Wool and Wax

Cornelius Splinter noticed things. He could trace the unusual patterns made by the wind blowing over a great mound of snow; he could point out the differences between two colonies of ants, busy building their neighbouring hills; and he saw in the sunsets each delicate hue, untamable in brilliance and variety. If anyone had noticed him, they would have said he had eyes as big as dinner plates, or as wide as two full moons, but nobody ever noticed him. Their eyes were open without seeing, their vision clear without the gift of clarity. Cornelius Splinter was special.

He didn’t say much. In fact, he didn’t say anything. He had lived in a house once where he was called The Quiet Boy, and everyone assumed he was unable to speak; so silent a life did he lead. Speechless, but not thoughtless. In his mind, Cornelius Splinter was the Poet Laureate of his age, which was eight. He was a composer of magnificent music that marveled audiences so affectingly that they were left, to turn the phrase, dumbstruck. He was a painter of fine art, a sculptor in the tradition of ancient masters. He was, in sum, a genius.

But outside this safe space inside his own head people bellowed discouraging things. The man who paid him for lighting the lamps always looked angry and called him Sinecure as he dropped candles and matches and one loaf of bread into the boy’s open hands. The young lad didn’t know what the word meant, but the man’s tone said, “A waste of good grain and bad wax” when they met. He traded some of his matches for potatoes with the grocer’s wife who said he was filthy as sin itself and wouldn’t let him play with the garden boy who was about his size. He was distrusted by everyone in daylight and ignored completely in shadow, as one might ignore an abandoned parcel sat off in a corner, or a bit of rubbish on the side of the road. He did not enter their thoughts.

Every evening at dusk he took to London’s cobbled streets with a mission to light the lamps from one end of the city to the other, replacing the candles, cleaning out ash and trimming wicks as each was in need. In every case he brought light into darkness and heat to the cold. Every small flame brightened his own heart and buoyed his spirits. He could shimmy up a lamppost like a squirrel up a tree and perch at the top without fear of falling. Cornelius Splinter loved those moments dearest, watching the people moving about from high above the street. And it was from this perspective that he first saw Anna.

She was beautiful.

She wore a blossom-coloured dress and leaf-coloured gloves and a rather uneasy expression on her face. She was pacing back and forth in the light a stone’s throw from where he was watching. Every few seconds she would rub her gloved fingers together and make a quiet tisking sound with her lips. She was calling for a cat.

Cornelius Splinter noticed four things all at once. First, he saw that the sun had disappeared over the horizon and night was coming in quickly; second, that no fewer than three kittens were shyly answering the girl’s call; third, this little lady was decidedly alone and would not be safe without a companion much longer; and finally, for all her beautiful clothing and tidy, proper appearance, she wasn’t wearing any shoes.

He dropped gently to the ground, landing in the floodlight of the lamp he’d been kindling. The girl and the growing litter at her feet all started at the noise. “Hello?” she called, melodically as though her voice was the shivering of a chime. “Who is there? Can I trust you?” The boy pulled a grey candle out of his pocket and held it out in front of him, extended towards the girl. With his other hand he loosed a match from its box and caught the wick aflame. It came off like a magic trick in the young lady’s eyes and without intending to do so she exchanged her apprehension for curiosity and wonder. She drew near.

“I’m Anna,” said Anna with a curtsey that would have put a ballerina to shame. “My father is Yes Sir and my mother is called My Lady, or Lemon, or Sweetheart, or Darling, but I know her name is really Anna too. We live…” and she brought her finger to level, but found she had nothing familiar to point out. She turned all around in circles, eventually letting her arm and her countenance fall in one go. “We live in a tall house between other houses, but not on this street. I’m afraid I’ve become quite jumbled, really. I came out looking for my cat.”

