the fairy tale dialogues : part i
The Fairy Tale Dialogues
As told by Angel Carver & Madison
Part I : The Handless Maiden Tale
Angel Carver: So. The Myth of the Handless Maiden.
Angel Carver: A miller in a town was having a hard time making money.
Angel Carver: One day the devil comes to him [doesn’t he always?] and says, “I can give you a power source so you won’t have to depend on an animal to turn the wheel.”
Angel Carver: “It will increase your production a lot.”
Angel Carver: “In return, I want that which is behind your house.”
Madison: Wow, the combustion engine, who knew?
Angel Carver: The miller agrees. There’s only an old ugly tree behind the house. It’s no good anyway.
Angel Carver: So sure enough, the miller’s business goes through the roof.
Angel Carver: He becomes rich. Then one day the devil comes to collect.
Angel Carver: [The devil does that too.]
Madison: Uh oh.
Angel Carver: And he says, “I’ve come for that which is behind the house.”
Madison: They always get you that way.
Angel Carver: The miller says, “Oh take the dumb old tree, it’s worth it.”
Angel Carver: But when they go behind the house, next to the tree is the miller’s young daughter.
Madison: Well jeez, you do not tell the devil to take any old thing behind the house until you’ve made sure your daughter is in her room listening to records.
Madison: He is a bad father.
Angel Carver: He really is.
Angel Carver: As payment, the devil chops off her hands and leaves.
Angel Carver: In other versions of the story, the devil picks the miller’s wife and she gives him her daughter instead [what a mom].
Madison: Um, that was my mom, I am typing with my nose.
Angel Carver: The family is rich and though the daughter has no hands, she doesn’t really need them. There are servants.
Angel Carver: She cries sometimes, “What can i do? What can I DO?” But their answer is, “Well you don’t need to do.”
Madison: Well she will never have pretty nails like that.
Angel Carver: Exactly.
Madison: And how will she demurely hold a fan and flutter her eyelashes?
Angel Carver: One day, she becomes so sad, she wanders into the forest.
Angel Carver: [Oh the pain.]
Angel Carver: Seeking out solace.
Madison: We will not even mention sexual complications.
Angel Carver: [I love how in myths people wander into the forest.]
Madison: I do that daily.
Angel Carver: [She still has a mouth, oh you mean, never mind.]
Madison: How will she throw things when she gets mad?
Angel Carver: But though she feels happier, she starts to starve because, DOY, she doesn’t have any HANDS.
Madison: Picking fruits and berries has become problematic.
Angel Carver: Nearing emaciated, she finds a pear tree.
Madison: I hope you noticed I dated this by saying she listened to records, I thought that was a nice touch.
Angel Carver: All the pears are numbered and catalogued in this kingdom. It’s the price you pay for running an organized, profitable kingdom.
Angel Carver: Somehow she manages to eat one.
Madison: The Wilderness, population 287 pears.
Angel Carver: And every day she eats another.
Madison: Well I think she is in trouble, someone surly probably owns that tree and those pears.
Angel Carver: Well the caretaker of the pear thing [orchard?] eventually tells the king, “You know we’re missing a pear a day.”
Madison: Well the king should not have put his pear tree in the forest. Doy.
Angel Carver: [The king fires him and returns the little fridge and the scanner and the caretaker has to go back to work in retail at the Chanel counter and gets free skin care but never gets out of debt.]
Madison: LOL
Angel Carver: One day the king and caretaker go to watch to figure out the pear issue.
Angel Carver: Reports are drawn up, pie graphs, coffee is served.
Angel Carver: And in the middle of the pear summit, they see the miller’s daughter.
Angel Carver: As she struggles to eat a pear with no hands. [eyeroll]
Madison: Well there is something erotic about a girl pulling pears off a tree with her teeth.
Angel Carver: There really is. The king is so touched by this beautiful wretch, the sight of her sustaining her life in this basic manner,
Angel Carver: Well he takes her back to the castle.
Madison: Oh no, he is one of those poverty = nobility guys.
Angel Carver: Yes he thinks she’s very EARTHY or something.
Madison: Well how do you shave your legs if you have no hands?
Angel Carver: Oh dear. Well waxing I guess. She’s rich. Not knowing that she is the daughter of a rich miller and has many gold rings and bracelets but she can’t wear them cuz, DOY NO HANDS.
Madison: Oh the humanity!
Angel Carver: I hate having other people put mascara on me. Now THAT would be upsetting every morning.
Angel Carver: The king takes the maiden as his queen.
Madison: Woohoo! Venus DeMilo. Those pears will do it every time.
Angel Carver: Pears are sexy.
Angel Carver: [We should try this, btw.]
Madison: Oh we should not, we would get too many sexy IMs.
Angel Carver: Anyway.
Angel Carver: The queen is very happy.
Angel Carver: And the king adores her.
Angel Carver: They have a child. And they name it Coolio Marie Pear-Miller.
Angel Carver: {{ revised ancient myths }}
Madison: Does the child do the soundtrack for “Dangerous Minds”?
Angel Carver: Yes but Mom can’t play it. NO hands.
Angel Carver: The maiden [maiden is more charming than queen] again becomes restless.
Angel Carver: She can’t even care for her own child.
Angel Carver: She asks, “What can I DO?”
