A Tale of Bluebeards
“I tell you I was there, and you may imagine I saw everything there was to be seen. Had you been over there you would not have turned into a man, but I did; and, moreover, I learned to know my innermost nature, all that was inborn in me, the kinship I had with Poetry. When I was with you I never thought about it, but, as you know, every time the sun rose or set I used to become amazingly large. In the moonlight, indeed, I was almost plainer to be seen than you yourself. At that time I did not comprehend my own nature, but in that ante-room it became clear to me; I became a man.”
Hans Christian Andersen, “The Shadow”
Tammy Nguyen told me I could write anything for the Summer 2024 issue of Martha’s Quarterly — weird, wacky, personal, clinical — as long as it was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Shadow.” This Andersen fairytale tells the story of a man whose shadow grows into a man himself, leading the shadow to overtake the man’s identity. Immediately, this story reminded me of my experience as a trans person in the early stages of medical transition. “A Tale of Bluebeards” is a modern fairytale following a trans man as he wrestles with his current and past identities and comes face-to-face with an old friend.
“A Tale of Bluebeards” was published in the Summer 2024 edition of Martha’s Quarterly, “The Shadow.” A huge thank you to Tammy Nguyen and Holly Greene at Passenger Pigeon Press for designing and producing the zine.