(no subject)
"I remember the time I asked you to proof-read a draft of my dissertation. After waiting in some trepidation for the response, I was puzzled to receive a carefully-worded query enquiring whether or not I was aware that, upon the reader's eye beginning to travel down the text, each line of type turned into a curlicue of dark-green ivy and sprouted leaves which then attached themselves to the nearest available surface, and took root. Your office, you informed me, had now become a bower of densely-woven foliage with branches lining the walls, the bookshelves and the legs of your desk. The surface of the desk itself was obscured, as was the window, through which only a dimly-green gleam of suggested sunlight was now visible. (Such was the extent of this phenomenon, in fact, there was no longer space to occupy your office at all - you had fled only moments before the wildly-reaching leafy hands entwined themselves about your own limbs and hair as well).
The original, problematic typescript continued to sit fatly in the centre of the desk, from where it was eventually liberated some hours after I received your comments by a passing woodcutter, whose weather-scarred hands and arms wielded an axe with a competent ease not belied by his silence. As soon as the first branches had been sliced away tears the colour of stagnant water flowed from the paper and formed a whirlpool, until all the ivy was drowned and disappeared into the floor.
You considered marrying the woodcutter, but were deterred by the belief that fairytales evaporate in daylight, and he’d turn back into a wolf.
The original chapter was never found. I haven’t asked you to read anything since".
The original, not in letter form and lacking elves...
The original, problematic typescript continued to sit fatly in the centre of the desk, from where it was eventually liberated some hours after I received your comments by a passing woodcutter, whose weather-scarred hands and arms wielded an axe with a competent ease not belied by his silence. As soon as the first branches had been sliced away tears the colour of stagnant water flowed from the paper and formed a whirlpool, until all the ivy was drowned and disappeared into the floor.
You considered marrying the woodcutter, but were deterred by the belief that fairytales evaporate in daylight, and he’d turn back into a wolf.
The original chapter was never found. I haven’t asked you to read anything since".
The original, not in letter form and lacking elves...