Children nibbled rock-candy windows and gingerbread doors and no wild witches with seaweed hair owned ovens, anywhere in the land. Witches were forbidden to own ovens. When mourning doves lined up back to front and front to back on the telephone wires and cried, it hurt. But it was only like sunsets, and city streets, and bridges hidden in fog. Like too many hyacinths.
Nobody can stand too many hyacinths.
But nobody dies of it, either. Reproduction and distribution specifically prohibited. All rights reserved. First published in Diaspar 22, June 1981. Melisa Michaels is the author of the science fiction novels Skirmish , First Battle , Last War , Pirate Prince , Floater Factor , and Far Harbor , the fantasy novels Cold Iron and Sister to the Rain , and the mystery novel Through the Eyes of the Dead.