the Sagas

these are the stories told by the fools.

Magpie Hershberg

('26) attends bennington college. i do not have a bio for them.

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More Sagas

you can find more sagas in the physical editions of the fool or in the archive or in the sagas section of the website. its not that hard lol

The Humble Request

by Magpie Hershberg

There is some­thing, I feel, holy about the long ta­ble of my ban­quet hall. Un­der the finest of chan­de­liers lies a body of ma­hogany atop ex­pert­ly carved legs. If I were more a man of re­li­gion, I would say this ta­ble was craft­ed by God him­self, cre­at­ed not in a broad act of di­vine will, but metic­u­lous­ly, as if he had tak­en up the chis­el of Michelan­ge­lo and de­cid­ed to make the next David, out of wood, and just for me.

It is the length of about twelve din­ner plat­ters, and, beau­ti­ful­ly, the width of ex­act­ly one large din­ner plate. When you are seat­ed at my ta­ble, you may look up from your meal to see the walls, which are paint­ed uni­form­ly black, and all the paint­ings and or­na­ments which adorn them. You will not see an­oth­er man’s face, for the ta­ble is too thin to ac­com­mo­date him tak­ing up the same space as you. Your legs would tan­gle and your plates would clash against each oth­er. That is the beau­ty of this ta­ble.

It is one beau­ti­ful part of the beau­ti­ful en­tire­ty of my home. In east­ern Nor­folk it lies, nest­ed com­fort­ably with­in dozens of acres of to­bac­co mon­ey land and con­nect­ed by one road to the rest of the world. It be­longed once to my fa­ther, and to his fa­ther be­fore him. It is the most per­fect land in all of Eng­land. One can look out most windows with­out see­ing a sin­gle build­ing, only bright grass en­croached upon by a peppering of trees.

That said, it would be fool­ish to mistake the land for the source of this property’s beauty. In­deed, I’ve not so much as opened a win­dow to smell the breeze in at least a few years. And I find the feel of pol­ished stone and fine rugs to be much gen­tler on my feet than that of grass or cob­bled road. Every room con­tains with­in it mul­ti­tudes that are far more fas­ci­nat­ing than any of the out­side world has to of­fer. And they are for my eyes only.

I spend every day strolling through the halls and in and out of each room. There were many rooms when I first had au­thor­i­ty over the house, and thir­ty-some years later, there are many more.

As of late, I have been frequenting the oldest of the three trophy rooms. After significant neglect, I’ve found my­self mak­ing up for lost time. There are heads of great bucks, wolves, and some crea­tures more exot­ic—a few li­ons, a leop­ard, and many more crea­tures from all around the globe.

There is a grand fire­place in this room, which pro­vides gen­tle light in lieu of windows. It al­ways burns just bright enough to il­lu­mi­nate the snarling teeth of the beasts. I have not once touched the fire, stocked its wood, poked it with the iron tools by its side. And yet, I will an­nounce to the emp­ty halls my in­ten­tion to vis­it this room, and by the time I ar­rive, I can feel the fire’s warmth brush­ing my face and ca­ress­ing my lungs as I breathe it in. What a fine room it is.

It is a slight walk from this tro­phy room, but an­oth­er room I find my­self in quite often is the grand tea room. This room, too, seems to an­tic­i­pate my ar­rival when I alert the stretch­ing cor­ri­dors on my way there. I ar­rive to tea, still hot, warm cook­ies and pas­tries, arranged neat­ly and com­plete­ly to my lik­ing.

I of­ten take this time to at­tend to cor­re­spon­dence, what lit­tle I have of it to write these days. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly there ar­rives a let­ter on my desk, out of thin air, from some ran­dom name, dis­tant rel­a­tive, what have you. Most of them ask to meet, tell me to leave my es­tate, in­sist I must be de­pressed stay­ing here by my lone­some. It is ut­ter non­sense, and I tell them as much in my re­spons­es. Rarely am I both­ered by some­one again af­ter I ex­plain how won­der­ful my life­style tru­ly is.

Most of the let­ters I write, in truth, are re­quests. Usu­al­ly, for ex­ten­sions onto the manor. I care lit­tle for the spec­i­fi­ca­tions, I know it is all tak­en care of some­how. All I need to be hap­py in this world is the oc­ca­sion­al new room to en­joy, and I am blessed with a life that gives me noth­ing but. I write down a sim­ple con­cept, leave the note any­where at all, and with­in mere weeks there is a new door down some hall.

I nev­er know where the new rooms are, at first. For years, with the slow­er pace I used to roam, it might take even a month or two to en­counter my new room. Now, I must con­fess, my pa­tience has been wear­ing thin. It is an em­bar­rass­ing habit, I ad­mit, that from the day af­ter I re­quest a room, I be­gin to stalk the halls like a starv­ing cat.

I know it is un­be­com­ing of me. I was not raised to prowl like an an­i­mal, to peek be­hind cor­ners as if hunt­ing prey. In the days af­ter I re­quest a new room I be­come fever­ish. I do not re­turn to my bed­room for days, in­stead tak­ing what lit­tle rest I get on the fine fur­ni­ture of the var­i­ous rooms I pass. In these times I eat very lit­tle, for I know noth­ing will sate me re­gard­less but a new door, a new cham­ber. I al­ways find it, in due time. The col­or will re­turn to my face, and I snap out of my beast­li­ness.

For some time, any­ways. I might be ill. I might be dy­ing. I feel I might need these rooms to live. The walls of my home are beau­ti­ful, and grand, and per­fect, and will choke me, and I love them dear­ly, and I would nev­er leave them.

