Just Like Once Upon a Time

By SCE Swayne

“And with one mighty swing of his ax, the woodsman split the wolf in two, and Red Riding Hood and her grandmother came tumbling out!”

I stood and began clearing away the dishes, warmed by the familiar tale. Happy endings were always my favorite. “The last time you told me that one, they both got eaten and that was the end of it. Why the change?”

“I’m in the mood for a happy ending today. There are several other versions, but I don’t remember them well. So much was lost in the Pulse…” My grandmother’s brow furrowed. “You were too young to remember much, I suppose.”

“I remember pieces.” I had been young, but not that young. “I remember the machines. Voices that answered all your questions. Blue lights illuminating the night. Planes and trains making the world feel small.” I splashed dishes into the sink a little too hard. “But that was a long time ago.”

EMP, they called it. Everything gone in an instant. Anything with a computer chip was fried. Only the people survived, plunged into years of fumbling chaos between that glittering utopia—made soft by nostalgia—and the primitive world we’d built among the ashes. Life went on. But the stories were gone. Every book written prior to the Pulse had winked out of existence when the library servers crashed. The last victory of the paperless society.

I’d tried asking Grandma—and other people over the years—about the stories from the old books, but everyone remembered them differently, and there was no way to prove which telling was right. So I clung to Grandma’s stories. Malleable as they were, they were the only thing left from the old world.

Her chair squeaked on the tile floor as she stood. “Tomorrow morning, why don’t you tell me a story?”

I smiled, but my heart ached with dull grief. “I only know your stories, Grandma. Any story I could tell, you already know.”

“Then make a new story. Tell me something of your own.”

“The world’s not like that anymore, Grandma.” I gripped the edge of the sink. “No one believes in monsters or magic, and there are no more brave adventurers. This isn’t like the Long Ago when your stories were first told; I wouldn’t have anything to tell.”

“You live in the same world they did, no matter how much time passes. The tools are still there, even if they’ve been forgotten. You just have to look.” She spoke louder as she left the kitchen. “Could you fetch me another hundred yards of red wool? I’d like to make a hat to go with your new scarf.”

Red Riding Hood again, Grandma? “I’ll go as soon as I’ve cleaned up.”

The street leading to the marketplace was narrow and cracked, the asphalt overgrown with moss and weeds. I stumbled out of the way of a group of teenage girls who were so focused on their conversation that they wouldn’t have noticed if they’d trampled me.

As I recovered, I saw the man. He stood in the narrow alley across the street, tucked away unnoticed, his dark clothes blending into the shadows. He watched the girls go by, his eyes burning as though he could draw them closer by sheer force of will. In his hungry gaze, I could see my grandmother’s story from that morning.

“There were wolves in the forest in those days…”

The girls passed from his sight, and his gaze latched onto a woman carrying a basket, that same predatory want in his eyes. I shuddered and hurried toward the bright safety of the marketplace. You were right, Grandma. There are still wolves.

The marketplace held a crush of people exchanging goods and gossip over old rugs and worn tables, all painted gold by late morning sunlight. An unfamiliar man’s voice boomed above the rest. He was seven feet tall if he was an inch, his head shaved bald but his beard red and bristling. He gesticulated wildly as he haggled with the fish seller, who looked even shorter than my grandma but gave no ground as he argued with his towering customer. How marvelous, that a single species could hold within it such variety. Both so vibrantly human and alive, yet they contrasted so fantastically that the entire market around them seemed unreal. I watched, awestruck, until they reached an agreement and shook hands, the two extremes meeting in harmony before parting ways again.

“The giant was fearsome, twelve feet tall and strong as ten men together…”

I couldn’t stop thinking about it as I wove through the crowd on my way to the spinner’s stall. The “giant” wasn’t twelve feet tall, but for a moment it would’ve been easy to believe he was.

Maybe I do spend too much time listening to fairy stories.

The spinner didn’t seem to notice my distraction as she measured out the hundred yards and snipped the thick wool before tucking the loose end into the skein. Her rasping shears caught my attention, the sound harsh and final, chilling me.

“The Fates spin the threads of men’s lives, and with their shears they cut them short, short, short…”

I passed her the appropriate coinage, took the skein, and turned. Confronted again by the bustle of humanity in the marketplace, the realization hit me like a wave. Every person here was a character. Every life a story, every day an adventure. The weight of endless possibility overwhelmed me. Just like once upon a time.

Grandma was dozing in her rocking chair when I returned, her knitting sliding off her lap. I set her yarn on the table and kissed her temple before I was off again. There was a charcoal pencil and a thick sheaf of paper in my room. I had meant them for keeping accounts, but this was more important.

I sat in the warm patch of sunlight streaming through my window.

Once upon a time…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SCE Swayne is a one-time NaNoWriMo winner, many times hopeful. SCE (pronounced like a sneeze) lives in Ohio, where she scrubs people’s feet for a living. Her free time is divided between nail art, because as a millennial she gets a sense of validation from the attention of strangers on social media, and binge watching whatever drivel Netflix deigned to suggest this week. She has one cat, but give her time.

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