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alone, the queen made her way across the barren flats

a bundle-of-data drew itself, a perpendicular line, hastily towards the lady

“dear Oretta, if you wish, I could give you a ride for much of your remaining journey–a ride on the back of one of the finest tales in the world.”

“sir, I beg you to do so; it would be a joy to me.”

it began:

“the great astronomer Galileo fell in love with the idea of heliocentrism…
no, no-wait, that’s not at all how it begins…
let me think, how does it go?
oh! I know…
sorry, 
let me begin again.”

it began again:

“late in life, the President fell in love with a prepubescent girl…uh, a German girl. 
The Senate was dismayed to see that their emperor, 
overcome by ardent desire and forgetful of…something, 
was neglecting executive affairs. When the girl suddenly died, the Senate sighed with relief–but only briefly,
for Charlemagne’s love did not die with the girl…
Charlemagne?
...
right!
not the President...how could I even get those two confused?
this is a story about emperor Charlemagne
so where was I...
the emperor had the embalmed body brought to his...bed place, 
and refused to leave its side. Pope Urban VIII, alarmed by…
wait…
no, that’s Galileo again...
was it uh...Archbishop Turbin? 
no, no–sorry...it was the Archbishop of Cologne I’m thinking of…
​the Archbishop of Cologne, alarmed by this morbid passion and suspecting some kind of enchantment, decided to examine the body...
​uh, the corpse, that is. 
hidden beneath the dead tongue he found a golden ring. 
as soon as the archbishop took possession of it, the emperor hastened to have the girl buried and directed his love towards the archbishop. 
to extricate himself from that position, the archbishop threw the ring into the, uh…
I think, Sea of Tranquility... 
that sounds right…
Charlemagne fell in love with the sea and refused to leave its shore, 
gazing into it until the end of his days. The End.”

​each word of this mercurial tale was spoken at once and simultaneously, lasting a mere instant

the queen had ventured in it’s telling the width of a grain of sand, but with such overwhelming velocity that she turned to glass

the bundle-of-data passed through the glass like light through a prism

--)