Cloud Cuckoo Land By Antonius Diogenes

Cloud Cuckoo Land

By Aethon

By Antonius Diogenes

By Anthony Doerr

By @tbonestryker

FOLIO A

TO MY DEAREST NIECE WITH HOPE THAT THIS BRINGS YOU HEALTH AND LIGHT.

It was on a foggy night, where the very air seemed to hold secrets of times long past, that I ventured into the ancient city of Tyre. Therein, I found myself before a tomb that bore an enigma, a life encapsulated in the strangest of epithets, "Aethon: Lived 80 Years a Man, 1 Year a Donkey, 1 Year a Sea Bass, 1 Year a Crow."

I could not ignore the beckoning of the unknown and was drawn to lift the lid of the aged sarcophagus. There inside rested a chest bearing the invitation: "Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you."

I lifted out the box and marveled at the craftsmanship as I held it, feeling the weight of history in my hands. Opening the chest, a rush of ancient air greeted me. Inside were twenty-four cypress-wood tablets, each bearing witness to the incredible journey of Aethon the shepherd.

How long had those tablets moldered inside that chest, waiting for eyes to read them? While I'm sure you will doubt the truth of the outlandish events they relate, my dear niece, in my transcription, I do not leave out a word. Maybe in the old days men did walk the earth as beasts, and a city of birds floated in the heavens between the realms of men and gods. Or maybe, like all lunatics, the shepherd made his own truth, and so for him, true it was. But let us turn to his story now, and decide his sanity for ourselves.

FOLIO B

I am Aethon, a simple shepherd from Arkadia, and the tale I have to tell is so ludicrous, so incredible, that you'll never believe a word of it-and yet, it's true. For I, the one they called birdbrain and nincompoop-yes, I, dull-witted muttonheaded lamebrained Aethon-once traveled all the way to the edge of the earth and beyond, to the glimmering gates of Cloud Cuckoo Land, where no one wants for anything and a book containing all knowledge offered life immortal.

But first I should start at the beginning.

One day, which was like any other day, I was tending to my sheep in the ever-drizzling fields, where the mud clung stubbornly to my sandals with each step I took. The heavens wept relentlessly, and so did I, for one of my prized ewes had gone missing, adding weight to the villagers' claims of my foolishness. My back groaned as I scoured the fields for it, and the other sheep whined endlessly at my inadequacies, apparently blaming me for its disappearance. As the misery compounded, I found solace at the bottom of a jug of wine, and its liquid courage emboldening me to abandon the source of my woes. Fed up with the tedium, tired of being wet, of the mud, and of the forever bleating of the sheep, tired of being called a dull-witted muttonheaded lamebrain, I left my flock in the field and stumbled into town.

In the square, everyone was on their benches. In front of them, a crow, a jackdaw, and a hoopoe as big as a man were dancing, and I was afraid. But they proved to be mild-mannered birds, and two old fellows among them spoke of the wonders of a city they would build in the clouds between earth and heaven, far from the troubles of men and accessible only to those with wings, where no one ever suffered and everyone was wise. Into my mind leapt a vision of a palace of golden towers stacked on clouds, ringed by falcons, redshanks, quails, moorhens, and cuckoos, where rivers of broth gushed from spigots, and tortoises circulated with honeycakes balanced on their backs, and wine ran in channels down both sides of the streets.

Seeing all this with my own two eyes, I stood and said, "Why stay here when I could be there?" I let fall my wine jug and set straightaway on the road to Thessaly, a land, as everyone knows, notorious for sorcery, to see if I might find a witch who could transform me into a bird, perhaps a brave eagle or a bright strong owl, so that I could venture to that glorious place.