The Sweet Smith
There was a place where a sweet smith lived, who made sweets for children and adults. He made sweets as yellow as sunshine, and as dark as earth. Sweets as finely carved as insects, and as crudely shaped as rocks. Some were small like raindrops, others large as millstones. Some were as thin as a spider’s web, others as brittle as a wasp nest. But all were as sweet as the honey bee’s home, as sweet as your first secret kiss, as sweet as a baby’s ten toes. The sweet smith delighted everyone with his creations, but especially himself.
Now in this same place was a woman who knew all the names of everything, and all the words ever written, and all the ways that this becomes that, and that becomes this. But one thing always eluded the woman, one thing she could not learn. What was inside her own heart? At last the woman decided that perhaps someone else could see what eluded her, so she found the sweet smith and gave him a request. "Make me a sweet that is filled the same as my own heart."
The sweet smith looked in his recipe books, and searched through his shelves. He went a great distance for the things he needed, and spent a long time perfecting his plan. At last he made the sweet, and called the woman in.
"Here it is," said the sweet smith. "Here is the sweet, filled the same as your own heart."
"Ah," said the woman who picked it up, then put it down, then turned around and left.
"Wait," cried the sweet smith, "don’t you want to taste?"
"You eat it," smiled the woman, walking away.
From The Insect Diviner
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