In reading Lily the Silent, I have the funny feeling that some of its characters are familiar, even if different, from the first Arcadian fairy tale published by Exterminating Angel Press, Snotty Saves the Day. There’s the Manatee. He has the bugged out eyes of Tuxton Ted in that first story, and he seems to know Lily from before they meet under the sea. On the Moon Itself, Lily sees, in her friend Phoebe, the Lemon Yellow Teddy Bear, Melia. Lily’s name for her own daughter, Snowflake, is the same as that of the unicorn that led Snotty on his adventures. Then there’s Livia. She brings up the unnerving image of Mr. Big.
Are these coincidence? Or something more?
I’m sure that something must account for this. Looking through other communications from Arcadia, I find a similar feel in the scientific treatise On The Discovery of Biological Truths in Fairy Tales, by the Arcadian scientist Dr. Alan Fallaize. Sure enough, in those Arcadian stories Fallaize recounts and analyzes, there are echoes of other characters. I’ve attached one of these tales, “The Girl with One Shoe,” here. It’s as if this is the story of Lily and Conor, told again in a different way, with a different, happier, end. Is this because both stories, one history, one fairy tale, reflect the same Arcadian values? Or is there something else, more mysterious, going on?
Am I just imagining things? Which would not be too surprising, given the circumstances.
Myself, I see evidence every day that Dr. Fallaize is right, and biological truths are contained in fairy tales. After all, aren’t we all the water poured into the glass, drunk by the princess, pissed into the chamber pot, emptied into the cistern, flowing out to the sea, rising into the air, falling down as rain, poured into the glass again…?
Another question to talk over with Sophia, if I ever have the good fortune to see or hear from her again….