The quizzical look on his face was so clear that she couldn’t help but elaborate. “It got out the window,” said Anna as a crimson blush flooded her features. “Well, I opened the window, really. I was kneeling at my bedside you see, just as I ought, and then one of my eyes popped open because I heard something make a very loud sound indeed! I simply had to see if Saint Nicholas had come to call, so I opened my window ever so slightly as to listen with greater care, and my cat leapt up to the sill and out to the ground before I could even blink! It wasn’t a long drop, so I followed him this far before I lost sight. I didn’t have time to go fetch my slippers. They are in line by the fire tonight because it’s Christmas Eve. Did you know it is Christmas Eve right now?”

Cornelius Splinter shook his head. When he had lived in the house long ago he’d heard vague whisperings about firesides and presents and a generous man in red, but those blurry ideas had been gathering dust like the rest of his small frame in the years between home and here. It is much more work to remember than observe.

Anna’s cat didn’t take long to rejoin his mistress. The three of them toured the streets together, Cornelius Splinter walking with his candle outstretched like the front man of a parade. The light shimmered and shone off the frosted bricks beneath their feet. When they found her house, he helped Anna climb back in through her open window, cat and all. Soon as the pane of glass slid back into place, the boy ran to the lamppost across the road from Anna’s house, scampered up the pole, put his candle inside, lit the wick and polished the iron with his sleeve until it glowed like the silver moon and the golden sun all at once. Then he waved at her window, dropped down to the street and disappeared into the deepening night.

Every morning after their adventure together Anna would stare out her window and wonder what had become of the mysterious elf-child she had met in the street on Christmas Eve. She thought she could see him, sometimes, clinging to the top of the streetlight across from her house, and she would wave. But the boy, if he was truly flesh and not phantom, never waved back. “He might be a shadow,” she thought to herself. “A trick of the candlelight.” But her heart couldn’t believe her own logic, because whenever she peered out at the lamppost she found it already shining away and making the whole street merrier for its glow.

Cornelius Splinter used three times as much wax and at least twice as much time tending to his labours at Anna’s house. He had to replace the candle several times a week even though candles were made rather differently in those days and lasted a good long time if the wick was kept trim. The light burned day and night and charmed the entire neightbourhood, not just the little girl who had taken his affections along with the cat. Rain did not stop him, snow failed to give him pause and while summer’s scorching sunshine made climbing the pole a painful chore, the boy, now nine, could not be dissuaded from his task. Every day for a year he walked to Anna’s house, right to Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve, when hope and persistence and love and magic all meld, he climbed the lamppost across from Anna’s tall house. He breathed a deep breath of the icy winter air and let it out with a sigh. The now familiar home was decorated once again with twinkling white light. The house looked like heaven, star-filled and beautiful. And then Cornelius Splinter noticed something peculiar… heaven’s door stood open. A small child burst out of it, dancing towards him in leaf-green gloves and a long dress that moved about like a flower in the breeze. As soon as she made it to the light under the lamppost she leapt up with both feet and landed in a sudden stop. She was laughing.

“Hello!” called Anna to the boy perched above. “Come here, I have to give you a gift.” He spiraled down the pole with the grace of a maple key and stood beside her. She looked like an angel. The girl was carrying a large box in brown paper. Cornelius Splinter’s full-moon eyes grew wider than ever as she held it out towards him. “It’s for you,” she said, encouraging him to take it by giving the package a bit of a shake. “I’ve spent the whole year making it.”

He took a long time just looking at Anna before he actually received the present. He was soaking it in, absorbing every detail of the moment. Then he carefully unwrapped the box. The box was full of paper. The paper was full of wool.

A simple knitted scarf lay folded carefully inside. He noticed the uneven tension of the stitches in each row; he noticed the differences in width from beginning to end; he noticed large lumps where the yarn had run short and more needed to be tied in to lengthen the project; and he noticed that the rich green colour matched to Anna’s gloves. It was perfect. The little boy smiled so broadly that every single one of his teeth could be seen, even his molars. She beamed at him and flung the scarf around his neck many times. He could barely move by the time she was through, which had the convenient effect of securing his emotions in place. Had his trembling lips been uncovered, he would have certainly drowned them both in a thousand tears of joy.

