll never work.”

“The queen said straw. Strong stalks, not brittle.” The page shifted from one stockinged leg to the other, resisting the urge to hold his nose against the smell of manure from the fields. “What you drinking?”

“Try some. My own grog.” The farmer proferred his cup. “Flax. That’s it. Makes a nice linen. I got some presoaked, ready to spin.”

The page wiped his mouth. “I’ll take a sample, see what she says.”

Today’s Word:Acnestis (akˈniːstɪs)

Acnestis. It’s the itch you can’t scratch. There, between your shoulder blades. A complaint that won’t leave you alone. A retort you don’t think of ’til it wakes you at night, meanly appropriate and well deserved by the jerk who prompted it. Destructive fake facts based on dystopian fantasies.

You can’t scratch that itch because: the complaint can never be satisfied, your retort is not suitable for work, the lie is one of many seeking freedom from being scratched.

Define the parameters and set up a fair fight. Keep scratching until truth bleeds through. You’re not the only one itching.

Close the Door Behind You

“Diana,” Janus said, “So glad you could come.”

The goddess entered through the door of beginnings. She brought the moon’s fertility to Janus’s Table for All Times. She sipped his tea of memories past and future.

“Janus, dear,” she said, “I wish the night would never end.”

“But we must let the sun shine. Start over. Correct past mistakes.”

“Yes,” she said. ”We must think good thoughts- health, happiness, peace, prosperity, especially for the sick, the sad, the beleaguered, and the poor.”

Once again, they closed the endings door, watching the past recede and seeing the present open to change.

Christmas Coal

La Befana, the Christmas witch, and Old St. Nick sipped eggnog in front of an electric fire.

Befana said, “Here’s to generosity and goodwill.”

St. Nick said, “How long have you been giving gifts?”

“A lady never reveals her age, but I’m from that old time religion.”

Nick said, “Eons?”

“You’re right and also very wicked. I’d leave you coal in your boot, but it’s out of fashion.”

St. Nick said, “Don’t I wish. If they keep burning that stuff, the North Pole will melt away. Mermaids will replace elves in the workshop. For the sleigh, porpoises instead of reindeer.”

Peace on Stage

The ballerinas found runs in their tights, tiny smelly turds in their slippers, and nibble marks on the blocks at the bottom of their satin toes. They took it as a declaration of war. But Clara insisted that evidence of merriment is a sign of the season; like peppermint sticks in a stocking, brandy in eggnog, and fireplace ashes.

She said, “Think of it, other dancers mirroring your steps at night.” They stood backstage, where telltale claw marks had opened holes in the velvet backdrop. Peeking after dark confirmed their hopes. They joined the mice to dance the night away.

Can’t Catch Me

It was the season for gingerbread. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and other delicious smells wafted through the village from the bakery at the edge of the forest. It was the year the old woman who had baked him and the old man he called father had passed.

The Gingerbread Boy kept the business going, paddling cookies in and out of the ovens. On the day he learned that the estate went to the man’s brother, who did not accept him as a nephew, the orphan decided to make headlines. He ran for his life, beating every Olympic record and securing his future.

Frog to Princess

“I want a frog, not a dog.” Merrilee stamped her foot, shaking her pretty mane like a recalcitrant horse until a crowd gathered around. Her mother turned ten shades of crimson. Some mothers would have marched her out. If her mother had that in her, Merrilee would never have perfected such a performance.

“Sorry, darling, I misheard. A frog, then.”

Merrilee pointed to a princely amphibian. The store clerk readied a cardboard carton with holes on top. As he lowered the frog into the container, Merrilee said, “Stop, I need to kiss him first to confirm that he’s the one.”

Lamp Luck

Aladdin served sheiks and veiled ladies at Bosphorus Square Lamps.

On slow days, he cleaned the trade-ins. Noting the component materials, he checked for dents, damage, and neglect. He assessed usability: plugs, wires, oil wicks. He cleaned the lamps up and set a price. But none of them was magic. Aladdin could tell.

An elderly gentleman came in with an old fener. “It needs a good home,” he said.

Holding the lamp, Aladdin felt a nervous energy inside. “I’ll keep it for myself,” he said.

“It needs tea and baklava. Four o’clock, without fail.”

Aladdin did a happy dance inside.

A Watch for All Time

His Excellency, Herman Jay Rabbit, leaned against a case displaying all manner of timepieces, all keeping time at different speeds. Most of Wonderland had learned to live with this.

Rabbit had not. “My good sir, you have perverted time itself,” he said when the shopkeeper arrived from behind a brown curtain.

Fingering a loupe, he said, “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“I always seem to be late.”

“For whom,” asked the man.

“Her Majesty.”

The man said, “There’s no watch fast enough to keep up with the Queen.”

“But I must arrive on time.”

“You’ll need a calculator.”

The Prodigal Fleece- An Ad

No one asks for woolens anymore. No bags full for BaaBaa’s master or his dame, especially none for the trekkers freezing in Nepal waiting to climb to the top of some freaking mountain. Which one? BaaBaa can’t remember, but he knows exactly when wool tanked and fleece took off.

Warm, washable, even woolly if you get the right stuff. And BaaBaa makes the right stuff. He has a reputation to live down as the black sheep of the family- a misspent childhood, years in Nepal’s wild, sacred heights. He’s redeemed himself.

This bad boy kicks the competition. Woolmark, eat your heart out.

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