Once upon a Time

Once upon a Time 
Nadine Gordimer

Someone has written to ask me to contribute to an anthology of stories for children. I reply that I don’t write children’s stories; and he writes back that at a recent congress/book fair/ seminar a certain novelist said every writer ought to write at least one story for children. I think of sending a postcard saying I don’t accept that I “ought” to write anything. 

And then last night I woke up—or rather was wakened without knowing what had roused me. 

A voice in the echo chamber of the subconscious? 

A sound. 

A creaking of the kind made by the weight carried by one foot after another along a wooden floor. I listened. I felt the apertures of my ears distend with concentration. Again: the creaking. I was waiting for it; waiting to hear if it indicated that feet were moving from room to room, coming up the passage—to my door. I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions, and my windowpanes are thin as rime, could shatter like a wineglass. A woman was murdered (how do they put it) in broad daylight in a house two blocks away, last year, and the fierce dogs who guarded an old widower and his collection of antique clocks were strangled before he was knifed by a casual laborer he had dismissed without pay. 
 
I was staring at the door, making it out in my mind rather than seeing it, in the dark. I lay quite still—a victim already—but the arrhythmia of my heart was fleeing, knocking this way and that against its body-cage. How finely tuned the senses are, just out of rest, sleep! I could never listen intently as that in the distractions of the day; I was reading every faintest sound, identifying and classifying its possible threat. 

But I learned that I was to be neither threatened nor spared. There was no human weight pressing on the boards, the creaking was a buckling, an epicenter of stress. I was in it. The house that surrounds me while I sleep is built on undermined ground; far beneath my bed, the floor, the house’s foundations, the stopes and passages of gold mines have hollowed the rock, and when some face trembles, detaches, and falls, three thousand feet below, the whole house shifts slightly, bringing uneasy strain to the balance and counterbalance of brick, cement, wood, and glass that hold it as a structure around me. The misbeats of my heart tailed off like the last muffled flourishes on one of the wooden xylophones made by the Chopi and Tsonga migrant miners who might have been down there, under me in the earth at that moment. The stope where the fall was could have been disused, dripping water from its ruptured veins; or men might now be interred there in the most profound of tombs.
 
I couldn’t find a position in which my mind would let go of my body—release me to sleep again. So I began to tell myself a story; a bedtime story. 

In a house, in a suburb, in a city, there were a man and his wife who loved each other very much and were living happily ever after. They had a little boy, and they loved him very much. They had a cat and a dog that the little boy loved very much. They had a car and a caravan trailer for holidays, and a swimming pool which was fenced so that the little boy and his playmates would not fall in and drown. They had a housemaid who was absolutely trustworthy and an itinerant gardener who was highly recommended by the neighbors. For when they began to live happily ever after they were warned, by that wise old witch, the husband’s mother, not to take on anyone off the street. They were inscribed in a medical benefit society, their pet dog was licensed, they were insured against fire, flood damage, and theft, and subscribed to the local Neighborhood Watch, which supplied them with a plaque for their gates lettered YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED over the silhouette of a would-be intruder. He was masked; it could not be said if he was black or white, and therefore proved the property owner was no racist. 

It was not possible to insure the house, the swimming pool, or the car against riot damage. There were riots, but these were outside the city, where people of another color were quartered. These people were not allowed into the suburb except as reliable housemaids and gardeners, so there was nothing to fear, the husband told the wife. Yet she was afraid that some day such people might come up the street and tear off the plaque YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED and open the gates and stream in. . . . Nonsense, my dear, said the husband, there are police and soldiers and tear gas and guns to keep them away. But to please her—for he loved her very much and buses were being burned, cars stoned, and schoolchildren shot by the police in those quarters out of sight and hearing of the suburb—he had electronically controlled gates fitted. Anyone who pulled off the sign YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED and tried to open the gates would have to announce his intentions by pressing a button and speaking into a receiver relayed to the house. The little boy was fascinated by the device and used it as a walkie-talkie in cops and robbers play with his small friends. 

The riots were suppressed, but there were many burglaries in the suburb and somebody’s trusted housemaid was tied up and shut in a cupboard by thieves while she was in charge of her employers’ house. The trusted housemaid of the man and wife and little boy was so upset by this misfortune befalling a friend left, as she herself often was, with responsibility for the possessions of the man and his wife and the little boy that she implored her employers to have burglar bars attached to the doors and windows of the house, and an alarm system installed. The wife said, She is right, let us take heed of her advice. So from every window and door in the house where they were living happily ever after they now saw the trees and sky through bars, and when the little boy’s pet cat tried to climb in by the fanlight to keep him company in his little bed at night, as it customarily had done, it set off the alarm keening through the house. 

