Little big things, big little things (revised)

By Emmanuelle

(This article appeared on the first day of the first month of this year. It must have stirred a lot of finicky feelings. Due to persistent requests from avid Feelings readers, we oblige with a reprint, but with some little revisions so as not to bore the more fussy and fastidious.)

Let me retell some children’s stories in my own sweet feeling way, (haha.):

When Laura was young, she was just like any other young girls of her age, except that she always wore a ribbon around her neck, Victorian-age style. She never took it off even when she took a bath. Although she was very shy, her charming gentle ways won her many friends. These friends would often ask her: why do you wear a ribbon around your neck? Laura would lower her eyes shyly, smile, and answer: secret po. As she grew up, a lot of young men were drawn to her shy, charming, gentle ways. Invariably, these young men would ask the same question: why do you wear a ribbon around your neck? Laura would lower her eyes shyly, smile, and answer: secret po. Then Laura married Ned. On their wedding night, Ned said: now, please tell me, why do you wear a ribbon around your neck? Laura lowered her eyes coyly, smiled, and answered: secret. Laura and Ned were happy. They had four children. As the children grew up, they too asked their mother: why do you wear a ribbon around your neck? Laura would slap their butts playfully and chortle, secret, secret! The children got married and went off to live on their own. Laura and Ned grew old. Then Laura got sick. The doctor took a look at her, shook his head. Laura was dying. When she felt her end was near, she whispered to Ned: now, you shall know my secret.  Untie the ribbon.

Shyly, gently, Ned did so. Laura’s head tumbled down from her neck.      

So, why would a mother, if she were of sound mind, place a baby on a cradle atop a tree? Of course, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come baby, cradle and all. This mother should be tied by her big toes higher up that tree! Imagine the feelings of countless other babies, looking up at their mothers rocking their cradles, crooning: rock a bye baby on the treetop. It was really premeditated murder. More so, sa simula pa lang, bye baby na? Babies know; babies talk, you know! Their knowing talking eyes growing wide, wider, widest – these babies would be going gaga with anxious trepidation. 

Knowing he was an egg, why would Humpty Dumpty sit on a wall? If all the King’s men couldn’t put him together again, how can the King’s horses do any better?

  What were the parents of Jack and Jill   thinking, to have sent these two little kids up the hill for a pail of water? Wells are dug purportedly downhill, not up! And when Jack broke his crown that would be tragic! He would be comatose! And I hear the school kids are still chanting: and Jill came tumbling after?

How can Cinderela be in any condition to run down the castle stairs so swiftly  as to beat the midnight curfew? When she left one golden, high-heeled slipper behind, she would be clomping unevenly along on feet one heeled and one unheeled. She wouldn’t be flying, flying  down the stairs; she would be tumbling, tumbling.

And not lastly, how can Snow White lay there so beautifully unruffled when she had just been poisoned or had choked from a bite of apple? You know what poison can do? Or choking? You go through a frightful experience! You get a terrific stomachache, you vomit all your innards out, your face contorts indescribably! You gasp for air suddenly not there, your fingers clutch then scratch at your throat right through the skin. Your end is ugly; not delicately poised, fingers artfully uncurled.

And Rapunzel, Rapunzel, no matter how willingly you let down your hair, you must have the neck and shoulders of an ox – and hair roots planted on the skull of a bull – to manage to lift up the tower a fully grown, able-bodied man!

Little big things, big little things. Too little, too big. Taken this way, just enough contradictory details to remove the hood covering our collective eyes. To wand away the magic. To turn awe into awesomely impossible. The children’s story becomes a nightmare beyond childhood, the fairy tale just another tall tale.

Next time someome tells you a tale . . . another bedtime story, Chacha, etcetera . . . think muna.

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