Fairytale -The Magic House

This is a very interesting piece of writing. As well as the work itself, I have included the Notes Jeff gave me to go with the finished story. I have decided to publish both the story and the Notes so that people can enjoy both. As a fellow writer I am always interested in seeing how other writer's work. The Notes give a lot of insight into how well planned Jeff's stories are. I have to confess I usually get half an idea, start writing and go on from there. It is only with my non-fiction 'commercial' writing that I use a fairly comprehensive template and writing plan.

Read the story, then study the Notes and then read the story again. It will prove insightful as well as offering a pleasant interlude while you read the story.


FAIRYTALE
(The Magic House)

Once there was a man named Olen, who was traveling to a far land. He was a poor man, having only a small purse with barely enough for his journey. And he was alone.

Olen had left his own land to search for something, but he wasn't sure what it was that he sought. In Mare he had never felt comfortable. The things which were important to his countrymen did not seem of very great importance to Olen. Perhaps in Icafar he would find a way of life which appealed to him.

But the new land was strange to him. Everything was unfamiliar, he could barely understand the language of the people, and things were constantly happening which he couldn't explain. There was a sense of expectancy in the air, as if something important was about to occur.

Olen came to a large river, which was uncrossable without a boat of some kind. On the bank was an old woman, gazing across the waters and wringing her hands in anguish. Summoning the few words of Knaa which he had learned, and trying for pronunciation which would be understandable, he approached her and spoke.

"Fine morning, Mother! What is the trouble which has you so upset?"

As the form turned toward him, Olen was unable to clearly see the woman's face, for she was wrapped in a robe with a cowl-like hood. But his impression was that she was very old, being bent and stooped.

"I must cross this river, and the ferry is coming now. But I haven't the money for the fare.", she answered in a wavering, cracking voice. "What am I to do? There is no one to help me."

Looking across the water himself, he saw a small boat - a raft, actually - which was pulled across the turbulent river by ropes. As it neared the shore, the ferryman called out.

"Begone, crone! I have told you these last three trips: change yourself into a crow and fly across, but you'll not ride my ferry without paying me two deci for the fare. Your magic does not scare me at all, old one!"

With that, the raft ground to the shore where the old woman and Olen stood.

"Ah! A paying customer, perhaps. Here, Gentleman, let me help you aboard. Away, hag! Leave the gentleman alone."

"The lady is my guest, ferryman. Please assist her." Olen had not even thought before uttering these words. The despair of the old woman had touched him, and the ferryman's harsh words to her had brought forth his defense. Reaching into his purse he brought forth his last coin. "Will this cover our fares, boatman?"

The ferryman took Olen's coin, bit it, weighed the unfamiliar foreign piece in his hand, and pronounced "Just the right amount, it seems. Aboard! Aboard!"

Both men helped load the few baskets and bags that the old woman had standing on the ground with her. And then the barge began its journey back across the river, pulled by the muscular arms of the ferryman. The trip was not long, but the river was deep and fast. It took all the strength and concentration of the boatman to manage his craft and he said not a word on the traverse. Olen and the old woman likewise maintained silence until the other side was reached.

After they disembarked the old woman thanked Olen for her fare. She sat on the ground surrounded by small parcels. Laboriously she slung a bag over each sloped shoulder, and grasped the two baskets. Struggling to gain her feet, wheezing with effort, she finally stood after a fashion.

"Are you traveling this road ahead, Mother? Perhaps I can help you with your load." Olen had lifted the packages from the barge, and their weight was considerable. How the woman could have managed them alone was beyond his understanding, but many things here in Icafar were strange.

She handed him a heavy basket. With his own small pack on his back, there was enough of a load for him. But the woman asked him to put one of her bags into the basket he carried. When he did so, the load became lighter by half. Then the other bag, which further lightened the whole. Finally, the last basket fit inside the first, and the accumulated baggage of the old woman was of no more weight than his purse, which now was totally empty. Even his own pack seemed lighter. And so they progressed along the road toward what destination Olen only barely knew.

"I don't know very much about magic," Olen stated, "for in my land of Mare there is no such thing. But you certainly seem to have some uncanny ability. Why did you not simply lighten your load? It is clear that you were struggling under it."

Still from under the hood, with wavering tones, the old woman answered. "It is not permitted to me to perform magic for my own benefit. But when it was to lighten your load, which you took upon yourself, then it was permitted. You have a good heart, Olen, to assist me so."

He marvelled that she knew his name. Olen was sure that he had not spoken it in her presence. This was truly a different and strange land.

They continued down the road, with little conversation. It was almost fully dark when finally they reached the side of a small stream where they stopped to rest.

"And where will you go now, Olen? It is late, but there is a village ahead about an hour's walk. There you may find a place to spend the night.

"But I have nothing with which to pay, for I gave my last coin to the ferryman. I shall stay here tonight, and in the light of a new day I will seek out some form of work in this new land. For now I will stay by the streamside and sleep. What of you, Mother?"

"I must go on. But you are a very kind man, Olen, to have spent your last coin on my fare across the river. But perhaps you are mistaken, and it was not your last. I think there may be another in your purse."

Olen felt the purse around his neck, and showed a look of surprise as he felt the coin within. He loosened the drawstring, and took out an identical coin to the one he had given the ferryman - completely alike, even to the tooth marks. "How is this here, Mother?" he asked.

The greedy man must have taken it out to admire how he robbed you on the way back across the river. That coin is worth at least 10 deci, but he told you it was just enough to cover our two fares. He must have dropped it into the river, I would think. He will not suspect that his greed made it fly back to you."



