Previously in this series: The Rainbow Fish.
I used to draw pictures as a boy. I don’t do that now. A boa constrictor can swallow its prey whole, without chewing, and then rests without moving for six months to digest it. After I am eaten, I will rest too.
A hat is not the same thing as a snake eating an elephant. I can talk about stars, and forests, and snakes; I can talk about golf and neckties too. There is nobody to talk to.
I used to fly planes. I don’t do that now.
***
The last time I flew a plane, I crashed in the desert. The last time I flew a plane, I died. I am dying now.
I had three or six days of water with me, depending. Three good days or six bad days. If I had three days of water, I could work on my plane, I could walk on the sands in the heat of the sun, I would die before help found me. If I had six days of water, I could rest under the wing until the sun went down, and my hands would swell up, and the skin around my fingernails would blister, and I would see things that weren’t there, but I might live until help found me.
If help didn’t find me, I had no days of water. The boy found me on the last day of water, but he brought no help with him. He asked me to draw him a sheep.
What was a child doing in the desert, I asked him.
Everyone is a child in the desert, he told me. Draw me a sheep.
His face was smooth and unlined, like a child’s, but hands were puffed and wrinkled, like the hands of an old man. Like the hands of someone who is running out of water.
How did you get here, I asked him. Where do you find food, where do you find water.
Draw me a sheep and I will tell you, he said. I drew him a sheep and he smiled. I wish I had not drawn it. I wished he had not smiled.
Are there no sheep where you come from, I asked him.
Everything is dead where I come from, he told me. He put the drawing in his pocket.
That night I heard the sound of a bell and the quiet thump of hooves over grass as I slept.
***
He keeps me drawing with the promise of water. He must have water with him, he must know where water is, because the heat does not seem to bother him and his hands have grown smoother and more childlike every afternoon. He laughs when I lunge after him and dances out of the shade into the sun, where he knows I will not follow him. He hides under the sun.
You look very thirsty, he says. Perhaps tomorrow if you draw me a boa constrictor I will share my tea with you.
The plane is beyond repair. If he has water, surely he will tell me. He has no other companions, no one else to draw for him. What would he gain in watching me die?
***
It is true, isn’t it, that sheep eat little bushes?
Yes, that is true.
Ah, he said. I am glad. But he did not smile. He stood so that his shadow almost fell across my face, but he made very sure that it did not.
I did not understand why it was so important that sheep should eat little bushes.
Then it follows that they also eat baobabs.
My head was full of thick and slow-moving blood. I had no answer for him.
Before they grow big, the baobabs start out by being little.
That is strictly correct, I said, but why do you want the sheep to eat the baobabs?
Draw me something that will eat a sheep, he said suddenly. I want you to draw me something that can eat anything.
I drew him my hunger and my thirst. It had long teeth, and a long throat.
He smiled when I showed my drawing to him. He gave me a sip of his tea. I could not keep it down. He smiled as I heaved over it, clutching at a river of sand.
You twitch beautifully, he said. Almost as well as you draw.
He looked younger and more beautiful than ever.
***
Only once did he come to me while the sun was hiding under the earth. I did not move. I was resting for six months. I was a boa constrictor and he was an elephant, and we talked about neckties.
There are good seeds, he said, and there are bad seeds. But all seeds are invisible, and they sleep inside the earth. I have slept inside the earth. I am waking up now.
You are going to sleep, he said, and then it was morning, and he was gone.
***
The last time he came to visit me, my mouth was full of blood. The sun was shining, but I could see all of the other stars. He crouched down close to me and smiled very fondly, as if he loved me.
You belong to me, he said, because I was the first person to think of it. When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. So with me: I own you, because nobody else before me ever thought of finding you in the desert.
What will you do with me, I said with my mouth full of blood and words.
I will write you down on a little paper, he said. And then I will put that paper in a drawer and lock it with a key.
And that is all?
That is enough, he said. For now. Remember that I have all the drawings you made for me too. He climbed into the cockpit of my plane and waved at me with my own hands, and smiled at me with my own mouth, and winked at me with my own eyes. He started the propeller and the plane moved up and into the sunset.
***
It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
Tags: being eaten, children’s books, children’s stories made horrific, the little prince
This is purely horror-lovely if you remember little enough of The Little Prince to pretend that it has nothing to do with that at all.
You mean this wasn’t how the original went
My first thought, too. It would require a word-by-word comparison with the original to see where it starts to deviate (if it does at all).
Or else this was a The Little Prince/The English Patient mashup.
jesus christ mallory
JINX
I like the difference in tone our ‘jesus christ mallory’s have. Mine is all in lower case with no punctuation, which indicates gobsmacked awe, while yours is in caps and has a comma, which indicates a level of agression.
No full stops in either one, though. Hmm.
our emotions are too intense for full stops.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
JESUS CHRIST, MALLORY
bloody hell
Yayyyyyyyyyy!
YES
Honestly I’m not sure this is more horrifying than the original.
Agreed. The original is one of the horrible-est things I’ve ever read. And I’m a Clive Barker fan.
It’s definitely only a 6 compared to the 10 that is the little prince.
This is like Dorian Gray crossed with The English Patient (the dying in the desert part, not the hot Ralph Fiennes affair part) crossed with Coraline. Love it.
YES totally thought of the English Patient. “I don’t want to die in the desert.”
“He hides under the sun.”
Why is this the most horrifying part for me?
:C
Wait, what’s the difference?
Weirdly, I don’t find this all that horrifying. Like, I get that it is, in fact, a horror story, but I mostly just find it kind of beautiful. And far preferable to the original, which I don’t remember that clearly but remember as being deadly boring.
Those were my thoughts as well. Primarily I found it lovely.
I take it you’ve never been through heat exhaustion? Overheated long enough to worry about heat stroke? I grew up in the desert and that makes Mallory’s work here terrifying. Adding allusions to The Little Prince just increases the horror.
Not really, no. But that’s sort of how horror works, isn’t it? The more relatable it is, the more horrifying it is.
So…basically the original text, then?
This version doesn’t have the gratuitous misogyny with the Rose/Consuelo, therefore is less horrifying by definition. Also, far tighter and less rambling, hence superior.
[enormous screams]
Girl just write a novel already. This medium is beneath your talents.
oh, hey now. Telling someone the medium they have chosen to work in is beneath them is not a nice compliment 🙁
oh, hey now. Telling someone the medium they have chosen to work in is beneath them is not a nice compliment 🙁
Oh this is disgusting. Please write part 2 with some closure so I can go to sleep. The mouth blood part. The mouth that was full of blood and words. Also this part. ‘He laughs when I lunge after him and dances out of the shade into the sun, where he knows I will not follow him’. This is the part where I can’t go to bed anymore.
Meh, this seems pretty standard fare for that bloody book. At least it didn’t end in suicide this time.
Resolution: I’m going to read this to my children every night.
Constraint: I need to get some children.
Solution: Gingerbread
“Everyone is a child in the desert”
True. So true.
This is seriously my favourite feature on this website. Please never stop.
I am not a fan of horror, at all, but this is still miles better than the original. The only thing it lacks is in the bit about the essential being invisible to the eye, which is apparently everyone else’s favorite thing about the book. It would fit nicely in with your bit about the seeds, I think, and some of the seeds being invisible..
If the original Little Prince was meant to be Jesus, I suppose this new one is Lucifer? Or Christianity itself, tainting the words of a man who was only abnormal in his courage and empathy, into the earthly agent of a god praised, yet clearly malevolent, much like Queen Majesty from the My Little Pony comics?
For some reason it seems a lot like the original text, like the way it was written
like the book was seen through a demented lens.
so awesome