William Paplham is well known among literary and friendship circles alike for his propensity to use big words and for being generally ambiguous. Both are evident in his premier fairy tale, “The Pocket Fairy,” which emerged due to his enchantment with the notion of brownies (the fairies, not the food) and Hammerspace (think Mary Poppins’ carpet bag). Though he claims to have played around with what he calls a more “treacle-y” ending, it is no surprise that he ultimately resorted to the dark side of his nature with the telling of this tale. It is this very darkness, however, that provides his pocket with a reason for and power in its sentience and explores the implications of hierarchy and abused and misguided authority–while not being completely devoid of light. Since his delivery to the U.S. (some assembly required), William has lived very happily ever after in De Pere, Wisconsin with his wonderful family and practically perfect sister–
Mary Paplham
Mary Paplham
THE POCKET FAIRY
By William Paplham
A story? Oh dear, I don’t think I have any left. You’ve bankrupted my riches, save for some melancholy biters, and I know you’re more in the mood for something uplifting right now, something that has a — oh? Are you sure? Ah, very well; but be warned, it is rather sad. And another matter: this is a special tale, for it must be told quietly. To tell it loudly or even in a normal voice would simply betray its nature, and to betray the natural order of a story is to not really tell it at all. So in whispers I shall impart it, and it shall be sad. Still a “yes”?
Very well, then. Now, our tale hails from a place far removed from ours by many dragon-guarded mountains and serpent-slithering seas, and made farther still by the passing of time. It concerns, firstly, a pocket that lived upon the side of a flowing robe.
Ah now, you ask, how can a pocket be alive?
Well, ordinarily speaking, pockets bear no such quality, as you and I well know; but this one was so wondrously sprightly that to speak of it in ordinary terms would simply be absurd. For if anyone pressed closely enough to this pocket, they would hear a breathy creak, and the fizz of intestinal bustle, and the affection of a summery melodic breeze spouting out from the tattered hem. It seems alive, people would say; it must be alive.
And alive it surely must have been. The pocket’s owner, Elder Mage Copernicus Junsyn, would proudly tell of his magical possession, and exhibit these wonders for all to see. Before long, his pocket became the stuff of legends, with many journeying from realms afar to manage a glimpse. Some even managed to see it up close. Few, though, were privileged the indulgence of experiencing the pocket’s extraordinary power.
Some of these lucky few were charmed, while others put off, by its appearance as a coarsely-cut oblong rectangle of reeking leather, stitched with many thread colors and eccentric sewing methods into the left side of what was otherwise a creamily flowing silk gown dyed to resemble the thin-aired midnight sky – but all initial reactions proved inconsequential, since what mattered was when the admirer or skeptic would petition the Elder Mage for something, anything: whether a honey-marinated newt or dusty volume on love potion antidotes, Copernicus Junsyn would need only reach his purpled emaciated hand into the pocket and rummage about; and in no greater than ten seconds, behold, he’d reveal his hand clutching the requested item to the wide eyes of the petitioner.
The sheer audaciousness of how this all worked stayed the speculators: Copernicus Junsyn’s pocket, through having compounded several thousand space-condensing charms over several long decades, now ran an extraordinary two-and-a-quarter miles deep, a craggy plummet bursting with shelves and cabinets, replete with books and winged eyeballs and rusted jinn lamps and brews bubbling in stiffly corked bottles.
But ah, the obvious protest: for surely the pocket by itself could not perform such a feat! – since where are its hands to clutch these items and thrust them up through the pocket’s top?
The answer, my friend, is hidden in a second, greater secret: for you must understand, the pocket had felt lonely, and petitioned Copernicus Junsyn for a companion. Being both kind and opportunistic, the Elder Mage gathered the lint that roamed the pocket’s shadowy foundation, and with a dash of magic, birthed a fairy, to serve as a sentient counterpart. The fairy looked over her newly formed self while the pocket told her in fairy language, “Just as I am bound to Master Copernicus Junsyn, so too are you bound directly to me.” Still in gleeful awe at her own new magnificent existence, she hastily concurred.
