The Infinite Matrix | Michael Swanwick & Francisco Goya | The Sleep Of

Reason 76

09.05.03

the sleep of reason

by Michael Swanwick

with illustrations by

Francisco JosÉ de Goya y Lucientes

Click image to enlarge

Digital image © copyright

Davison Art Center,

Wesleyan University

DAC permission required

for any other use.

76. [Plate 68]

The End of the Witches

There is no place for witches in the modern world. They are a

superstitious holdover from the ignorant past. We know better now than to

believe in witches, magic, miracles, or counterfactual events of any

sort. Prayers go unanswered. A mountain's worth of faith will not move a

mustard seed. There is no Santa Claus. A mother's love will only last

until she dies, and sometimes not even that long.

The truth is bracing. It sets us free.

So in the waning hours of the night, the witches sadly mount their brooms

(Freud taught us what that meant!) and fuck off into the cold, depthless

light of false dawn. Since time before remembrance, we've been

entertained by tales of their cruelty, of children imprisoned in

gingerbread houses, of midnight hag-rides, of huts on chicken legs and

wicked spells that cover the land in eternal winter. But now it's

good-bye and good riddance! We don't need them any longer.

like swanwick?

like goya?

so do we.

keep 'em sparring!

send money.

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T H A N K S !

The modern world has no place for such superstitious, inefficient avatars

of evil as witches.

Who needs metaphors? Today we have the real thing. We'll take our evil

straight, thank you, without the leavening touch of whimsy.

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This is the 76th of 80 stories by Michael Swanwick written to accompany

Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos. For a listing of the most recently

available stories, go to The Sleep of Reason.

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