Wow’s apartment, being on the floor right above an architectural setback, had a large terrace patio attached to it. It was there that Nick went to find Woe, after the older-looking sister had grilled him mercilessly about his intentions towards Woe and satisfied herself that he was not here to finish the job a house had once started.
Woe was sitting pretty precariously on the stone railing at the end of the terrace, reading a glossy magazine. Nick wouldn’t have guessed it was anywhere near wide enough for somebody to sit on… or even wide enough to look like it might be worth trying… but then, from his vantage point back by the door, he couldn’t really tell.
“Uh, hi,” Nick said, not wanting to startle her with his approach. “I’ve just been talking to your, uh, your sister, and…”
“Stop right there,” she said, not looking up from the magazine. “Don’t come any closer.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Nick said, a little dismayed at this reaction. He’d just went through this with Wow. With Karrie Anne missing, every minute could count… he wouldn’t get anywhere if he had to keep proving his innocence to the women who were supposed to help him. “I need your help.”
“I know,” she said. She turned to regard him with her big, bright eyes. “Do you have any idea how narrow this ledge I’m sitting on is?”
He shook his head.
“Neither do I,” she said. “So far as I know, it could be just wide enough to support me. But if you come close enough to see that it isn’t wide enough, then I could fall to my death, which would make me very cross and most likely render my sister inconsolable.”
“But… that doesn’t make any sense,” Nick said.
“Well, don’t you think you would be inconsolable if you had a sister who fell to her death?” Woe asked.
“Yes, but…”
“Then, I imagine it makes perfect sense to you,” she said.
11 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
funny, in an almost confusing way. although i think i almost understand. i am greatly enjoying tribe it is a nice side story to read along with mu. i wish i had come upon your site much sooner, i have never had such pleasure in a simple story, or a complex one for that matter. haven’t quite figured out about this one yet.
I feel so slow – it’s only just occurred to me the entymology of Wow and Woe’s names. Nice touch Lexy
NovaSeer – Would you explain it to me?
I love it. To be honest, i like it a little more than MU. It took me a second to get Woe and Wow, but the house falling thing clenched it. I love this kind of slightly off-kilter stuff. Great job!
Wow – (wicked)Witch of the West
Woe – (wicked)Witch of the East
The reason whether Woe falls or not sounds like looneytoon physics. “If you think you can do it, you can” and “If you run off the edge of a cliff, as long as you don’t realize it, you won’t fall.”
Woe’s reasoning actually sounds like Schroedinger’s cat (there’s supposed to be two dots over one of the vowels, I just know it). Basically a cat was put in the box, starved and left there. Schroedinger stated that so long as the box stayed shut, the cat was neither living nor dead but in a state between them. Woe’s statement is the same: so long as no one knows, she can sit there just fine.
…Or maybe she’s just trying to drive the poor man insane. Either way, she’s spiffy.
Well Woe has ‘forgotten’ to age so there is a lot of believe in the workings of magic. (As in your old as old as you think you are.)
Quantum witchery?
small grammatical error- “He’d just went” should be “He’d just gone.”
Titania, that wasn’t quite the idea with Schrodinger’s cat (umlaut on the ‘o’ i think).
The idea was that nothing can exist in two opposing states at the same time. The cat doesn’t starve, it’s killed by poison gas.
Actually, the idea behind the “Schroedinger’s cat” thought experiment is to demonstrate quantum superposition, where conceivably EVERYTHING exists in ALL states at the same time, until observed (observed meaning “measured”, or otherwise detected or quantified in some way).