There was only such a little space between the time the sleepers fell asleep and the time they began to dream in earnest, and it was only that space that began to the lovers. Once the dream began, the time for their pleasure was over. It was time to go to work.

She goes to the box and picks it up. She starts to open it when she notices the key in its side. There is no reason to think that a music box would work after being left lying out in the woods… in fact, that was probably why it had been left there, she thinks… but on the other hand it seems to be in good condition, and if it does work it seems like it would almost be a crime to not wind it before opening.

So she does so, and when she opens it she is not at all surprised to see the tiny, perfect figure of a ballerina.

With slow, graceful moves that gave no hint of mechanical origin, tiny ballerina raises her arms above her head and goes into a perfect plie. She curtsies to the the little girl… or straight ahead, the girl realizes, then makes a quarter-turn to each side and repeats the motion. Tiny tinkling chimes begin to play as the little figure’s hands go behind her back, and pull out a pair of cymbals.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

The girl shrieks, her eyes closing as if to shut out the loud and terrible sound. When they open, the cymblas are gone, and the ballerina is reaching behind her back again.

This time she pulls out a gun.

The music box is still there in the woods.

“That’s okay,” the fisherman said. “I learned to like sushi for my last wife’s sake.

“Sure,if you’re going grocery shopping anyway we’re almost out of…

“Not that kind of store,” she said.

“What kind, then?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “I just have the urge to go out there and, you know… get something. Don’t you ever get that urge?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I try to find some way to indulge in it that doesn’t take me beyond my means. Besides, haven’t you ever heard that the best things in life are free?”

“Of course,” she said. “That’s why I always ask you for money instead of working for it. It’s so much more satisfying when you just give it to me.”

“What?” said Alice, certain that she must have heard him incorrectly. “But doesn’t it make much more sense to measure the person and then make the clothing fit them?”

“Measure the person? Make the clothing fit? Well I’ve never heard of such a thing. What queer ideas you have,” the Tailor said.

“But a person can’t help their size,” Alice insisted. “It’s not possible.”

“Then they must be awfully lazy,” the Tailor said. “Why, if we did things your way we’d have to make clothing in every shape and size. Our work would never end. So much simpler, so much more sensible, to make our things the right size and the right shape to begin with.”

“Okay, you know what?” said Alice. “Fuck this shit, I’m going back to the place with the rabbit and the caterpillar… that world made more sense than this one.”

“Why?” the cat asked finally. “My God, why?”

“He had it coming,” the rat said.

“For being successful?”

“For being lucky,” the rat said. “For being favored by his father.”

“Favored by his father?” the cat said. “The eldest son got the lands, the farm, the mill. Your owner got the mules. He got…”

“Don’t say he got nothing, Puss… you of all creatures know that for the lie it is,” the rat said. “The oldest brother got their father’s fortune. The youngest one got the means by which their father had won that. There’s never anything grand in store for the second born, the middle child. They never have great destinies. They never come to an impressive end. Nobody gave him a clever companion to make his way in the world for him. He found me in the barn.”

“Your master could have made a respectable living with those mules.”

“Made a living,” the rat spat. “While his older brother played lord of the manor and his younger brother became lord of the manor… land is respected, Puss. Titles are respected. A man who works for a living? With his hands? With a train of sweaty, stinking mules? Oh, and he has worked. He has worked so long and so hard. He’s crossed the country a dozen times in each direction, each time making just enough money that he can keep on doing it some more. And in that same time, what has his older brother done? What has his younger brother done?”

“Much.”

“Nothing!” the rat said. “He just sat back and let you win false praise and steal treasures and castles and love for him.”

“Well, that’s over now, isn’t it?” the cat said. “I suppose your master put you up to this.”

“No,” the rat said. “He doesn’t even know. Who is the Marquis de Carabas to him? We’ll have to flee, of course… leaving the mules behind. He’ll be devastated at the loss of his livelihood, and the land he thinks of as home… but once there’s a hundred leagues between us and this place I can start to build a better life for him, and he’ll see how his stubborn insistence in clinging on to his inheritance has held him back. I urged him to sell the mules. He could have had a fat purse to finance his ventures, ventures I would have guided but honest ones. Unlike your sainted master, mine would have been able to account for everything he had honestly.”

“Save the mules that got the purse that paid for it all,” the cat said. “Those were given to him. It’s easy to make money honestly when you have a pile of it to begin with.”

“Well! That’s all gone now,” the rat said. “This is where we part, Puss… I to my master and you to your mourning.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It is.”

“Well, I think that mourning is hungry work,” the cat said, and he smiled.

The rat gulped.

A second later, the cat did, too.

He emerged from the thicket where he’d met the rat, alone. The scene at the crossroads was just as dismal before: the twisted and battered wreck of the once-fine carriage in the center of it, the confused and frightened mules wandering around beyond it. It was the angry red teeth marks scored on the lead mule’s flank that had given the rat’s presence away.

