An Ancient Tale Retold
A little boy got lost in the forest and caught by a wicked crone with a cumbersome chain. She just wouldn’t let go of him no matter how pitifully he begged and hysterically he cried. Preparing a large cauldron while consulting her notes in a yellowed grimoire, the old hag croaked, “you’ll be a wonderful ingredient of my magic soup, one of my homemade dishes for this year’s witches’ Sabbath. Ho, ho, hoh!” As the boy thought he was done for, he hit on an idea to stall and distract the woman; he thought of Shahryar and Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights, and those tantalizing, exotic tales his mother had been giving as bedtime stories. Employing Scheherazade’s tactic, the boy managed to whet the crone’s curiosity about the outside world by telling stories of his own life, like thrilling rides in Tokyo’s Disneyland, Harry Potter movies, virtual reality video games, and so forth, whereupon she inquired of him how to get hold of all the things he had mentioned in such a flamboyant way. Thereupon he said, “my tummy contains all the secrets of that fantastic world, but you have tied it up so tight that I can’t bring them out. You must loosen the chain before I can speak more.” Tempted, the crone paid out the chain link by link, ring by ring, as the boy revealed more tidbits piece by piece, biding his time. At long last, the boy bolted out of the place when the chain fell off altogether.
