Pleiades: Literature in Context

Hansel and Gretel were actuallyjust an eccentric's metaphor of joie de vivretaken to its breaking point. The housewas made of bones and the woman's magicwhen distilled was just dumb luck.By that time in history it was clear magicwas an uncle poisoned at a wedding.The shoreline isn't shrinking you're just getting closerto death. Your enemy backs into your caror at a grocery picks up the same piece of fruit,either way ends the same: there will be a duel,the both of you count to tenbut only one cleans up the body.There is always that partin the story when you have to choose:love or duty; truth or the ugliestintentions. Which are antlers. You knowthe parlor game. There's a word caughtin your throat so act like the animalyour card describes: "Large desert." "Girl queenplucking out eyes." "Boy learnsin darkness." "Mouth."

Actually, the house was candy,but the children were thieves.The woman was scared. She hidin the oven. The children cornered her thereand you know the rest. This worldhas its presidents. My uncle drank poisonfor years, called it his vitamins. His shorelineshrank to the size of a single homein a single desert. You can find itif you want. I suppose you don't wantto. My cousin hated my uncleso much he left teeth in his freezer.Whose teeth are these? My uncle would say, [End Page 251] understandably. The light would be an alien'sbeam through the rotating dust. The earth would becalm. Things change. My uncle used tobe able to recite every element includingEinsteinium and Tungsten. Yugoslaviaexisted. Pluto was a planet.

Hansel and Gretel were really just occupying forcesin the old woman's house. The old woman was forced to repeat her historyto make sure it stayed. She troubled the walls with scratched versions

of a name that can't be spelled with English letters. She calledlittle boat little boat where are you now? I can't say she isn't my grandmotherwithin me. My uncle shooting his gun into the empty desert. Vultures

look down at everything. They do not hunt. They wait. A boy in his boatis starving. He will drink this water. He will uncouple this thirst.

My uncle misses the desert he thinkshas abandoned him.The desert is there.It is not a mouth. It is not

teeth. There is that part in the storythen there is that story. Convince yourselfit is not a story and it becomes memory.

My cousin once killed a bat rightin front of me. He stoned it. Its sinwas so great. The kind of sin you couldn't cry

out. Nothing is clear. The horse might make it.Even desert has water. Every storm has a name. Bradley,

Jeremiah, Lydia, Casper. The boy walks into waterwith a bag of petals dropping them as he gets deeper. [End Page 252] Red trail undulant in the light. Redshadow. What kings take when they die.

Filthy boy. Filthygirl. What sea. Whatlight. What light. Bradley,tell me.

Believe in failure and failure is king.Learn to suffer. Convince yourselfthere is always a different story.A throat in the saddest city but stilla throat. Sadness in the saddest citybut still: a city.

In the original, Hansel and Gretel had had a daughter.The daughter was in love with the way she feltwhile spinning. Hansel and Gretel found her

in a house but the house was already burning.The woman was already dead. There was nocandy. My uncle is an actual uncle. He shoots the desert

nightly. He tells me about Jonah in a whale,his friend who'd died building his own landmine.He tells me about the hardness of certain fruits. What land is

best to farm. He also tells mehe entered this damn world by luck and god willinghe'll take someone terrible with him when he goes. At night he offers milk

to foxes. He says you have to look at your enemy so you knowhim at least as much as yourself. Or maybe until. A storyis only so large. There is still so much to believe. [End Page 253]