40

She'd had enough of these mediators and psychologists and counsellors, she had to go to at least eight of them every week and they all told her that she had a grandfather complex or that she was a phallic woman or that she had empathy issues or that she had to count to ten and go out of the room and none of them understood anything about magic. They confiscated all her basilisks as they said they were contraindicated and she suspected they had all been humanely destroyed and this made her feel very upset because she knew that meant that the state executioner had cut their heads off. And there was the king slumped on his throne feeling all sorry for himself while the lady courtiers simpered and brought him herbal teas and almond biscuits and talked about mangolds and sericulture. She never wanted to get married anyhow and now she had it was even worse than she expected, he wanted his brisket and onions served every night just so and if he didn't get it there was hell to pay once they were alone together and on top of that he demanded his rights and in this question she didn't seem to ave any rights at all. She wondered why the counsellors and mediators and psychologists said he didn't have any issues, but in the mediation sessions he looked too noble and sad to have issues and so all the issues were hers because she wasn't noble or sad just silent and furious and she didn't brush her hair every morning which made her irresponsible. Why can't you just be a nice princess? they all said sadly and then you could have the happily ever after like your godmother planned for you, look at you, you're causing problems in the narrative and then what will andrew lang have to say about that, eh? She told them all to go kiss a frog and so the king regretfully decided that after all he had to put her in the asylum which was full of one-armed or one-eyed or one-lunged soldiers and one real nut who always wanted the nurse to inject his penis with morphine, they had gone crazy on the king's last war when there was a terrible battle and they all got gassed and maimed and shot to pieces. The princess felt sorry for the madmen but she knew she wasn't mad so one day when the gate was open she escaped. She looked and looked for her mountain but the king had levelled it to make way for the new freeway. She thought then that she'd had enough of mountains and gates and thrones and kings and godmothers and she would go and visit the charcoal burners who lived deep in the forest instead and make up her own spells where nobody would ever find her. And so she did.

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46

A glass for the women entertainment! (Think for yourself.) They giggle over
the general rules for working, easing off paper words listed in writing,
remaining unnumbered, nervous. Nostalgia for protection, alone together...
Safety rattles its constant links. I listen. The psyche of the thrill of the
body. With a body; the book defunct.

Courtiers pass on death. A box of expression. A slaughterhouse, I am. An
unidentified shape. Infatuation goes unnoticed. Girls in a basket, or
something. (You say? Who was refused? What was refused? Why can't you? What
you say?) The page over everything. (You say?)

A speaking of available ambiguity. (Fist his face!) Edges in the plane,
moving, certainly, seated on the awful waves of the psyche. (Any more
errors, let me know.) An inferior object equivalence: murderous sunsets...
the stench of every curve...