Anna’s family moved out of the city before the next Christmas Eve could arrive. He knew it was coming, he had seen it before. The night before they left, Cornelius Splinter climbed the post across from Anna’s house and stayed there all night, talking to the angels about the one who lived across the street. When morning dawned he lit a new candle, humbly walked up to Anna’s front door and left it burning there on the stoop as a token of gratitude to the one who had noticed him and had chosen to be kind. Two gifts given, both treasured forever: wool and wax. And magic. 

The Comforter

At the foot of a small hill, at the edge of a smaller village, stands a tiny house with only one room. The woman who lives there is kindly and dear and nearly as old as the rock that surrounds her. She sits on a stool and sits at a table both carved from the same fallen tree, and at her feet you'll find baskets overflowing with the tail ends of a tale, with scraps of thought and bits of string, various patches and fragmented phrases, and bobbles and buttons and conjunctions by pairs -- the woman was a Comforter, after all -- and nothing was to be wasted.

Early each morning a girl-child from the village would walk the cobbled path to her home and knock at the door. She would come, slowly, and greet the young lass with a smile and a nod and a mirror. She perched on her stool while the child ran nimble fingers through long white hair, weaving each beautiful strand into one perfect braid that fell over her shoulder and down almost to the floor. For her pains the girl-child received a tender kiss on the top of her head, and one precious word to carry with her for the day. When the task was complete the girl would go home and leave the old woman to sit, and to wait, and to sew. She was never alone very long.

As the story goes, a young businessman with a clean, handsome suit came to the village about two hundred years ago. His name was Edward Clark, and he worked with the famous Mr. Singer making machines designed to hasten the production of needlework. When the young Edward Clark heard stories of a woman who was able to quilt with words, he decided to seek her out. He put the heavy metal machine in a large wooden crate. Then he slid a narrow, burgundy box off a high shelf in his workroom. It was so slight you would never have seen it, and so covered in dust that it must have been there a long time. He put that box in the pocket of his greatcoat, and the crate on the wagon behind his horse. Two boxes, two riding companions, two weeks of travel over all variety of terrain, and a hundred untamable questions that evaporated as the door to the small cottage at the edge of the smaller village opened, and his eyes met hers.

She stood quite still, with one long braid of pure white hair draped over her shoulder. She was wearing the softest smile he had ever seen. He felt instantly welcome, inexplicably at peace. She asked him in and he filled a chair. Then he uncovered his gift and explained its purpose.

"This is a marvel," she smiled. "I have never seen a thing like it in all of my days, and my days have been many and my experience vast. What can I give to you in exchange for such a treasure?" He gently plied the box from his pocket and held it out across the palm of his hand, but she shook her head. "Read to me."

Like so many before, Edward Clark nervously opened the box and removed a folded pack of papers, yellow with age. He smoothed the creases open with trembling hands and quietly began to speak the words aloud. In his agitation he did not notice the old woman reach into the air and catch the first word, like a child might chase after a butterfly. She twirled the letters around in her fingers, pulling them gently and spreading them thin. Soon enough she had worked it into a fine thread, as crimson and bright as the blush as stealing over his face. The delicate threads were warm agains her skin. This will go North one day, she thought. 

His story was about a woman, of course. She was beautiful, he was kind. Their romance was full and fresh and wonderful and the old woman smiled as she used his unraveled tale to lace together patches of fire-coloured cloth. Phrase by phrase it came together, stitch by pause and breath by spool. When he came to the very end of the very last page, Edward Clark looked up. 

He wasn't the first to gasp in wonder at what he saw. Nearly everyone does. The woman looked like she was sitting in a sunset. She looked like an angel, or a fairy of magical days long past. The comforter that she had crafted while he shared his heart was radiating light and heat, melting away fear and loneliness just by the sight of it. She stood to her feet and wrapped the blanket around his body. It was the heat of a summer, the embrace of a lover and the smell of a wood-burning stove; it was strong tea on a cool morning and the country melody of crickets and fireflies. He sighed. 