The alarm was often answered—it seemed—by other burglar alarms, in other houses, that had been triggered by pet cats or nibbling mice. The alarms called to one another across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails that everyone soon became accustomed to, so that the din roused the inhabitants of the suburb no more than the croak of frogs and musical grating of cicadas’ legs. Under cover of the electronic harpies’ discourse intruders sawed the iron bars and broke into homes, taking away hi-fi equipment, television sets, cassette players, cameras and radios, jewelry and clothing, and sometimes were hungry enough to devour everything in the refrigerator or paused audaciously to drink the whiskey in the cabinets or patio bars. Insurance companies paid no compensation for single malt, a loss made keener by the property owner’s knowledge that the thieves wouldn’t even have been able to appreciate what it was they were drinking. 

Then the time came when many of the people who were not trusted housemaids and gardeners hung about the suburb because they were unemployed. Some importuned for a job: weeding or painting a roof; anything, baas, madam. But the man and his wife remembered the warning about taking on anyone off the street. Some drank liquor and fouled the street with discarded bottles. Some begged, waiting for the man or his wife to drive the car out of the electronically operated gates. They sat about with their feet in the gutters, under the jacaranda trees that made a green tunnel of the street—for it was a beautiful suburb, spoiled only by their presence—and sometimes they fell asleep lying right before the gates in the midday sun. The wife could never see anyone go hungry. She sent the trusted housemaid out with bread and tea, but the trusted housemaid said these were loafers and tsotsis, who would come and tie her up and shut her in a cupboard. The husband said, She’s right. Take heed of her advice. You only encourage them with your bread and tea. They are looking for their chance. . . . And he brought the little boy’s tricycle from the garden into the house every night, because if the house was surely secure, once locked and with the alarm set, someone might still be able to climb over the wall or the electronically closed gates into the garden. 

You are right, said the wife, then the wall should be higher. And the wise old witch, the husband’s mother, paid for the extra bricks as her Christmas present to her son and his wife—the little boy got a Space Man outfit and a book of fairy tales. 

But every week there were more reports of intrusion: in broad daylight and the dead of night, in the early hours of the morning, and even in the lovely summer twilight—a certain family was at dinner while the bedrooms were being ransacked upstairs. The man and his wife, talking of the latest armed robbery in the suburb, were distracted by the sight of the little boy’s pet cat effortlessly arriving over the seven-foot wall, descending first with a rapid bracing of extended forepaws down on the sheer vertical surface, and then a graceful launch, landing with swishing tail within the property. The whitewashed wall was marked with the cat’s comings and goings; and on the street side of the wall there were larger red-earth smudges that could have been made by the kind of broken running shoes, seen on the feet of unemployed loiterers, that had no innocent destination. 

When the man and wife and little boy took the pet dog for its walk round the neighborhood streets they no longer paused to admire this show of roses or that perfect lawn; these were hidden behind an array of different varieties of security fences, walls, and devices. The man, wife, little boy, and dog passed a remarkable choice: There was the low-cost option of pieces of broken glass embedded in cement along the top of walls, there were iron grilles ending in lance points, there were attempts at reconciling the aesthetics of prison architecture with the Spanish Villa style (spikes painted pink) and with the plastic urns of neoclassical façades (twelve-inch pikes finned like zigzags of lightning and painted pure white). Some walls had a small board affixed, giving the name and telephone number of the firm responsible for the installation of the devices. While the little boy and the pet dog raced ahead, the husband and wife found themselves comparing the possible effectiveness of each style against its appearance; and after several weeks when they paused before this barricade or that without needing to speak, both came out with the conclusion that only one was worth considering. It was the ugliest but the most honest in its suggestion of the pure concentration-camp style, no frills, all evident efficacy. Placed the length of walls, it consisted of a continuous coil of stiff and shining metal serrated into jagged blades, so that there would be no way of climbing over it and no way through its tunnel without getting entangled in its fangs. There would be no way out, only a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier, a deeper and sharper hooking and tearing of flesh. The wife shuddered to look at it. You’re right, said the husband, anyone would think twice. . . . And they took heed of the advice on a small board fixed to the wall: Consult DRAGON’S TEETH The People For Total Security. 

