The Truth Of Fiction

By E E King

Ray Bradbury called E.E. King's stories, “Marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought-provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.”

Like The Illustrated Man and The Canterbury Tales, The Truth of Fiction is a series of connected stories.

Tied together by the tale of three friends on a quest to capture a magical white deer, which contains THE TRUTH in its antlers and hooves, The Truth of Fiction contains over thirty tales ranging from fantasy and humor to tragedy and science fiction.

As the friends search for the doe, stories fall from the trees and leap from the lake, revealing realities about the malleability of fact and the meaning of friendship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E E King
• Release date: Feb 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370032259

E E King

E.E. King is a performer, writer, biologist and painter. Ray Bradbury calls her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.” Her books are;" Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife," "Real Conversations with Imaginary Friends," "The Adventures of Emily Finfeather - The Feathernail and Other Gifts" and "Another Happy Ending." She has won numerous awards and been published widely. She has worked with children in Bosnia, crocodiles in Mexico, frogs in Puerto Rico, egrets in Bali, mushrooms in Montana, archaeologists in Spain and butterflies in South Central Los Angeles.

Book preview

1

The Truth of Fiction

The Lake of Contemplation, which lies in the Forest of Ideas, is where artists go for inspiration, writers look for stories, and philosophers seek truth. They never find it, but there’s no harm in looking. The weather’s fine and there are few sweeter ways to spend a Sunday than searching for meaning and wild blueberries.

Sometimes a dreamer - for what are philosophers and artists if not dreamers? - conceived of a better reality. Artists see colors invisible to the eye, but not the heart. Composers hear music harmonizing above and below the confinement of scales. Writers envision new realities and scientists feel the soft edges of the universe.

But truth is slippery. Sometimes it slid through their fingers, sinking heavier than a pound of lead feathers, down, down, down to the murky bottom of the Lake of Contemplation.

Often a writer in search of a new story might lose an old one. Familiar tales, falling into deep water, take on a new existence. Love stories reveal hidden horrors. Childhood classics, distorted by wavering reflections, morph into tales so dark you could see them even through closed lids.

Some stories, searching for light in the nearly impenetrable depths, grew many eyes. More than a few, making their homes in the algae-thick bottom, became blind, relying on touch, smell, taste or vibration to craft their reality.

Adventurous tales that swam against the current, developed concave curves to their irises. Shy tales lurking, wading in still backwaters, evolved convex lenses. Thus, their reality was bent by biology.

It was in these woods one rainy Sunday, that Meryl, Josh and Jessie went for a picnic. Water dropped from the sky like inspiration. It was a warm rain, salty as tears and trails of crystal brine dripped down their arms.

They had come to the woods on a mission, a quest. They were on a hunt for The White Hind. Hinds are usually red, but this deer was white, lacking the pigment of lies. The doe might be a chimera, but it was alleged to exist and it was rumored to contain THE TRUTH in its antlers and hoofs. Not just a truth mind you, but THE TRUTH. And Meryl and Josh imagined that the truth would be a fine brave thing to possess. It was said that anyone who captured the Hind and cut off its horns and hoofs would be forever freed from pain of illusions.

Jessie was just along for the food. She figured THE TRUTH was over rated and probably subjective. But the picnic basket brimmed full of fresh rye bread, hot and soft with pickles sour as lies and mustard yellower than any sun. There was also soft Brie, holy Swiss and hard Manchego cheese, as well as grapes, cherries, capers, black caviar and a wine so red and rich it gleamed like rubies beneath the clouded sky.

As they ate and watched the woods for a flash of white hind quarters, the day brightened. Clouds parted and the sun sent questing fingers probing into the lake, illuminating odd life just visible beneath the surface.

On the shore, a row boat beckoned, with oars so clean and white they must have been freshly painted. The boat was rested half out of the water, moving slightly as the waves rose and fell. Jessie was almost certain it hadn’t been there a moment before. It bore no traces of the recent rains.

