It Must Be Inconvenient to Be Made of Flesh

Audrey T. Carroll

You wake up in a strange place. It is too bright, too warm. The wind has stopped and the birds are singing. You can’t remember what happened before. It is a vague memory, a dream, the unpleasant kind that you’d prefer to leave buried in goose down. When you leave your home, you are greeted by an old woman, an enchantress dressed in stars who claims that you have killed her enemy. Nobody ever dies here, but now she has, and good riddance. There is no body, the woman explains, only the dead enemy’s silver shoes, which are now on your own feet. When you make your confusion about recent events—and this strange land—clear, you are instructed to skip through the terrors between here and a city made of your birthstone. The enchantress gives you a kiss for luck—or protection, she says, and you wonder what kind of spell this is. No one mentions repercussions for killing the woman with the silver shoes, and you are too afraid to ask. So instead you walk on a road of gold in a dead woman’s shoes, each step making you seasick with the thought of what you are truly doing—walking on the dead and gone.

When you pass people on the golden road, they claim to know exactly what you are and what you are capable of merely by one look at how you are dressed. You come across an inanimate man made animate—he desires the quality that people assume you do not have, though they are wrong. He explains that he, too, has a kind of protection from harm; all he fears is being set ablaze by someone else’s carelessness or anger. You offer to walk to your birthstone city together. 

In the forest, you come across another trapped man. When you free him, he reveals no one else cared enough to try, and he thanks you for your kindness. He also wishes to visit the city with you, this time to ask for the quality that most people say you have too much of. His axe had been enchanted by the person you killed, chopping away pieces of him until nothing of his old self was left. All he wants is one old piece of himself back again. He explains that he is afraid of nothing, except for drowning in his sorrows.

Finally, you come to a pitiful beast, one that would rather be lonely all its life than let others know it have the quality that you’re secretly most ashamed of in yourself. The beast, though afraid of most everything, joins you on the journey.

The man who fears fire becomes trapped in a river. You convince a large bird to help you save him, because it is important to hold on to the quality that others assume (wrongly) that you don’t have. Then you come to a field of poppies that first poison you, and then the beast afraid of everything. The beast falls into an endless slumber; the two men carry you away to safety. The man afraid of sorrows saves a small mouse queen, who in turn saves the beast who hides his shame. 

Upon reaching the birthstone city, you are all instructed to wear glasses with colored lenses, which are locked onto you by the gatekeeper. You think it odd, but he assures you it is for your own protection, so that you can see clearly. The magician of this city appears differently to each of you: as only a face to you, cruel and unwavering; as a temptation to the man who fears fire; as a beast to the one who fears sorrow; and as fire to the one who fears all. You must kill again, this magician tells you, if you dare to ask anything in return. He knows from one look at you that you have killed before, so it should be an easy task. You try to insist on your innocence, to simply be free to go where you desire, but this magician remains unmoved.

So you set out to kill the one-eyed witch. She sets out forty wolves to kill you, then forty crow, then forty dozen bees. Each time, they are killed instead. The one-eyed witch then conjures the most terrifying thing you’ve ever dreamed of—a swarm of them—to come and finish you. You are the only survivor, thanks to the kiss of the enchantress that scares even your worst nightmares away. Instead, they carry you to the one-eyed witch. You saw the one who feared fire torn to shreds by her minions; the one who feared drowning in sorrows beaten surely to death. When you look around the room, you take the bucket of water, dousing the witch as revenge for the man with the quality you have in abundance. Within three blinks, the one-eyed witch is dead, but you are still all alone. You rescue each of your fellow journeyers one by one. Eventually, you summon your nightmares, which you now command, and instruct them to carry you back to the magician and his promises.

The magician turns you away. You discover him a fraud; he tells you that all four of your desires put together are nothing compared to his fear of being discovered. He is nothing but a man who can speak over the images of others, making them appear to deliver his own declarations. He offers snake oil and silk stuffed with sawdust, and then escapes in the air.

You fight the forest itself, ending up in a place where all is beautiful but fragile, until you find another enchantress. Each of your three companions, now certain that they have what they desire, will rule in a different corner of the world. You step in the dead woman’s footsteps one last time, letting the silver shoes take you to the place where and when you most wish to be.