"What will you do with it?" he asked. 

"I will send it away, to a place far off where moments like this rarely come. In that place it will rekindle lost loves and spark to new ideas. In that place it will bring hope and joy. It will bring comfort." 

"Thank you," he said.

"Thank you," she said.

And that was two hundred years ago. In the time between the Comforter has listened to thousands of stories, each producing a uniquely powerful quilt. Ice-cold blue and white covers fashioned from ghost stories, dangerous adventures and Christmas in foreign lands, sent off to Chilean and Peruvian villages; green blankets as soft as moss and as fresh as an early spring breeze, sent to the desert nations of Yemen and Egypt; beautiful comforters designed to inspire thoughts beyond the self, to cool the sun-beaten and warm the sun-starved. Though she lives a quiet and isolated life, her gifts have been carried by faithful hands to homes in remote mountain caverns and frostbitten plains. "Read to me," she says. Speak and your story will be heard. Open your heart so that another can share in your joys and sorrows, pleasures and fears. 

You never know what neighbouring soul may be sorely in need of a comforter.

Prina

Prina had been sent to her room with four minutes to change for dinner. Her teeth were brushed, her face was washed and her fingernails shone with a bright new layer of bright pink polish, but her shorts and t-shirt combination was not the nice-company outfit her mother had in mind.

Guests were on their way from out of town, and everyone in Prina’s family was supposed to get dressed in their very best clothing and hurry back to the kitchen to help set up.

Prina walked over to her closet and slid open the door. One lone garment, pale blue and without pattern hung on a hanger in the middle of the rack. Careful not to let the dress slip off its hook, she carried it over to the bed and spread it out smooth. She frowned a little as she noticed the soft spots near her knees where the fabric was wearing thin. A patch of green covered up a rip on one sleeve where a pair of scissors had once snipped a hole instead of a loose thread, and the lace around the collar was so old that it looked grey and dull, instead of sharp and clean and pretty.



“Well, you have seen better days,” said Prina in the way her mother often did, “and I have worn you many times before. Maybe tonight something else might be better… like… my astronaut’s suit!” 

Prina turned around and faced her closet again. Hanging right in the middle was a puffy white NASA uniform, complete with space boots, an oxygen tank and a large round helmet with a shiny golden face shield. She had to reach way up on her tiptoes to get everything off the shelves but eventually it was all spread out on the bed, ready for her examination. “You are indeed a wonderful outfit to wear,” she observed, thoughtfully tapping one finger against her chin. “But I think the helmet might make conversation a little tricky. And what if gravity suddenly switched off like it does in outer space?! Then the food would go everywhere! We’d have to eat on the ceiling! No, no. That won’t work. Maybe the mermaid costume.”



Turning back to the closet, Prina retrieved the lovely long green tail and the silver sequined tank top. She found two seashell earrings that clip on and added them to the pile beside the astronaut’s suit and her old dress. “Well,” she smiled, “It sure would be a fun to show up for dinner as a mermaid! But it would be difficult to greet our guests at the door without legs to walk there. And I don’t think Daddy would let me flood the floor so I could swim. It might be easier if I keep my legs. Perhaps a circus performer.” 



The closet was growing, in the same way that a balloon expands as you blow it up: the doors were wider and taller than they had once been, and the drawers were stuffed with hats and scarves and shoes, all overflowing. A hundred hangers were stuffed in a row, displaying vibrantly colourful outfits three layers deep. A look of satisfaction spread across her face as she smoothed out the leotard and feathery bandana of a flying trapeze artist. Attached at the waist was a tiny pocket of crushed-up chalk. The powder would make holding on to the swinging bar safer, but it also sent a cloud of dust into the air every time she reapplied. Because the dust made it hard to breathe, she set aside the entire attire and dove back into her closet for more.