When a door opens, you should walk through it, and when a boat invites, you shouldn’t say no, said Jessie, plopping down in the stern. She brought the picnic basket with her, carefully tucking it beneath her seat so that the rye would not be ruined by moisture. Adventures are always best when undertaken with sated stomachs.

Josh joined her taking the oars. But Meryl held back. She distrusted free boats and unasked invitations.

Meryl craved only THE TRUTH – presented in unmistakable form; she didn’t want distraction. Boats and picnics were all very well in their way. But she would have traded all the fine cheeses, soft bread, and even her friends, for certainty.

Still, the water gleamed silver, blue and gold. It lapped soft tongues at the grass, green banks kissing the rocks with wet lips. Long strands of narrow willow leaves wept along the shore, and with no deer in sight, even Meryl decided a paddle around the lake would do no harm.

Into the lake they went, Josh and Jessie pulling on the oars, sending ripples through the still surface. Out of the lake jumped a story, flashing like a daystar, or a lure, or a trout. It flipped and shimmied struggling to breathe.

Jessie, who hated to see anything suffer, even a fiction, caught it in her hands and tossed it back into the water. Even though she only held it for a moment before flinging it wide, some of the silver from its scales rubbed off on her hands permeating her skin with its perspective.

It was an old tale told anew. Jessie laughed in amazement as she saw the familiar fable from a new angle, as if a half dome was tipped on edge. When she had read the story as a child, she had stood before it, seeing only its surface, flat as a sheet of paper. Now, standing by its side, Jessie saw that the tale curved out, concealing myriad realities. She had never before realized that the truth might vary depending on the angle of the viewer.

When she opened her mouth, the words of the story poured out.

2

The Road Less Traveled

Ididn’t mean to kill her – not really – not at the moment of impact. But it’s hardly an excuse, especially because I’d been hired to do exactly that.

I can still see the moment of death. I probably always will. It was less gruesome and more final than I’d expected… if I had expected anything.

Truth be told, the only death I had anticipated was mine – mine and my three companions. We had been sent to kill her, although a less likely gang of assassins you’d have been hard put to find. Not that that is an excuse.

It might well have ended differently, all of us dismembered, burnt and hacked to bits. It certainly seemed the most likely conclusion, if only she hadn’t gone after my dog.

I’ve had him ever since I was a girl, the only spot of color in my grey world. When she’d threatened him I reacted with the closest element at hand, never pausing to consider that it might be deadly. That is how passion is – action without thought – and there you are, locked up and awaiting a trial that can have no good ending.

At least my dog is safe, for the moment, locked in beside me, small furry heart a drum beat next to mine. I hope it’s not a death knell. He licks my face, his saliva mixing comfort with my tears.

I am less afraid of death than partings — endings.

What will happen to my three companions? Will they be dismembered, burnt and beheaded? Were their ends predestined? Is mine? Was hers?

I can still hear her shrieks and see her body writhing, smoking in pain – then nothingness, the flame of an extinguished candle. I will have to live with that, if live I do. I will awake to the smell of her passing, like burnt hair, and fall asleep, when I can, to the fact that I am an annihilator, a destroyer of worlds. For isn’t each person a world unto themselves? True, she wasn’t a nice person, but even the saintliest among us has done evil. It’s only in fairy tales that princesses are solidly good and witches completely bad, as if they had been carved from a single element – soap or chocolate, diamonds or coal.

I may be dead soon, thrown from the parapets or torn limb from limb, but for now, here in this cell, all I have is time: time to consider the universe, time to reflect on my actions, time to wonder if it was my fate to be a murderer, time to ponder if it would have been better to be the one who died. In an instant, the world can slip through your hands and shatter, impossible to retrieve as an egg. Earthquakes open chasms while you’re wishing on a falling star. How odd this world is. You wake up as a sweet young girl and by dinner you’re a murderer. Who would have thought that water could be more deadly than hate? If only she hadn’t gone after Toto.

