A Meretriciously Deceptive Box of Voices

 

Once upon a time there was a queen. That queen had a daughter. And that daughter was a princess. Of course, she was. And yet, the princess was forced out of the castle, by the queen herself, and hence decided to share a cabin in the woods with seven hardworking men.

Technically speaking, the queen wasn’t the princess’ real mother, but her stepmother. After the princess’ real mother had died, her father, the king, didn’t grief for too long. He took a new wife shortly thereafter. Word had it that he wasn’t quite fond of the term widower; even though another rumour claimed to have heard that the king himself gave the orders to turn him into one, in the first place.

Anyway, the new queen was a real badass type of a stepmother, one would only encounter in fairy tales of old. The fact that the princess was removed from the castle and lived alone with seven men, shows that there had been some serious animosities going on between the two of them.

The queen herself was a very competitive person. Nobody really understood why someone in their right mind would want to compete with the princess’ beauty, but the queen did. Not understand, but compete. And since the queen couldn’t bear the princess’ presence in the castle any longer, she – one fateful day – ordered one of her most loyal guards to bring her stepdaughter out into the woods and take care of the increasingly nasty nuisance the princess had become to her.

 

The sun had almost set when the guard brought the princess out into the clearing in the deep and dark forest. In the treacherous twilight, shadows were moving around behind the trees and bushes. But she couldn’t tell whether they were from beastly or manly origin. The wind was pushing a chilly breeze through the leafy twigs and branches. The princess slid off her high horse and stepped onto the mossy ground; her feet sank in, almost an inch deep.

As to be expected, the guard shouted “Run!” And run, she did; over hedges and through ditches. Will I get out of this alive? or Will he fulfil his task? were the princess’ predominant thoughts, when suddenly a bolt from the guard’s crossbow struck one of the old oak tree’s lower branches, right above her head. This partially answered the princess’ pressing questions.

Then the princess heard a second arrow being released from the guard’s crossbow. A split second before the bolt’s tip would have split her pretty skull in half, something swept the princess off her feet.

To the guard this looked close enough to what he considered a successfully accomplished mission. So, he turned the two horses around, left the clearing and returned to the castle.

 

“What the …”

“Shhhh!” An old and wrinkly face, close to the princess’, with an old and wrinkly finger in front of its lips, hushed. The little man pointed silently to a rope tied to a sycamore tree close to her feet and to another equally old and wrinkly man over by a big beech tree, who was holding the other end of the rope. When she looked over, the other little man smiled and waved at her.

“… fuck! You are all midgets!” the princess burst out after all seven of the hardworking little men had gathered around her.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no, she has used the M-word!” the little men were whinging in a chorus of deeply resonating sad voices while stroking their long beards. “You see, around here it is rather uncommon to make use of the unpleasant M-word!”

“How else am I supposed to refer to you guys, then?”

“What about our names?”

“For that I would need to know them!”

And this was how the princess was introduced to her new companions.

 

Upon return to the castle, the guard reported back to the queen, omitting crucial details he, however, deemed unnecessary mentioning. The queen, sceptical by nature, went to her chambers and consulted her old friend, the magic mirror.

“Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?”

The mirror, warping itself inside out, forming a face that was trying to resemble the queen’s, but hardly succeeded, said “My queen, you are the fairest here, so true. But the young queen beyond the mountains at the seven dwarfs is a thousand times more beautiful than you.”

It goes without saying that the queen was glowing white with rage. What followed were numerous attempts to assassinate the princess, including one to do away with her with the help of the famous poisoned apple, executed by the queen in disguise herself.

 

The king wasn’t very pleased with the decline of reputation this discord had brought upon his once so honourable and reputable family. When after yet another consultation with the talking mirror, the queen had – in a fit of anger – torn it off the wall and smashed it into pieces, the king decided to let one of his most progressive craftsmen take care of the issue. While the queen took her daily bath in a tub full of ass’s milk, the craftsman went into the queen’s chambers and fixed the mirror as best as he could.

“My queen,” the king intercepted his current wife on the way back to her quarters, “we must try and find a way to put an end to this most unpleasant of all quarrels.”

“You are a fool to believe that my enjoyment of life can exist side by side with your daughter being present in this world!”

