When I was a child and asked for a bedtime story, my weary mother sometimes recited:
I'll tell you a story about Jack A Nory
And now my story's begun.
I'll tell you another about his brother
And now my story is done.
Of course I knew that I was being played, and when I protested, my father was enlisted to fill in. But as he lay at the foot of my bed, telling me once again about Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks and the Three Bears, he often fell asleep in mid-sentence. I would kick him awake and demand to know what happened next. Although I knew those fairy tales by heart, I couldn't shake the expectation that this time things might end differently. Maybe the wolf would eat Red Riding Hood instead of her grandmother. Maybe the bears would adopt Goldilocks and they would all live together happily ever after.