S o what? asked Meryl? How does this get me any closer to the truth? I fail to see how the Wizard of Oz is a revelation.

But don’t you see, asked Jessie, taking a bite of some Manchego she had stuffed inside her pocket. "It’s a whole new view on Dorothy.

Imagine what a small, sheltered girl from Kanas, or anywhere really, would feel who had suddenly become a murderer. Even if she were killing an enemy, it’s still murder, still bound to mark you in a way from which you will never recover.

Complain to L. Frank Baum if you’re so upset, Meryl said. She was straining to see through the mist which had suddenly surrounded the boat thicker than lies.

A tendril of seaweed, golden and slippery as an eel, had twisted itself round Jessie’s oar making passage impossible, they teetered on the water like a rocking horse. Josh reached down trying to unravel the seaweed, but it slid between his fingers like honey dragging the oar down, into the murky waters below the boat.

See, Meryl cried, I knew no good would come of leaping into a boat from nowhere and setting out upon a journey to no place. Now I shall never find The Hind of Truth and be forever trapped in a world of deceit and mendacity.

Oh phis, Jessie said. We’re fine. I took the food with us, have a pickle. And she handed two, dripping brine and pepper, across to Meryl and Josh. Meryl shook her head, puckering her mouth into a prune of disapproval, while Josh looked at the slime that coated his fingers with the yellow beginnings of a story.

3

In The Hood

- first published in Darke-Phantastique, 2014

When I was young I wanted to be a vegetarian. I wanted to live in peace with all creatures of the earth. But I could not, my biology forbade it. My parents schooled me in the chain of creation, which caused me to lose any faith I might have possessed. I could not conceive of a creator who would weave a world where each link must be precipitated by murder, each life dependent on death.

But time brings acceptance of a sort; when there is no choice you travel faster. No need to hesitate at the crossroads when there is but a single path.

I grew, moved away from home, and met Angelica. She was fair as snow with eyes blue as dreams, so beautiful she might have been a delusion. Fortune favored me. She accepted and returned my love. Not that it was unexpected – I am strong and dark, a good provider.

We lived with her four brothers and two sisters in a deep wood. It was a hard life but a good one. We hunted the sick and weak, culling our herd in accordance with the seasons and the will of nature. We never touched the strong and young, leaving them to breed and thrive. It is not kind, but it is the way of the world.

In the proper season Angelica became pregnant, and in the fullness of time bore me three sons and a daughter. If this was a fairy tale perhaps Angelica would have died and I would have found a wicked stepmother, but that did not happen. Instead we raised our brood and lived in peace, nestled in the green and gold embrace of leaves and sun.

One day as I was wending my way home I saw a curious creature on the path. Bright red she was, with a pointy head and a cone shaped body. Normally I am cautious, normally I would have watched from shelter, but she was young and small and seemed harmless. I approached her and we talked. I did not know then that she concealed a grandmother with dull teeth and a woodsman with sharp ones.

She said she was on her way to visit her grandmother, an old crone who smelled of mothballs and death. Her mother made her walk through the woods, even though the child was fearful of shadows, carrying cakes which the old lady mouthed between toothless gums and ale, which dribbled down her whiskered chin.

And those are the good days, wept the child. Often she does not know who I am; sometimes she thinks I am my mother, but young again. But on bad days she thinks I am her sister, whom she hated. And on the worst days she cries out that I’m a devil, and tries to stab me with her scissors.

Why don’t you tell your mother, Child? I asked. Truly it was none of my business, and I could well have taken her back to my den, but she was young and strong. If she survived, she would bring forth young of her own. That is our way. That is THE way; the young and strong are left to proliferate.

I have told my mother, sobbed the child. But she says it is my duty. And besides, the old lady can’t move fast enough to catch me.

I thought to help her, to restore order. I followed the path and found her grandmother.

The poor old woman was sunken with suffering. She was toothless, unable to chew even the softest meats. She could not even rise from bed, her joints swollen with arthritis, her ankles heavy with water. She whimpered in her sleep and woke struggling for breath.