For a time, the fairy, pocket, and mage were happy with this arrangement. The fairy would flutter just inside the pocket’s mouth to hear the request, and then speed down into its cavernous reserves to collect the articulated artifact. Her wings were as gracefully subtle as the pocket’s air stream through which it sweetly swam, and the mage was kind to his creations.
But a day came when Copernicus Junsyn, having been already ill for some time, peacefully died. The pocket fairy, fearing the occasional cruelty of the mage’s son, wished she and the pocket would flee.
The pocket protested, “it is our duty.”
But the pocket fairy disagreed.
And the pocket became enraged. Its shelves bowed and rolled and shook; its glass bottles rattled, causing some to fall the full two-and-quarter-mile distance; and the whole of the pocket trembled in fear and anger.
But to no avail; before the pocket could clamp its entrance shut, the fairy had darted out. She ripped the stitching out from its silk host and stifled the pocket’s dreadful shrieks of ire by rolling the leathery scrap firmly into a cylinder. She threw it over her back, and flew off into the wide world.
For many months she flew, passing adders and bears and queens – none of whom required the faculties of the fairy. Then at last she came upon a humble straw-thatched house with two girls and a boy, no parents to be seen. The pocket fairy saw that they were fiercely independent, and proud despite barely scraping by. Being both moved to help them but fearful of getting rebuffed, she fluttered near a crack in their wall, listening and learning of what small, menial tasks they’d defer to the following day; and then during the night, while dreams mesmerized the children, the fairy would perform small tasks, such as locating lost possessions and tidying up.
In the morning, each of the children assumed one of the others to have done these tasks, and thought nothing of it. And the pocket fairy was happy.
A year passed with her performing this new covert service. But one evening in winter, the eldest girl began hoarsely regurgitating black bile while blood oozed from her eyes and ears. The girl’s siblings did not know how to help her and cried fearfully.
The pocket fairy realized there was an antidote to this malevolent condition in the former home which she wore on her back – and without a moment to lose, unraveled the leather pocket and dove inside. The place had grown dusty in her absence, so she wiped the antidote bottle and confirmed the ingredients on the crusty label. But as she shot up to the top, she found the entrance clamped utterly, irreconcilably shut.
“Please let me pass,” the fairy pleaded to the pocket, “I will save the girl from her demise, and then I will return to you.”
“I did not create you to bring salvation to humans who are not our master,” the pocket roared. “You were created to be a servant unto me; it is I who deals in such high affairs as human masters.”
“You are but a pocket!” the pocket fairy screamed in disgust, “whose only purpose is to be filled and pillaged by whatever your possessor so fancies! You are a repository of transient trinkets, an asylum for hands that are fatigued or shivering! Your vile worthlessness rivals even the lowly lint your cavernous recesses collect!”
With that, the pocket opened a smidgen, letting pour in the screams of the children outside as they hovered over their dying sister.
The pocket fairy desperately wriggled her hand through the opening, but could manage no further escape. The pocket fairy wailed and hissed and berated and soulfully pleaded, but the pocket would not concede.
And when she heard the heavy breathing of the eldest child finally dry up, the fairy retreated to the depths of the pocket to weep.
Gradually the lint choked the winged beauty like a great insufferable cloud, and she perished, the earthly matter quickly seizing her ethereal substance and the celestial suspension of discreetly-strung essence condensing into feathery soot.
The old scrap of leather was eventually locked away with other old clothes, and forgotten by all the living. Time passed, which was followed by further time.