The wise king made a sufficiently sad face. “My queen,” he sighed, “I have already taken measures to bring joy back into your life.” The king looked down on the floor mimicking an even sadder self than his voice could even convey, and ended with, “My daughter won’t be a source of bother to you any longer, my beautiful wife.”

Like all people with a disposition towards vanity, the queen found her husband’s recent words exceedingly flattering. And as soon as she returned to her quarters, she found her talking mirror back in one piece hanging on the wall where it always used to be. She was so excited that she shut the door quickly and went straight up to the mirror – her thoughts revolving only around one single question.

“Mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” she asked. The mirror again, warped itself inside out and answered the question as truthfully as always. The queen, an unversed laywoman when it comes to lip reading, just listened to the voice.

“My queen, you are the fairest here, so true. Because everywhere in your kingdom, and even beyond the seven mountains, there is nobody left that is more beautiful than you.” This was exactly what the queen had been dying to hear all this time, and thus suspended all her disbelief voluntarily.

 

The voice, however, didn’t come from the mirror itself. The king’s skilled craftsman had found a way to rid the talking mirror of its overly honest vocal cords and voice box and replaced them with his own invention, a small and round and black box that glows blue at the edges when it’s turned on. The craftsman named it Alexa. And since Alexa didn’t only answer question, but was also quite keen on listening, the king was always one step ahead of his scheming and plotting queen.

And thus, the skilled craftsman became the kingdom’s first minister for security and intelligence. The king could ensure the safety of his realm and reign. The princess took care of the dwarves’ house, while they were working hard. For Alexa’s voice was unerringly mirroring the queen’s deepest wishes, hopes and desires, the queen grew quite fond of Alexa’s mendacities. And everybody lived happily ever after.

The Island of J. S. Budgett

The ocean was furious. Huge waves were breaking down on me. The storm, that sank our ship, had been going on for hours, it felt. I was exhausted; ready to give up, end the struggle, surrender to the powers of nature. But then, suddenly, when I was on top of an immensely towering wave again, instead of the other way around, I got a glimpse of a wooden dinghy not far away from me. Strangely enough, none of my mates were anywhere to be seen.

The dinghy was moving fast – summiting a wave, then going down into a valley again. Hope was like a thin straw handed to me through the dinghy, and I was willing to grab it. I reached the meagre vessel, this I know. But how I got to the island, I don’t.

I was woken by a crab trying to clip one of my toes. I got up, which proved to be quite difficult, after fighting for my life – for how long, I don’t know. Staggering along the lengthy and curved body of white sand, I believed to have heard sounds of human origin. When I reached a pile of boulders that separated one part of the beach from the other, the voice seemed to become clearer. It took me quite some time to climb the big rocks. The voice, however, wasn’t human at all; it was a skinny young sea lion trapped between the slippery boulders calling out for one of its kind to rescue it.

With no intention to intervene in the way of the world, I left the poor fellow to his own devices and climbed further up the bare rocks to the top of a gigantic boulder, which turned out to be the body of the small island itself.

I roamed the island for days or even weeks, I really don’t know. There was a part of the island, close to the beach, which was densely forested with bamboo. In between this green forest there was a little grove where I found other trees and bushes with edible fruits and berries. There was also a little freshwater pond nearby.

One day I fell asleep on the beach. When I opened my eyes again, it was a star-bright night. In the distance, close to the forest, I saw something glowing white. When I came closer, it turned out to be a long bridge made of bamboo, lit by the bright white light of the stars. The bridge led out onto the sea. I started running, onto the bridge. I was brimming with joy. I jumped and shouted: “Woohoo!” Running along the bridge, I took off, and then I flew. “Woohoo!”

I was woken out of my daze when my face and belly hit the hard sand on the same beach where I had fallen asleep the day before. The bridge’s apparition was gone, of course. This realisation was painful, but it came with a brilliant idea in tow.

After some weeks, my shirt and trousers were torn to pieces due to the fabric-eroding effects of the ever-present and mercilessly blazing sun. I just had to follow the foul smell to find the by then immensely bloated sea lion between the boulders. A thick cloud of flies was buzzing around its dead body. I covered my mouth and nose; and equipped with a sharp-edged stone, I went down into the pit. With the help of salty seawater, oil from the sea lion’s brain and a contraption to smoke the hide, I called two days later a new pair of sea lion shorts my own.