One choice after the next was turned down by the little girl: the firefighter uniform and the parka-mukluk combination were both abandoned due to their encouragement of extreme heat; she cast off the superhero disguise for fear of catching her cape under the leg of a chair; she repackaged the jungle-cat fur to save the sinuses of those with sensitive allergies, the mechanic’s overalls because of grease stains and the suit of armor for the risk of rust. She weighed the idea of wearing Christmas pajamas for a moment, but quickly decided to pass just incase it snowed and the plows couldn’t get out in time for their guests to arrive safely.  



“Dressing for dinner is harder than I thought,” said Prina glumly as she stared at the magnificent mountain of clothing options now spilling over the edges of her bed and pooling on her floor. She tossed her fashion model garments to one side along with the stilt-like high heels, the pirate patch and coat and wooden leg and real live parrot, the karate-man’s black belt, the medieval princesses’ long sleeves, the lifeguard’s red shirt and the sheriff’s gold badge. Her closet had become the size of a gigantic warehouse full of so many props and wardrobe options that it would make your head spin! And yet, absolutely nothing she tried on seemed to work.



Sitting on her bed atop the towering heap of costumes, Prina scrunched up her face to have a think. “I have nothing to wear!” she lamented. “Everything I own is too sparkly or too leathery, too pointy, too furry, too slippery, too glow-in-the-darky, too tight or too baggy, too stripey, too dotty, too matchy or not matchy enough! But there is one thing.” 



So Prina clambered down off her pile and started to dig; past the sheriff’s cowboy hat and the fashionista’s stilettos, past the superhero mask and the mermaid’s long tail. She shoved and pulled and dug her way down right to that very first dress… a gentle blue frock without the distraction of pattern, comfortable and soft with a personal touch of history. It was, after all, her very favourite one that she wore it for almost every important dinner, and tonight was certainly a special occasion. Carefully slipping the shoulders off of the hanger and up over her own head, Prina wriggled into her loveliest nice-company outfit, just as her mother called from the other room. “Coming!” she answered, closing her empty closet doors and twirling into the kitchen. “What do you think of this one, Mummy?”

Her mother smiled and kissed the top of her head. “A perfect choice.”

Detention

The grey sky stood over the city like an angry teacher assigned to detention. Thick arms of accumulating nimbus crossed themselves in front of me as I drove my car home. His voice purred, but it was the unpredictable, growling purr of a jaguar in the woods. The Grey was quietly asserting his power.

"I don't need to make you miserable," said the Grey. "I am satisfied with sullen weariness or numb solemnity. But if you provoke me - if you so much as smile - I will make you cry." As if to visually punctuate this thought, the Grey picked up a ruler and began to slap it against his open palm. Again. Again. The sound was distant thunder, to match the lightening  in his eyes.

I drove through town in silence.

Waiting at a red, I caught the eye of a girl in the next lane. She tipped her head to the ceiling, miming her subversive disapproval of the weather. I consented her opinion with the raising of one brow and the suggestion of the beginning of a comrade's grin.

I received my first warning in the form of a hailstone striking the windshield.
The chip was small, but noticeable in my field of vision.
I faced the front quickly.

The streets were a slurry of ice and sand and crumpled paper coffee cups. Traffic signals flicked green and yellow and red like the ticking of the classroom clock as it inches towards the end of day. I looked up from my dashboard in time to see an orange Volkswagen Beetle swimming through the slush in my direction. Without my permission, a memory flashed across my mind and jabbed at my sense of humour. At the last second I clamped my jaws around the laugh, cutting its potency from a burst of happiness to a pathetic sort of chortle, but the volume of mirth didn't matter much. The ruler came down hard against the roof of my car, commanding the vibrations to deafen my senses and abolish any amusement in my thoughts.

Then the rain came.
Strike two.

The trees wept and trembled as I passed them, like the kid in the front row who was refused a hall pass when he needed to pee. Grey stomped up and down the aisles called Centre and Main with billowing clouds like furrowing eyebrows and the ominous slap, snap, crack of thunder. Every tone of colour had fled the city streets, taking refuge from the storm in basement record studios and libraries and the country loft spaces where the artistic types tend to live. The whole world looked like it had been shaded over many times, with progressively darker and softer lead pencils.