Then, at long last, a day came when a curious young child reached her hand into the worn pocket and beheld in her palm a clump of lint; dismayed at her finding of mere filth, the girl tossed the matter as deep inside the pocket as she could feel – which, she thought, was far deeper than it had any right to be. She flicked the dust off, rubbing her thumb against her other pudgy fingers to be rid of the pesky clinging remnants, and then withdrew her hand dismissively. But as she was about to close the drawer that she had unlocked without permission, a strange feeling entranced the girl: she heard a breathy creak, and the fizz of intestinal bustle, and affection of a summery melodic breeze spouting out from the tattered hem – and the way the sensations reached her ears and spread throughout, she felt as though it were a request of some kind, like a whispered invite too soft to have been properly heard, yet having somehow been faithfully communicated all the same.
The girl peered into the dark crevice, and then slowly, tentatively reached back in….
And with that, I leave you. Yes, that is all. What happens next is anyone’s guess, and that’s a far cry better than any truth, I say. Now get yourself to sleep.
Good night.
Very well, then. Now, our tale hails from a place far removed from ours by many dragon-guarded mountains and serpent-slithering seas, and made farther still by the passing of time. It concerns, firstly, a pocket that lived upon the side of a flowing robe.
Ah now, you ask, how can a pocket be alive?
Well, ordinarily speaking, pockets bear no such quality, as you and I well know; but this one was so wondrously sprightly that to speak of it in ordinary terms would simply be absurd. For if anyone pressed closely enough to this pocket, they would hear a breathy creak, and the fizz of intestinal bustle, and the affection of a summery melodic breeze spouting out from the tattered hem. It seems alive, people would say; it must be alive.
And alive it surely must have been. The pocket’s owner, Elder Mage Copernicus Junsyn, would proudly tell of his magical possession, and exhibit these wonders for all to see. Before long, his pocket became the stuff of legends, with many journeying from realms afar to manage a glimpse. Some even managed to see it up close. Few, though, were privileged the indulgence of experiencing the pocket’s extraordinary power.
Some of these lucky few were charmed, while others put off, by its appearance as a coarsely-cut oblong rectangle of reeking leather, stitched with many thread colors and eccentric sewing methods into the left side of what was otherwise a creamily flowing silk gown dyed to resemble the thin-aired midnight sky – but all initial reactions proved inconsequential, since what mattered was when the admirer or skeptic would petition the Elder Mage for something, anything: whether a honey-marinated newt or dusty volume on love potion antidotes, Copernicus Junsyn would need only reach his purpled emaciated hand into the pocket and rummage about; and in no greater than ten seconds, behold, he’d reveal his hand clutching the requested item to the wide eyes of the petitioner.
The sheer audaciousness of how this all worked stayed the speculators: Copernicus Junsyn’s pocket, through having compounded several thousand space-condensing charms over several long decades, now ran an extraordinary two-and-a-quarter miles deep, a craggy plummet bursting with shelves and cabinets, replete with books and winged eyeballs and rusted jinn lamps and brews bubbling in stiffly corked bottles.
But ah, the obvious protest: for surely the pocket by itself could not perform such a feat! – since where are its hands to clutch these items and thrust them up through the pocket’s top?
The answer, my friend, is hidden in a second, greater secret: for you must understand, the pocket had felt lonely, and petitioned Copernicus Junsyn for a companion. Being both kind and opportunistic, the Elder Mage gathered the lint that roamed the pocket’s shadowy foundation, and with a dash of magic, birthed a fairy, to serve as a sentient counterpart. The fairy looked over her newly formed self while the pocket told her in fairy language, “Just as I am bound to Master Copernicus Junsyn, so too are you bound directly to me.” Still in gleeful awe at her own new magnificent existence, she hastily concurred.
For a time, the fairy, pocket, and mage were happy with this arrangement. The fairy would flutter just inside the pocket’s mouth to hear the request, and then speed down into its cavernous reserves to collect the articulated artifact. Her wings were as gracefully subtle as the pocket’s air stream through which it sweetly swam, and the mage was kind to his creations.
But a day came when Copernicus Junsyn, having been already ill for some time, peacefully died. The pocket fairy, fearing the occasional cruelty of the mage’s son, wished she and the pocket would flee.
The pocket protested, “it is our duty.”