And here are the Notes:

NOTES - Fairytale - The Magic House

Target length: 1500 - 2000 words

Action:
* Olen helps witch; what does he want most?
* Given hut to live in instead
* Finds small pot of gold
* Finds wife; house grows for Olen, shrinks for Orme
* Hires helper for wife - Ovel
* Wife takes back the wages of Ovel
* Hut too small for Orme
* Orme leaves; Olen gives her what remains of gold
* Can't pay Ovel
* Ovel stays anyway
* House grows
* Ovel finds pot of gold
* Witch returns?


Names:
* Lone - olen; ealon; aelon
* Solo - loos; ools; sloo; olos; osol
* Love - evol; ovel; olve; elvo; vorel; rovel
* Heart - thear; thare; ather; athre; ethar; retha; rathe; erath; arthe
* Africa - Icafar
* Akan - Knaa
* Amer - Mare
* Cedi - deci
* More - Orme; erom; remo
* Greed - dreeg; drege; gedre
* Life - Laef; lief; leif; fael; feal; fale; fela; lafe; efla; afel

Point of view:
* Omniscient narrator; past tense

Characters:
* Old woman (witch?)
* Olen - old man, poor, good heart, loving, lonely, generous
* Orme - Olen's wife, greedy, selfish, never satisfied
* Vole - Servant girl, giver

Ideas:
* pots of gold in yard
* bequest? w/mystery
* analogy: growing hut/Olen's heart
* magic house/hut - expands/contracts w/ love within



I like the 'voice' of the story, it really is a fairytale style of narrative. You know the moral issues being pushed and you can guess the outcome will be a positive one for the hero, but all the same it flows along and keeps you reading to make sure all's well that ends well. The mark of a gifted story teller, methinks.

Green Eyes

Jeff wrote this essay several times over, I have five versions on file as well as the one he labeled 'final'. Be warned, there is sexually explicit prose in the narrative, almost soft porn like. There is a 'Lolita' like angle to the story also, as he describes the girl as 'twelve or thirteen'. Don't judge the writer, judge the story if you have to judge anything at all. Read it and think about it.

What struck me as I read all of the versions, was how similar they were. I have actually changed one word in the last paragraph but that was a word Jeff had included in one of the other versions and I did this merely to keep the rating for this blog site no worse than MA. I don't find the prose obscene or even profane but it is erotic writing. It is also descriptive, romantic, sensual and seductive and if one were to be honest, I find it very real.

Many men reading this will have similar memories of females who have hit all our hot buttons but for whatever reason we never pursued a more definite outcome. In the case of one so young, that is a proper and healthy road to follow. But just because the subject of the story is so young does not, to my mind, make this sick or pornographic. It makes it honest. Decide for yourselves and feel free to post comments.



Green-Eyes
by
Kwadwo

I remember a young, part-black girl with green eyes on a bus in Kingston, Jamaica, back in 1966. She made such an impression on me that the memory is still vivid. I have carried the vision of her all these years, and the dream of what we might have experienced together.

She was of a dark cinnamon colour, and of very comely features. Her hair was sort of blonde with some red highlights, but her lips were pleasingly thick, and her nose acceptably broad. She was only a budding woman, probably no more than twelve or thirteen. But the look in those startlingly beautiful green eyes said that she was ready to learn of love, and I was more than ready to teach her.

She kept gazing at me for the entire trip into town. When I boarded the bus and walked back to an empty seat I couldn't miss her youthful beauty nor her steady stare. Those green eyes, shining out from her beautiful brown face, seemed to smile of their own accord. I chose a seat directly across from her, and drank in her beauty with thirsty eyes.

Her breasts were the size of small, hard tangerines, and through her simple shift of thin cloth her nipples poked out erect - from the heat of my gaze, I like to think, and in anticipation of my mouth gently closing over them.

Her legs protruding from the bottom of her skirt were of the same fine colouring as her face - thin, little-girl legs. But as much as I could see of her exposed thighs told me that she was beginning - just beginning - to fill out into a sensual young woman. And I was certain that between those delightful young-woman thighs I would find a delicious morsel, covered with the first downy growth of pubescence.

Aware of my interest, and not the least embarrassed by it, she shifted in her seat and recrossed her legs, exposing a bit more tempting thigh and causing her enticing young breasts to jut out to their best advantage. She continued to gaze at me, green eyes smiling brightly, with a mixture of girlish coquetry and womanly invitation.

I was too dumbstruck by her youthful sensuality, and too busy with my hands in my lap trying to cover the evidence of her effect upon me, to correctly read the invitation there until it was too late. She arose from her seat with a toss of her pert, round bottom - Ah! Such delights to be experienced there! An impatient glance at me, a final glance with the smiling green eyes, and she left the bus before my destination. I was on my way to an important appointment and did not follow her as I should have.

Over the years since I have forgotten what was so important about that appointment. But I have never forgotten that sweet, young, green-eyed girl who was so ready to give herself to me. I still dream of being the first to part her tender lips with my tongue and drink deep of the first-fruit juices of her newly awakened womanhood, to eat that special meal from her virgin pussy. I still wish I had left the bus with her, and undertaken the beautiful and sacred honor of being her teacher in the arts of love - to initiate her to the ecstasy of release for the first time with my thick hard manhood thrusting inside her, bringing her to the heights of passion and spurting the juices of love deep within her, satisfying her completely in her initial sexual encounter.

Oh God! Why didn't I? I wonder if she ever thinks of me.