The candle of hope in my head was struggling against the building wind; its little flame fought with every drop of water. "No fire in the classroom," said Grey as he quickly snuffed out what was left of my withering optimism.

Just as I thought the torrent was going to drown me out for good, as I watched Grey put down the ruler and pick up a yard stick, at the moment I thought, "Well, I'm done for! I'll be stuck in detention for the rest of my life!" and was about to let the tears fall right along with the rain, something happened.

There was a knock at the door.
Look to the east.

A thin shaft of light caught the sky by surprise. Where the sunbeam fell on the buildings, colours rushed back to their proper places. Rust-red brick, evergreen shutters, canary-yellow welcome mats, shimmering chrome towers of industry, the rich coffee-coloured small business signs, the royal blue of a school uniform: a sensational palate of texture and hue that blossomed with life as the classroom door was forced open wider and wider!

"Time's up," said this new bright spot of sky. "The bell is about to ring. Gather your stray thoughts and stack those negative emotions back on the shelf. Misery for another day. Detention is over. You're free."

The patch of glowing, streaming light exploded into a thousand rays of uncatchable brilliance. The Grey was dispelled and Light assumed authority's throne. I smiled broadly to the sun, picked up my attitude and drove down the highway in peace.

It was the end of day.
And the rainbow wins again.

One Naked Bug

It began with a simple, quiet little bug sitting in a still, quiet part of the African Savannah. Close by she could see many other animals grazing and drinking from a freshwater desert pool. Everything was calm and beautiful, like a great piece of art, but nothing in sight was as beautiful as Bug. 

Her shell was as blue as the deep Indian Ocean, as yellow as the tall grain, as green as the cactus and as red as the reddest of sunsets. Everyone admired her as one of the most beautiful creatures on the continent and it was her pride and joy to be thought so lovely. All day long she would sit on her rock in the shade so that the sun wouldn’t fade her shell and whenever a friendly animal would walk by she would fly through its fur and polish herself until she dazzled. Nothing was more important to her than the appearance of her shell... It was, as some say, her most defining feature.

One day, completely without any warning or time to prepare herself, Bug’s body did something VERY strange... it hiccoughed! Bug had never before in her entire life experienced a hiccough. She had never even heard of a hiccough! In fact, this was the very first case of African hiccoughs that had ever been experienced by anyone since the very beginning of the world. Bug was VERY afraid.

“Help!” she tried to call to one of her friends, but her shout sounded more like heh-culp than help, so no one paid her much attention at first. “Heh-culp! Heh-culp! Heh-culp!” cried Bug desperately as her hiccoughs began to bounce her body around on the ground. “Please! Won’t somebody heh-culp me!” Suddenly one of her hiccoughs jolted her so forcefully that Bug flew backward and crashed into her rock...

“AAHHHHHHH!!!” Bug screamed! For a moment her hiccoughs stopped out of shock. 

She was
completely 
NAKED!

She had crashed SO HARD into her rock that the colours from her shell had peeled right off of her! Her rock was now as blue as the deep Indian Ocean, as yellow as the tall grain, as green as the cactus and as red as the reddest of sunsets. The rock was so beautiful... and she was SO naked!!

Suddenly the giraffe came galloping over to Bug and her rock. “Bug!” cried Giraffe, his long neck swooping down to the ground with a great swoosh, “Bug! I heard your scream! What’s wrong?! Talk to me Bug! Say something!”

(He was speaking to the rock.)

“Giraffe!” pleaded Bug, “you’ve got to heh-culp me!” Giraffe looked at Bug. “Who are you?”

Bug could hardly believe her ears. “I’M BUG!” she yelled into Giraffe’s long face. “I AM BUG!” 

Giraffe gasped. “Bug! What happened to you?!”

