The Harpy In Her Cage

The unicorn replied, "Do not boast, old woman. Your death sits in that cage and hears you."

"Yes," Mommy Fortuna said calmly. "But at least I know where it is. You were out on the road hunting for your own death." She laughed again. "And I know where that one is, too. But I spared you the finding of it, and you should be grateful for that."

I wonder. Is someone's death more securely caged by one who denies it or who knows where it is and acknowledges it? I saw an article in the New York Times about a gay therapist who committed suicide much to the surprise of many people because he was so relentlessly cheerful. That I will die by suicide is fairly likely given statistics about how it runs in families and gay/bisexual men being more prone to it. The thing is that I am not relentlessly cheerful, I do not deny my dark side to myself or others. Materially I am not terribly successful and I know it, but I think my ego is not bound up in career markers. I do not live in New York and I make less than a fifth of what this therapist made. But maybe, just maybe, my lack of horizons make it less likely that I will fall prey to this particular harpy. At least not until my small magic has been melted by the truth of old age and creeping senility. Or perhaps it will not be the harpy that gets me at all, but some other death unexpected, and the harpy will never get her chance.

We are all going to die sooner or later. I think I know where my death is and I keep a careful eye on it. I may not be rapturously happy making my little meals, digging in my garden, and making my beer, but I am content with just having my small successes.

The witch's stagnant eyes blazed up so savagely bright that a ragged company of luna moths, off to a night's revel, fluttered straight into them and sizzled into snowy ashes. "I'd quit show business first," she snarled. "Trudging through eternity, hauling my homemade horrors - do you think that was my dream when I was young and evil? Do you think I chose this meager magic, sprung of stupidity, because I never knew the true witchery? I play tricks with dogs and monkeys because I cannot touch the grass, but I know the difference. And now you ask me to give up the sight of you, the presence of your power. I told Rukh I'd feed his liver to the harpy if I had to, and so I would. And to keep you I'd take your friend Schmendrick, and I'd - " She raged herself to gibberish, and at last to silence.

"Speaking of livers," the unicorn said. "Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that."