Angel Carver: Again, her husband’s answer is the same as her father’s. “You don’t need to do.”
Madison: Well darning and knitting are out.
Angel Carver: To make her seem more graceful and queenlike, he makes her silver hands.
Madison: Okay, now I know why she likes him.
Angel Carver: Which aren’t functional but make her look more ladylike [no more troublesome bloody stumps].
Angel Carver: The kingdom is charmed by the silverhanded queen. She’s loved and adored.
Angel Carver: And waited on hand and foot.
Madison: I bet she has “hand and foot” issues.
Angel Carver: And she goes to Hermes and buys scarves and then to Chanel for those clip on earrings that I feel are garish but some people seem to like.
Madison: I think I saw her at Nordstroms buying off the rack.
Angel Carver: NO!
Angel Carver: But she’s troubled.
Angel Carver: What good is she if she can”t even take care of her child?
Angel Carver: The king says, “Hey you aren’t going to wander into the forest again, are you?”
Madison: I used to date him, I think.
Angel Carver: She reminds him that they are a king and handless maiden/queen in an ancient myth and she sort of has to.
Angel Carver: So she again wanders into the forest.
Angel Carver: It’s harder this time. She’s got a baby.
Madison: Wow
Angel Carver: Somehow she manages for a short while.
Angel Carver: Back at the castle the German Shephards are running up and down the halls looking for the baby.
Angel Carver: Their Nascar hats flying off they run so fast.
Madison: Oh they will be driving all over that forest now in a Bronco.
Angel Carver: Then one day, TRAGEDY.
Angel Carver: The baby falls into the river while the maiden is trying to fetch fresh water.
Madison: I think she got bad genes from her father in the parenting department.
Angel Carver: Out of habit and panic, she cries for servants’ help.
Angel Carver: But there aren’t any servants in the forest, dingbat maiden.
Madison: I do that daily too, and all I get are dogs.
Madison: This sounds like Kansas. Did this happen in Kansas?
Angel Carver: Um, no. Then out of… instinct? Panic? Base emotion? Stupidity? She reaches in the water to grab the baby even though she hasn’t got any hands.
Angel Carver: Miraculously, in the water, her hands reappear at the ends of her arms intact.
Madison: She’s obviously from the humanities.
Angel Carver: Not the silver hands, her real hands.
Madison: Wow. She could start her own church.
Angel Carver: As they were before the devil cut them off.
Angel Carver: The End.
fairy tale dialogues : part ii
where this comes from :
seemaxrun.com guests
where the art work comes from :
that is a screenshot from my chemical romance’s i don’t love you
12 Responses to the fairy tale dialogues : part i
Have I said that one of the things I particularly like about your writing is the way you lay it out/ divide up your sentences? No, probably, but I do.
But the _baby_? What happened to the _baby_?
The baby was rescued when the no handed queen regained her hands and pulled her from the river, but then was stolen away by woodland creatures and raised in the wild where she learned only woodland creature speak. Years passed, and then one day a strange man from Canada who knew woodland creature sign language stumbled across her path and lured her into discoteches and unfortunate gin drinking ways. To this day she has a predilection for pears, aversion to juniper berries, puts way too much emphasis on manicures, and dances every time she catches a wiff of gin.
[ps : that spacing thing is a quirk of poets and film writers who write down the page not across it.]
Ah. Canadians. Stuff the sign language it was probably the accent that soothed her savage wildlife oriented breast. I bet she likes hairy men though, eh?
Well, I thought it was the screenwriter influence, but it’s a great style for prose too, at least the way you handle it. Works well in the Net in particular. Not a great place for dense paragraphing, the Internet.
Well, that was almost as difficult a read as my [totally unrelated to sexy fairy tales and will remain unnamed] post.
Which is actually a compliment, because that was a fantasically good read, humourous, and I don’t care if it was too long. You squeamish types can go back to your cave. Not my cave, though.
There are some IM conversations that just hit the spot.
Nothing to add to the story, sorry. I’m in a Eurovision cloud right now…
Max:
I liked it.
Richard
Okay- here’s what I saw-and what I saw was pretty cool.
Hands down our Handless Lady was the one who was in trouble here … and it didn’t start with her Daddy’s Deals With The Devil.
She was exactly like those women you on those talk shows- at least that’s what I saw…’oh whoa is me the world isn’t fair and I’m JUST A GIRL’
I’ll bet she didn’t even try to run when the Devil came at her with an Ax and I’ll bet she didn’t say anything to her Father like ‘thanks for the stumps you son of a bitch’when it was done.
She was mutilated, cast out and then forced to become a snake ( of sorts )and did she learn her lesson? Did she learn anything about survival out there in the wilderness?
Hell no…she goes home and her life stays the same.
Then one day it’s crunch time-she has to save her child… but of course she calls for help and FIRST and that poor kid is on it’s way to being a maggot nursery and THEN she does the right thing by HERSELF and gets her hands back.
See…I like that message.
I like it a lot- it’s timeless.
amm
I always knew you were a princess. Something weird is happening on your blog. it keeps throwing me to you tube. I did something goofy.
Well that should not be happening.
Okay the anchors were not closed. That is fixed and everything should work right now.
Yay! Ok, now I can say…..can’t wait for part II Little did I know my life is more like a fairy tale than I thought possible. Wondering off and trying to survive and all.
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