I had spent quite some time building the bamboo raft. The raft was big enough for me and a shelter from the relentless sun, made from the leafy parts on the top of the bamboo poles. I also used the same leaves for a sail-like construction to catch the wind and bring movement into being.

One morning, I set off with the bamboo raft and some small baskets of fruits and berries. It was again a star-lit night when I reached another island. This one was different, in any way. It had a strange feel about it. I pulled my raft onto the beach and went up to where the trees began. From there I saw a huge bonfire. I could also hear voices. A language that even I was able to understand.

It wasn’t humans that I encountered speaking my language. Was I hallucinating, again? There, around the fire, were thousands of lizards, snakes, toads, frogs and other amphibians. And all of them spoke my language. I was just about to eavesdrop and find out what this hubbub was all about, when a stick cracked under my feet. Within seconds thousands of pairs of eyes were upon me.

“A human.” said a wide-eyed lizard.

“Who are you, human?” asked a tadpole in a squeaky voice. The tadpole was splashing about in a bowl of water. The bowl itself sported a handle and four wheels. Mother toad, who was rocking the bowl by the handle, looked surprised down at her rather inquisitive offspring. But I was still more stupefied than any of them. I was so stunned, I couldn’t even utter a single word.

Then a long and smooth snake slithered up to me. “You mussst be Friday!” it said, “We are ssso sssorry! But you mussst know thisss, Robinssson died quite a while ago.”

“No, no, no!” A massive Budgett’s frog was suddenly breaking through the undergrowth and hopped into the clearing where the bonfire was burning. The pale fat frog with small but gibbous eyes and a big mouth, going from ear to ear, was waving its arms in front of its roundish body in negation. All the others went silent in an instant. Then the frog took out two flares and lit them on the fire. When they started shooting off colourful fireballs, the frog shouted in excitement: “It’s Wednesday, my dudes!”

Intra Muros

Walls are diverse; they can be inside, as well as outside.

The outside walls are made of aluminium. They are riveted onto elegant but robust frames forged from sturdy steel. Walls in general are meant to protect the inside from the dangers of the outside.

The temperature inside the cabin feels like the equivalent of twenty-one degrees Celsius. The outside temperature, as displayed on the little screens in the dividing walls or on the overhead TVs, is minus sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

The safety instructions turn out to be surprisingly useful for the passengers when suddenly – with an enormous roar – sheets of aluminium are being ripped out of the wall in the back of the cabin. The hole in the hull is getting bigger with every precious second that passes.

The people – still tied to their seats by their seat belts – are screaming. The screams, however, drown in the savage cacophony of aluminium getting peeled off steel frames and bolts being wrenched out of floors and walls. The interior panelling is getting shredded into chunks of freely and slowly moving debris, due to reduced cabin pressure and expanding vacuum, as the tortured body of sturdy steel frames, holey lightweight metal walls and remaining rows of seats is nose-diving with rapid velocity.

Entire seating rows are being sucked out into the icy open, like pieces of Lego through a tube into a vacuum cleaner. The scared screams of those passengers simply fade away when being eventually consumed by the outside.

A flight attendant – unable to cope with an event with this unusual a magnitude – is wide-eyedly watching the spectacle unfold, while trying to stiffly tie herself tighter onto the narrow spare seat in the flight attendant area, quite close to the hole in the hull in the back of the cabin.

Decompression in the cabin has progressed significantly. The air is getting thinner and thinner, the people can barely extract enough oxygen from the thin and gaseous mixture. Hence, they grab the yellow masks dangling in front of their faces and press them hard onto their mouths and noses.

They follow the rules.

An exceedingly apprehensive passenger is making many signs of the cross in rapid successions, then slumps down and continues with thoughts and prayers, oblivious of the rather hideous fact that he, inside the cabin, is already – to some extent – in heaven.

The hole in the hull in the back of the cabin is expanding at an extraordinary rate. The seating rows twenty-nine to twenty-five have already disappeared through the vortex in the wall.

Walled up inside myself, I have – all this time – been sitting on seat twenty-four C.