It feels like someone is sitting on my chest, she wheezed, barely able to squeeze words from her constricted lungs. Her heart was filled with fluid, she was drowning.

I don’t want to live, she cried. I want to end this suffering.

And so I helped her, or tried to. Little did I realize that in some species the old and infirm are not to be harvested, even though they suffer. It is safer to leave them lingering, tortured though they are, stealing food from the young and strong.

An old woman calls out for relief from pain. When she is aided it is called murder.

When my people, even the most robust and brave among us, are hunted to extinction, their murderers are called heroes.

The old woman was rescued to live another day, maybe even a month or two, gasping in pain, submerging slowly in the juices of a heart too weak to pump. It is an awful way to go, but I cannot pity her.

I was cut to bits while still alive, sliced chin to tail, innards scooped out as if I felt no pain. My coat was used as a rug to warm her old bones in those few remaining days.

My beautiful Angelica and our children were left alone in a barren wood which would never be green again. They did not live long. They were tracked and hunted down, all my pretty little children and their mother dead in one fell swoop.

Did heaven watch the slaughter and not send any help? I marveled, even though my faith was long dead. No, heaven might weep, but history retold the tale making champions of slaughterers; painting us as villains to frighten children – with lolling tongues, dagger teeth and hungry hearts.

If I could live again I would not wish to be a vegetarian. Instead, I would become the demon they demand. I would embrace the evil they created. I would be the nightmare in children’s dreams, tearing limb from limb every healthy child I found. And just for sport.

It is not our way to kill without hunger, to slaughter without need; but give me another life and I will delight in severing the blood to that vile pump inside those beasts who fancy themselves God’s children, and disregard the way.

I don’t like these tales you’re finding and I am quite certain they have nothing to do with the truth, said Meryl, waving away the glass of wine that Jessie offered.

But it is a truth of a sort, Jessie said. The wolf would have a very different perspective than the woodcutter. History is always written by the victors."

I can’t see where we are, said Meryl. She had no interest in debating history, fairytales or animal rights. I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t know how we can get anywhere but in circles with only a single oar.

It seemed so unfair; she might be stranded forever in a mist of lies and retold tales with two feckless companions, while somewhere in the distant wood, The Hind of Truth loped through the forest carrying in its hoofs and antlers all the veracity life lacked.

Josh took the remaining oar and pushed off from an overhanging tree. The boat floated up stream, propelled by a wind that blew down from distant hills bearing scents of wood, smoke, whiskey and madness. They inhaled, breathing in this tale.

4

Moonlight and Poetry

(or The Education of Zeke McGraw)

The moon shone full and white over thickly wooded mountains. The land stretched out in endless tones of black and gray. Trees cast long shadows over pale-white ferns. Undulating beards of moss hung from ebony branches.

An eerie cry split the night, We do not keep the outward form of order where there is deep disorder in the mind. Something is rotten in the state of West Virginia.

Out of a dilapidated wooded shack, wood-bleached pale by the weather of many seasons, a lithe figure emerged. He scampered through the shadowed glen, a wild gleam in his wide bright eyes. His pupils were large, sharp and focused, his teeth sharp, white and pointed. Just a few hours before moonrise he’d been a poor hunched figure, front teeth missing and practically illiterate. His name was Zeke McGraw. He and his father before him, and his father’s father before that – which was about as far back as Zeke could figure, he was not skilled in arithmetic – had lived in the tiny shack in the woods on Pine Mountain.

It seemed to Zeke many moons ago (though it was actually only twenty-four) on a night clear as this, that he'd been sitting on his front porch finishing off a jug of home brewed hooch.

His grandfather’s grandfather had built the still and it had produced face-numbing moonshine for many years. Moonshine gets its name from the necessity to run distilling operations under cover of darkness, ideally when the moon is full. Cool night air is helpful to the distillation process as vapor