“Captain!” the cat called to the head of the Marquis’s personal guard. “If you search a bit up the cross road, you should find the muleskinner who is responsible for this outrage. I’m sure the king, my poor master’s father-in-law, would like to speak to him.”

The men snapped to it, and the cat smiled, in spite of the tragedy. He had an idea about the second son’s ultimate destiny, and he wasn’t sure his ending would be quite as unremarkable as the rat had feared.

“You told me this was a magic can opener,” he said to the shopkeeper, who wasn’t at all flustered by this display.

“So I did,” the shopkeeper said.

“It doesn’t work!” the boy said.

“How very strange,” the shopkeeper said. “What exactly was the problem?”

“It doesn’t even open cans!” the boy said. “I can’t believe I fell for your lies, after you sold me that stupid magic feather that didn’t do anything…”

“The bird from whom I got it assured me that it had enabled her to fly,” the shopkeeper said. “She even showed me.”

“…and that stupid magic mirror I exchanged it for…”

“I’ll admit that the enchanter who made that particular item had a remarkably straightforward idea of what ’showing things as they truly are’ entails.”

“…and the hat you said I could pull rabbits from that I traded that for.”

“You could have when the hat was made, but myxomatosis is a pernicious disease, sadly,” the shopkeeper said. “Wipes out a warren just like that. Still, I stand by my merchandise, which is why I let you return the hat… despite my very liberal return policy not covering headwear for reasons of safety and sanitation. The customer is always right, you know.”

“Well, this time you’re not talking me into taking any more of your junk,” the boy said. “I want my money back.”

“Ah. Yes. Of course,” the shopkeeper said. “But after allowing you to return three items in the course of a week, I’m afraid I can’t take this back unless it’s demonstrably defective.”

“I already told you, it doesn’t work,” the boy said.

“You’ll have to demonstrate that.”

“Do you got a can?”

“Not on the premises, no,” the shopkeeper said. “Bottles and vials and urns are more in my line, I’m afraid.”

“Fine, then I guess I’ll go get one,” the boy said.

“Very good,” the shopkeeper said. “Just make sure that it’s a magic one.”

“What?”

“The can,” the shopkeeper said. “Make sure it’s magic. It won’t be a proper demonstration otherwise.”

“Where am I supposed to get a magic can from?”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you bought a magic can opener.”

The pilot was another story. That poor broken figure had been a being of flesh and blood, not of paper. It was a tragedy, an utterly senseless one. The instructor had said the same exact words countless times to many would-be pilots at the moment of takeoff, but nobody else had ever taken the instruction “unfold your wings and fly” quite so literally.

This is obvious as metaphors go, but like the best metaphors it’s true. We pretend that “metaphor” is implicitly synonymous with “imaginary” and “unreal” in the same way and for the same reasons that we pretend this is true of the words “myth” and “legend”… or for that matter, the word “imaginary”. It’s reassuring. It simplifies the world to do so.

A city is a living, breathing thing. It is contained within a skin of boundaries, and comprised of not just edifices and machines but institutions and people. It breathes in. It breathes out. If it never sleeps, it at least rests for periods and then awakens to bursts of furious activity.

Cities think. They can plot and plan, they can hatch new ideas and embrace new philosophies. They can become political. They can go religious.

Cities feel. They rage… oh, yes, cities can rage. They can also celebrate and fall in love.

Cities eat. They take in meat, grain, vegetables that are broken down by the tiny individual cells that serve many purposes, from carrying out nerve impulses to aiding circulation to acting as an immune system against intrusive elements. They take in chemicals, minerals, and metals, which are used to carry out even more arcane processes.

Such things are the necessary foodstuffs of cities, but like any intelligent creature, cities that can afford them enjoy an occasional indulgence, a special treat… not something that it needs but something it deeply enjoys all the same.

A moderately shiny silver bus rumbles to a stop at the depot. A young woman… blonde-ish, tall-ish, and good-looking-ish… steps off. Her name is Darla. She wants to be a model, or an actress, or maybe a singer. Everyone back home says she has the looks for it. Everyone says she has the talent. She can do anything she wants.

The city licks its lips.

She rolls over in bed, kicking the leaf-blanket off of her legs. She punches the tiny pillow in frustration and gets herself settled back down in the midst of unmended pots and pans, though she knows it won’t do any good. As soon as she starts to drift off, it comes again… the words, the horrible, hated words. The staccato beat of those five words drives itself into her head, shocking her back to consciousness.

Every time. The same five words. They come at her from all over the world, from parents reading to children and children reading to themselves, from stage performances and from thousands of DVD players. From a global audience, the words come and they awaken her every time, all the time… and the clapping, the clapping comes with them like a hideous heartbeat boring into her brain.

“I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies.”

The pixie can’t sleep. We won’t let her.