Chapter 23 of 30 · 2'33"
CC is telling her daughter a fairy tale while running on empty. The story slips into a wish for sleep — "a deep, deep sleep for at least eight hours, I hope" — and then the exhaustion turns sharp: she won't host Victoria's friend and tells her to "untell" her. "I don't know about you, but I am exhausted."
❝ Monologue · 4 lines the bedtime story turn
The fairy tale grows darker until the mother slips in her own wish for sleep.
CC Cancels Victoria's Summer Plans
CC puts Victoria to bed with a story about a princess and a wizard, joking that the wizard gives the princess a deep sleep for at least eight hours — which is what CC wants for herself. Tired and sick with the flu, she then refuses to let Victoria invite a friend, telling her to "untell" her, and snaps that she does not want to care for other people's children.
The bedtime story is doing two jobs at once. On the surface it is a mother settling her child; underneath, CC is writing herself into the fantasy — the princess who cannot be resisted, the deep sleep she longs for. The fatigue is not a mood but a fact: "I can't shake this flu. I'm tired." When Victoria pushes for a summer plan, CC's patience gives out, and she answers with a made-up word that says everything about her limits: "Then 'untell' her." She is trying to protect her energy, but the line she draws — "I don't want to spend my time taking care of other people's children" — lands on her own daughter as rejection. The letter to her lawyer friend, boasting that she "held out" and forced companies to outbid each other, is the other half of the day: the career she cannot stop tending while her home life runs down.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“I don't want to spend my time taking care of other people's children.”
She refuses without apology: her time is hers, and the plainness makes it stick.
Informal
“I don't know about you, but I am exhausted.”
The aside softens the complaint: whatever you feel, I am worn out.
Informal
“But who will I play with?”
The child's plain question turns the mother's tidy refusal back on her.
Informal
“I'm sorry, puss. I'm just so tired.”
An apology to a child carries both exhaustion and love in the same breath.
Neutral
And she goes to rescue the princess. And she goes up the slimy steps, and meets the Wizard, and she kills... The Wizard of Evil shows up unexpectedly, and he grabs the princess. He puts her into a deep, deep sleep for at least eight hours, I hope.
Up next · 24moral high horseThe scene: Hillary Collapses at the OfficeIt is a made-up verb built from tell with un-, meaning to take back or undo something you have said. CC tells Victoria to untell her friend that the invite is off.
She is sick with the flu and exhausted, and she does not want extra work. She refuses the friend's visit and snaps that she will not care for other people's children.
She jokes that the wizard gives the princess a deep, deep sleep for at least eight hours — the rest she wishes she could get herself. The fairy tale doubles as her own plea for sleep.
She writes to her lawyer friend that she held out and made three record companies outbid each other to keep her. It is a reminder of the professional wins that cost her time at home.
CC has canceled her friend's month-long visit. Victoria assumes the other children will fill in, but she is really asking why her plan was undone.