Next day a gang of workmen came and stretched the razor-bladed coils all round the walls of the house where the husband and wife and little boy and pet dog and cat were living happily ever after. The sunlight flashed and slashed, off the serrations, the cornice of razor thorns encircled the home, shining. The husband said, Never mind. It will weather. The wife said, You’re wrong. They guarantee it’s rustproof. And she waited until the little boy had run off to play before she said, I hope the cat will take heed. . . . The husband said, Don’t worry, my dear, cats always look before they leap. And it was true that from that day on the cat slept in the little boy’s bed and kept to the garden, never risking a try at breaching security. 

One evening, the mother read the little boy to sleep with a fairy story from the book the wise old witch had given him at Christmas. Next day he pretended to be the Prince who braves the terrible thicket of thorns to enter the palace and kiss the Sleeping Beauty back to life: He dragged a ladder to the wall, the shining coiled tunnel was just wide enough for his little body to creep in, and with the first fixing of its razor teeth in his knees and hands and head he screamed and struggled deeper into its tangle. The trusted housemaid and the itinerant gardener, whose “day” it was, came running, the first to see and to scream with him, and the itinerant gardener tore his hands trying to get at the little boy. Then the man and his wife burst wildly into the garden and for some reason (the cat, probably) the alarm set up wailing against the screams while the bleeding mass of the little boy was hacked out of the security coil with saws, wire cutters, choppers, and they carried it—the man, the wife, the hysterical trusted housemaid, and the weeping gardener—into the house.

Aschenputtel (Cinderella)

by the Brothers Grimm

---

The wife of a rich man fell sick, and as she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, "Dear child, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you."
Thereupon she closed her eyes and departed. Every day the maiden went out to her mother's grave, and wept, and she remained pious and good. When winter came the snow spread a white sheet over the grave, and by the time the spring sun had drawn it off again, the man had taken another wife. 

Mid-Term Study Guide

• Group 1 - Be ready for a quiz on the fables listed below. Please know what happens in each of them and also the moral of the fable (the lesson you are supposed to learn from each one).
• The Hare and the Tortoise 
  The Ant and the Grasshopper
  The Fox and the Crow
  The Shepherd Boy
  The Lion and the Mouse
  The Fox and the Grapes
  The Cat-Maiden
  The Miser and His Gold
  Belling the Cat
  The Goose With the Golden Eggs
  The Crow and the Pitcher
  The Fisher and the Little Fish
  The Man and His Two Wives
  The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
  The Dog and the Reflection
  The Fox and the Lion
  The Man and the Wood
  Androcles and the Lion
  The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

Devotions (Songs)

Here I Am to Worship

Light of the world
You stepped down into darkness.
Opened my eyes, let me see.
Beauty that made this heart adore You
Hope of a life spent with You

Here I am to worship,
Here I am to bow down,
Here I am to say that You're my God
You're altogether lovely
Altogether worthy,
Altogether wonderful to me

King of all days
Oh, so highly exalted
Glorious in heaven above
Humbly You came
To the earth You created
All for love's sake became poor

I'll never know how much it cost
To see my sin upon that cross
I'll never know how much it cost
To see my sin upon that cross



Psalm 51

Create in me a clean heart, oh God
And renew a right spirit within me
Create in me a clean heart, oh God
And renew a right spirit within me

And cast me not away from Thy presence, oh Lord
And take not Thy holy spirit from me
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation
And renew a right spirit within me

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Psalm 103

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

You're rich in love, and You're slow to anger
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

 
All Of Creation
MercyMe

Separated until the veil was torn
The moment that hope was born
and guilt was pardoned once and for all
Captivated but no longer bound by chains
left at an empty grave
the sinner and the sacred resolved

And all of creation sing with me now
lift up your voice and lay your burden down
and all of creation sing with me now
fill up the heavens let his glory resound

Time has faded and we see him face to face
every doubt erased forever we will worhip the king
 
And all of creation sing with me now
lift up your voice and lay your burden down
and all of creation sing with me now
fill up the heavens let his glory resound

the reason we breathe is to sing of his glory
and for all he has done praise the Father 
praise the Son and the Spirit in one

And all of creation sing with me now
lift up your voice and lay your burden down
and all of creation sing with me now
fill up the heavens let his glory resound

There Is a Redeemer
Melody Green

There is a Redeemer,
Jesus, God's own Son,
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah,
Holy One, 

Thank you oh my Father,
For giving us Your Son,
And leaving Your Spirit,
'Til the work on Earth is done.
 
Jesus my Redeemer,
Name above all names,
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah,
Hope for sinners slain. 

Thank you oh my Father,
For giving us Your Son,
And leaving Your Spirit,
'Til the work on Earth is done.

