“A Nonsense on Stilts,” by Alexei Kalinchuk
Feb 23rd, 2022 | By Defenestration
A tin-plated nonsense came up over the hill on spindly legs and entered our village at a stately pace. Our village, having never seen such a thing, crowded the visitor, eager for a chance to benefit from its peculiar form of smarts. Presently, the crowd around the figure thickened so that its stilts now acted as posts sunk into the earth. Its immobility was all the better for the onlookers to worship it, and although skeptics existed, they were shouted down by the others. The nonsense itself, now robbed of the ability to execute its gawky walk, it preferred, I thought, not to make itself a target of ridicule. It stayed in our village thereafter.