When Truth and Beauty Got Married: a Febrile Fable

Once upon a time he said Wow are you Beauteous and she replied That’s me and us. He was taken and thus was she, and before Friend Time had much of himself to muse, Truth said I do even if sometimes harshly and Beauty said What the hell, count me in. They lived in a house called Upward, mixed it up in the Upward attic, and nine non-months later Rosie Roseglass was born a half hour in advance of her twin brother Duck F. Yuno-Wadsgudforyu. In no Time at all the twins divvied up the world, inadvertently separating their parents, and a good thing: they no longer got along, despite poetic propaganda to the contrary. The world was puzzled as to why half of it was just fine with horrendous conditions, while the other half was constantly creating and enhancing horrendous conditions. And they lived happily ever after, except for them. The And.

Afterword

1. Grateful acknowledgment is given to Joseph Arechavala for the what-if that prompted this Fable.

2. Grateful acknowledgment is given to the creators of Fractured Fairy Tales, a feature of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, for influencing my child’s mind in the mid-60s. Without that influence this Febrile Fable would never have been written.

3. The illustrative sketch was done on a piece of cut-up scratch paper during my shift at the Village Gallery today. That is why there is faded reversed lettering on the image; it is from the other side of the paper.

4. After I did the sketch I looked at it and realized that I must have subconsciously modeled Truth after Arthur Miller and Beauty after Marilyn Monroe. Funny how the mind works…