I am a man of log­ic. I am not prone to su­per­sti­tion. But as of late, I think there may be some­thing ethe­re­al bent on pun­ish­ing me. This manor is emp­ty, but for me. I make sure of it. But in those mo­ments of delir­i­um, the days be­tween my re­quests for ex­pansion and my en­counter of the ex­pan­sion, I swear I hear them. Foot­steps. There is an ap­pari­tion here, and I tell you, this house does not creak but when it is here, it does.

Foot­steps on wood, foot­steps on pol­ished stone and mar­ble, foot­steps on rug. I hear them. Al­ways in the next hall. To the right, to the left, it walks. There is some­thing in this place be­side me. That has not been the case in years. I’ve not once called out for it, I do not know what it wants from me, and I want noth­ing from it but its dis­appear­ance. It does even­tu­al­ly dis­ap­pear, for some time, any­ways. Once I have found my new room, the specter dis­si­pates, not to be heard again un­til a new room is re­quested.

I wouldn’t blame some­one for think­ing I’ve gone mad, hear­ing foot­steps that aren’t there. I pon­dered the pos­si­bil­i­ty for months. But that is not the case. This time, I’ve seen the spir­it.

Just two days ago, as sum­mer hail knocked at my win­dows, I penned a re­quest. A sim­ple one- a grand green­house, brim­ming with ex­ot­ic flow­ers and lined with vines. Be­cause while I do not long for any­where else, there are a few nat­ur­al fra­grances I have yet to en­counter, and I would like to have them at my con­ve­nience.

I fell back into my re­cent rou­tine short­ly there­after. Fran­ti­cal­ly in­spect­ing the halls at a speed that push­es the lim­its of my aged form. Every wall is dec­o­rat­ed to the utmost, so when I must take a mo­ment to rest, I dare not lean, lest I dam­age any­thing.

I live like this now. Night or day are no mat­ter, and there is lit­tle dif­fer­ence be tween the halls which are lit and the halls which are dark.

I saw it, by the en­trance to the li­brary. A form, pale, hu­man­like. I could not tell if it were a man or a woman, but I sup­pose that does not mat­ter, as it was cer­tain­ly a spir­it. It said noth­ing. I do not be­lieve it knew I was there be­fore it. It traced a hand along the door­frame ever so slow­ly. It was then I felt some­thing icy climb up my throat and grasp at the base of my tongue. I fled, then, and holed up in a loung­ing room un­til the nau­sea set­tled.

Again I saw it, by the ground floor’s din­ing hall. Still as death, it leaned and hovered over the line where the floor meets the wall’s edge. Held taut be­tween its hands was some kind of tape or rope, I could not bear to watch long enough to fig­ure out what it was. It held the strand to the floor and did noth­ing else.

I am over­come by a sick­ly feel­ing sim­ply re­call­ing it, the way that for just a sec­ond, it turned its head and flicked its eyes my way. I swear, in that mo­ment, I thought I would die. That my heart would re­tire or that my en­tire body would turn to stone. Again, I fled.

I thank god that I did not see it again af­ter that en­counter. It in­hab­its all my wak­ing thoughts, even still. Despite the all-con­sum­ing ter­ror that filled my dazed be­ing at that point, I had to con­tin­ue search­ing for my new room. There is no choice in­volved, it is as au­to­mat­ic and nec­es­sary as breath­ing. Over days, my vi­sion be­gan to blur, the sub­dued col­ors of every hall swirled togeth­er to soak be­hind my eyes and splash against my brain. Every sec­ond torn from the oth­er by can­dle flick­er and clock tick.

In desperation, I searched every oth­er room as well. Each has the same fine­ly crafted loung­ing couch, the leather un­blem­ished despite years of use. I could not tell the spine of one shelved book from an­oth­er. Words them­selves de­tached them­selves from my mind, leav­ing only in­scrutable let­ters. The sounds of my own foot­steps scraped my ear drums and stirred my stom­ach. The glass eyes of the mount­ed tro­phy an­i­mals would melt out of their sock­ets and down through the floor if I stared too long.

Nev­er had it tak­en so long to find a new room. There came a point, where, in the same de­spair a man would con­sid­er the bar­rel of a gun point­ed to his fore­head, I ques­tioned if the green­house had been built at all—if it would ever be built, if any more rooms would be built at all.

In my de­spair, I took an ac­tion that I am still ut­ter­ly re­morse­ful for. I pray that this per­fect, beau­ti­ful, home will for­give my trans­gres­sion and still see my undy­ing love for it.

There is one exit from this manor, the very front doors, heavy and grand. They have gone long un­used, though still pol­ished, as is every­thing here. I was a fool, and let an un­grate­ful­ness pos­sess me for just a mo­ment, and opened those doors. Against the wis­dom I nor­mal­ly have in abun­dance, I tried to leave.

I swung open the doors and it was then I saw it. The lush­est of green­ery, im­port­ed from dis­tant lands, bush­es and gor­geous flow­ers, the fra­grance of which waft­ed into my nos­trils and calmed my nerves. Be­yond the fo­liage, pale green glass, just translucent enough for sun­light to reach the plants be­low. A sun of stained glass, a green house.

I re­al­ized once again how blessed I have been to have such a home which bends so gra­cious­ly to my will and in such el­e­gant man­ner. It is en­tire­ly ef­fi­cient, now. There was no use for the front doors. There has not been use for them in many, many years.

Yes, the green­house is the per­fect seal. A closed loop, for I and I alone. A pre­cious ship in a bot­tle, fi­nal­ly corked. I am ut­ter­ly blessed in my soli­tude, and I can be cer­tain now that the halls of my home shall stand haunted by no one.