random fiction

[Amos]

There was a good man, who was in possession of a good hat. It was not his practise to wear the hat in public, but only to try it on in his living quarters, and pose in it before a mirror. For it seemed to him that it was such a good hat, that he wasn't up to the task of adorning it. At least once a week he would feel compelled to try it on, and invariably he would set it back on the shelf again, feeling somewhat dejected and heavy of spirit. It was as if, while he wore it, that hat weighed a thousand tons, and the effect it had on him was a lasting sense of a too heavy burden. For the first minute or so he would feel lifted and strong, but the longer he remained before the mirror, the more despondent his self-examination grew, which he put down to the superior qualities of his hat, contrasted with his own faults. The hat was supple, made of fine quality material, and shaped like the very essence of hat-ness. This was the Adonis of hats, the Heracles. Nothing could be done to improve this hat, nor could anything make it seem less perfect than it was. Conversely, the man was not very physically fine-featured. While he had many good traits, including generosity and a high regard for other's feelings and opinions, he also had a softness borne of leisure and moderate wealth, and a sallowness to his complexion from drinking too much and sleeping too little. When he had bought the hat, he had imagined it would transform him into something more like the hat itself, acting like a potion of invincibility. Yet all it had done was sneer derisively at him, and drive him into greater feelings of inadequacy, and a tendency to be anti-social, reclusive, and generally melancholic. He put the hat on more and more often, took it off more and more often. He abused the hat. He worshipped it. He denied it's existence by not wearing it, and confirmed it's power over him by trying to. He threatened to throw it out the window, but secretly feared it would mock him by soaring like an eagle across the sky. One day when he put on the hat, the empty space between them swallowed him completely, and he never emerged from it's depths.

[Amos]

Vic slammed the door open, and Yuvna rushed to catch up with her. "I wouldn't try to kill you, I like you!" she declared in her high girly voice, as the two set off into the blackness of the tunnels.

"On her eleventh birthday, the beautiful princess Yuvna Hey Vic howcome I don't have a last name?"

"Because you're only half a person. Grow a little taller and I'll think about giving you one."

"Hmpf.. The beautiful princess Yuvna was given a very special, magical-"

"-stepladder."

"Shut up, Vic! A magical piano. At first the princess was unsure of it, because she had never learned to play the piano."

"Being too sort to reach the keys."

"BUT it didn't matter. This piano didn't need to be learned. When princess Yuvna sat in front of it and put her hands on the keys, she instantly knew how to play it. Her fingers danced with a will of their own and the song she played was the song of her life."

"It was a very short song."

"She played for a very long time! The music filled the palace. All the lowly servants who heard it said they felt like the princess was with them, flying over their heads like an invisible angel or a fairy, and singing sweetly. Every note she played was about herself: all the things she'd seen and done and felt, and everybody who heard the music loved Yuvna even more than they already had. When it was over they rushed up to her bedroom to see her - but her room was empty, except for the piano."

"Then they looked down and saw her. She was just so short that they didn't notice her at first."

"She had disappeared. The magical piano had played her life away, turned her into music, into pure sound, and the song had only ended when she'd been completely transformed and there was no more princess left to make music out of."

There was a pause. Her tale had ended.

"Well?"

"Not bad," said Vic. "For a midget."

Yuvna poked her tongue out, and then smiled. Anything short of scorn from Vic was as good as outright praise.