A Knightly Duel

A clumsy iron knight mocks the dreamer.
Laughter, pain, shame...
but then a voice rises: “We love you.”
And the magic of doubt shatters.

The Knight of the Screens looked like a clumsily assembled iron frame on wheels — some sort of self-propelled device that moved with awful creaking and clanking, wobbling from side to side like a drunkard, probably because its wheels weren’t all the same size.

Reflections on the scene

⸻ ❦ ⸻

– ❦ –

There are scenes where the soul of a story peeks through the cracks of parody. This is one of them.

Mr. Quirk—rebuilt with great care by Grandpa Hedgehog—is no longer the same. He returns to life convinced he is someone else: Don Culotte de la Mangia, the “Knight of the Deep Fryer” or something equally absurd. The name, a grotesque pun, evokes both hunger and delusion, laughter and despair. And that’s no accident.

This entire duel is a carefully staged farce. At first glance, we might think we’re witnessing a simple pastiche of Don Quixote. But that would be too easy. What we really see here is how deeply someone can lose themselves in a fantasy—especially when reality has become too painful to face.

The “Knight of the Screens,” who challenges Don Culotte, is no noble adversary. He’s a grotesque hybrid of monitors and mechanical arms, a mirror made of circuits and cruelty. And what he reflects back to Mr. Quirk is devastating: not a hero, not a valiant knight, but a broken clock with no cuckoo.

And that’s when something rare happens. Anne, until now a wanderer through this fractured world, steps forward—not with magic, not with swords, but with love. Her words, direct and tender, pierce through the delusion. She reminds Quirk who he really is—not a knight, but someone loved. Someone unique.

The madness lifts. The machine sulks away. And for a fleeting moment, the real magic of this world reveals itself—not in transformation, but in recognition.