When I stand in Glory,
I will see His face,
There I'll serve my King forever,
In that Holy Place. 

Thank you oh my Father,
For giving us Your Son,
And leaving Your Spirit,
'Til the work on Earth is done.

Lit Terms

Please write down and learn the following Lit Terms and their definitions (these are largely taken from Dr. Kip Wheeler's website):

• protagonist
• the main character in a work, on whom the author focuses most of the narrative attention. 
• i.e. Odysseus, Achilles, Phaeton, Theseus

• satire 
• an attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards.

• fable
• A brief story illustrating human tendencies through animal characters.
• i.e. Aesop's fables like "The tortoise and the hare" 

• didactic
• writing that is "preachy" or seeks overtly to convince a reader of a particular point or lesson.
• i.e. Aesop's fables 

• stanza
• an arrangement of lines of verse in a pattern usually repeated throughout the poem (or . . . a "paragraph" of poetry). 

• rhyme
• a matching similarity of sounds in two or more words, especially when their accented vowels and all succeeding consonants are identical.
• i.e. hands, lands, stands
• i.e. crawls, walls, falls 

• catalogue
• a long list for poetic or rhetorical effect.
• i.e.(items of dappled or spotted things: skies of couple color, brinded cow, rose moles, finches' wings, etc. All of these items are specific examples (making up a catalogue) of spotted things for which the poet is glorifying God.

• alliteration
• repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound.
• i.e. fresh firecoal chestnut falls, finches wings
• i.e. landscape plotted and pieced; fold, fallow and plough 

• assonance
• repeating identical or similar vowels (especially in stressed syllables) in nearby words.
• i.e. couple-color as a brinded cow
• i.e. all in stipple upon trout  
• i.e. fallow and plow 

• utopia
• comes from a Greek pun. In Greek, eu + topos ("good" + "place") and ou + topos ("no" + "place") sound very similar. Thus, utopia at once suggests a perfect society and an impossible one. 

• dystopia
• (from Greek, dys topos, "bad place"): presents readers with a world where all citizens are universally unhappy, manipulated, and repressed by a sinister, sadistic totalitarian state.
• i.e. The society in The Hunger Games
• i.e. George Orwell's 1984
• i.e. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World 

• motif
• recurring object, structure, character type, phrase, or concept in a work and/or numerous works of art.
• i.e. the poor family, the weak father, the evil stepmother, the forest (unknown), enchantment (magic), destruction of evil, wedding, sympathetic animals, naive protagonist(s), etc. 
• i.e. (Biblical motifs) creation-recreation, three days, seven days, the eighth, the garden, the serpent-dragon, the forbidden fruit (tree), banishment from the garden, brother-murder, breath of life
• "In the beginning God [was the Word]"
• Adam in the Garden (of Eden); Jesus in the Garden (of Gethsemane)
• Serpent in the Garden; Judas and the soldiers in the garden
• Forbidden fruit; Bathsheba; the cross
• Brother-murder: Cain and Abel, David and Uriah, Jews and Jesus 
• Breath of Life: God breathes on Adam; Jesus breathes on His disciples
• New Creation: Eve from Adam's side; the Church from Jesus's side 

• irony
• verbal 
• sarcasm - saying one thing and meaning its opposite
• i.e. If the weather is really bad saying something like, "Nice weather today."
• i.e. If your friend has a funny new haircut, saying something like, "Hey, nice haircut." 
• situational   
• When something totally unexpected happens
• i.e. the firehouse burns down
• i.e. the car thief has his getaway car stolen when his plans go awry
• i.e. a pickpocket has his pocket picked 
• i.e. when the evil queen in "Snow White" tries to eat Snow White's heart while the wild beasts in the forest do not touch her. She is unaware this is swine's flesh, which is a fitting meal for such a morally unclean woman. 
• dramatic
• When a character doesn't know what the audience does
• i.e. when the wicked queen of "Snow White" eats the boar's heart, thinking she's eating Snow White's

• juxtaposition 
• the arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development.
• i.e. again, when the evil queen in "Snow White" tries to eat Snow White's heart while the wild beasts in the forest do not touch her. This juxtaposition suggests that the evil queen is more "beastly" than the real beasts of the forest, which we would expect to eat Snow White.

• parody
• (Greek: "beside, subsidiary, or mock song"): A parody imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features. 
• i.e. Nadine Gordimer's "Once upon a Time" depicts how people who believe in fairy tales get chewed up and spit out by real life (i.e. the fear-laden adult world).