Fairy Tale

by Stephen King

I wish I had looked longer, but I don’t blame myself. You never know where the trapdoors are in your life, do you?

“There’s always someone at fault,” Dad said. “Which is not the same as blame.”

Jack basically steals golden stuff—coins, a goose that lays golden eggs, the golden harp that warns the giant. But it’s not stealing in the usual sense, because the giant has stolen all the golden stuff for himself. I found out that the giant’s famous chant—Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman—was cribbed from King Lear, where a character named Edgar says, Child Roland to the dark tower came, His word was still Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.

Here is something I learned in Empis: good people shine brighter in dark times.

“There’s pain in that word, wouldn’t you agree? Such pain in every almost.”

shame is like laughter. And inspiration. It doesn’t knock.