Spindleshanks

Before you begin, be sure to ask the right question.

Can I do anything for you?

Then put your foot on the pedal and try.

Take brittle translucence and turn it into opaque strings of vainglory.

Remember: It’s painstakingly slow, but you’ve begun now. There’s no going back.

The first step is to write a magical contract. Decide the rules of this trade and don’t forget to agree to treachery.

[A timer’s counting down.]

The king wants gold and the imp wants life. But see, to you,

it’s not that simple. The crown always wants to test people and, well, the imp is the only selfish one here. He’s lonely.

Maybe they’re both lonely. But one wants someone grown, clever, valuable and the other wants a blank slate, moldable clay.

[Gold]

[Life]

You’ll give them, but…

…the third step is the echo of trade. After all,

“What you give will return to you in spades.” So they say.

And don’t forget the treachery.

Seal the contract with a cloud. [Who needs a witness?] And learn how loneliness concludes. One of two ways: execution or

manipulation.

Thievery?

But you care. Nearly too much.

Can I do anything for you?

So, you push yourself over. Pretend the imp’s changes were always there from the beginning. Your father will call it spinning straw into gold.

Ah! How fortuitous.

And here’s where the brittle bones are unwrapped. Will you find yourself opaque, statuesque,

real?

Bitter herbs sprout between the cell bricks at the same time you realize that opacity was a lie told to you by yourself. Like gauze on mummy.

The shape is there.

So you’ll cry into what you thought was a mirror and see the heat and pressure that created this situation. The once-sand that you pressed and pressed and pressed with alchemy. You’ll see that in the glass.

The sun now passes through it

like a gateway arch, and laughs at your refraction [silly girl],

basking instead in a leapfrog of little reflections.

Hey…

Where’d you go?