But the pocket fairy disagreed.
And the pocket became enraged. Its shelves bowed and rolled and shook; its glass bottles rattled, causing some to fall the full two-and-quarter-mile distance; and the whole of the pocket trembled in fear and anger.
But to no avail; before the pocket could clamp its entrance shut, the fairy had darted out. She ripped the stitching out from its silk host and stifled the pocket’s dreadful shrieks of ire by rolling the leathery scrap firmly into a cylinder. She threw it over her back, and flew off into the wide world.
For many months she flew, passing adders and bears and queens – none of whom required the faculties of the fairy. Then at last she came upon a humble straw-thatched house with two girls and a boy, no parents to be seen. The pocket fairy saw that they were fiercely independent, and proud despite barely scraping by. Being both moved to help them but fearful of getting rebuffed, she fluttered near a crack in their wall, listening and learning of what small, menial tasks they’d defer to the following day; and then during the night, while dreams mesmerized the children, the fairy would perform small tasks, such as locating lost possessions and tidying up.
In the morning, each of the children assumed one of the others to have done these tasks, and thought nothing of it. And the pocket fairy was happy.
A year passed with her performing this new covert service. But one evening in winter, the eldest girl began hoarsely regurgitating black bile while blood oozed from her eyes and ears. The girl’s siblings did not know how to help her and cried fearfully.
The pocket fairy realized there was an antidote to this malevolent condition in the former home which she wore on her back – and without a moment to lose, unraveled the leather pocket and dove inside. The place had grown dusty in her absence, so she wiped the antidote bottle and confirmed the ingredients on the crusty label. But as she shot up to the top, she found the entrance clamped utterly, irreconcilably shut.
“Please let me pass,” the fairy pleaded to the pocket, “I will save the girl from her demise, and then I will return to you.”
“I did not create you to bring salvation to humans who are not our master,” the pocket roared. “You were created to be a servant unto me; it is I who deals in such high affairs as human masters.”
“You are but a pocket!” the pocket fairy screamed in disgust, “whose only purpose is to be filled and pillaged by whatever your possessor so fancies! You are a repository of transient trinkets, an asylum for hands that are fatigued or shivering! Your vile worthlessness rivals even the lowly lint your cavernous recesses collect!”
With that, the pocket opened a smidgen, letting pour in the screams of the children outside as they hovered over their dying sister.
The pocket fairy desperately wriggled her hand through the opening, but could manage no further escape. The pocket fairy wailed and hissed and berated and soulfully pleaded, but the pocket would not concede.
And when she heard the heavy breathing of the eldest child finally dry up, the fairy retreated to the depths of the pocket to weep.
Gradually the lint choked the winged beauty like a great insufferable cloud, and she perished, the earthly matter quickly seizing her ethereal substance and the celestial suspension of discreetly-strung essence condensing into feathery soot.
The old scrap of leather was eventually locked away with other old clothes, and forgotten by all the living. Time passed, which was followed by further time.
Then, at long last, a day came when a curious young child reached her hand into the worn pocket and beheld in her palm a clump of lint; dismayed at her finding of mere filth, the girl tossed the matter as deep inside the pocket as she could feel – which, she thought, was far deeper than it had any right to be. She flicked the dust off, rubbing her thumb against her other pudgy fingers to be rid of the pesky clinging remnants, and then withdrew her hand dismissively. But as she was about to close the drawer that she had unlocked without permission, a strange feeling entranced the girl: she heard a breathy creak, and the fizz of intestinal bustle, and affection of a summery melodic breeze spouting out from the tattered hem – and the way the sensations reached her ears and spread throughout, she felt as though it were a request of some kind, like a whispered invite too soft to have been properly heard, yet having somehow been faithfully communicated all the same.
The girl peered into the dark crevice, and then slowly, tentatively reached back in….
And with that, I leave you. Yes, that is all. What happens next is anyone’s guess, and that’s a far cry better than any truth, I say. Now get yourself to sleep.
Good night.