Bug quickly explained as much as she could which, unfortunately, wasn’t very much. Giraffe tried his best to diagnose the problem but he wasn’t trained in the medical field and so was not much help. Just when he was about to give up on her, Giraffe’s body did something VERY strange...

It hiccoughed.

“HEH-culp!” yelled Giraffe as he began to run around in circles in panic. He was SO worried about his hiccoughs that for a moment his graceful limbs got tangled up and he lost control of where he was running. In one second of chaos Giraffe knocked into Bug, sending her flying for five feet! When she landed they both noticed something horrifying: Bug looked a lot like Giraffe and Giraffe was NAKED.

“AAHHHHHHH!!!”

They screamed for twenty seconds straight before either of them could even blink. 

“Okay,” said Giraffe as soon as he caught his breath after the very long yell. “There must be some kind of scientif-HIC, logical explanation for all of this. Unfortunately, I am not a very log-HIC-al animal, and both of us failed Jungle Biology last year. We need to call in an expert!”

Giraffe and Bug did what all of the animals did when they needed to learn something; they signalled for the wisest and most medically astute of all African creatures. Both of them lay flat on their backs and stuck their tongues out because, as you know, the fastest way to find a vulture is to play dead.

Vulture showed up two minutes later. He was always on the lookout for an easy meal, but when he saw the big white blob on the ground he was sceptical to say the least. He hovered over their bodies for a moment and just as he was getting ready to settle down, Giraffe’s body hiccoughed.

“Woah!” exclaimed Vulture to the apparently dead carcases beneath him. “That was not normal!” Giraffe hiccoughed again, which sent the poor bird into fluttering hysterics. Worried that Vulture was going to fly away before he could help them, Giraffe swooshed his long neck into the air...

It was like Safari baseball. Vulture’s body let out the tiniest little bitty hiccough that had ever been hiccoughed and then PAASMAAASH! Giraffe’s neck crashed into Vulture’s body and instantly Giraffe looked like a tall, gangly and bald version of Vulture and Vulture was naked from beak to bottom. Naturally, Vulture was a little surprised.

“AAHHHHHHH!!!”

“Please don’t pan-HIC,” said Bug with a new calmness. “Who are you?!” Vulture half-yelled, half-gasped as he stared at the little spotted creature in front of him. “I’m Bug,” said Bug, “and this is Giraffe. We need your heh-culp.” Vulture closed and opened his eyes slowly, hoping that the scene unfolding before him was just a very unusual nightmare. That was not the case. Faced with a confusing reality, Vulture took control of the whole situation.

“Well, there must be some kind of scientif-HIC, log-HIC-al explanation for all of this. Fortunately, I am a very log-HIC-al animal, and even taught Jungle Biology last year. You were right to call in an expert.” 

Vulture listened carefully while Bug and Giraffe told him their story. “I believe that the problem is a synchronous diaphragmat-HIC flutter. I have two ideas that just might work,” Vulture said in his smartest and wisest voice, “but if neither of these plans su-HIC-cceed I’m afraid we’re all going to die.”

Vulture’s first plan was that all three of them might hold their breaths. Neither Bug nor Giraffe could think of a reason as to why this would not work, and so they stood facing each other with noses and lips sealed tight. Perhaps if the animals had been able to hold their breath for long enough this remedy would have worked, however only a few seconds into the experiment a ferocious jungle cat leaped into view and sunk her claws into Vulture’s vulnerable backside! The shock of the whole situation was so great that all four of them hiccoughed simultaneously. Leopard, who had never experienced hiccoughs before in her life panicked and tried to stop herself mid-leap with no success. She tumbled into the other three knocking them over like bowling pins and landing in a tangle of claws and feathers and fur.

“AAHHHHHHH!!!” yelped Leopard as she discovered herself printless from tip to tail. “Vulture! Give me back my spots!” Vulture looked down at his body. “Well,” he said, “on to Plan B.”

Vulture explained his second plan to the group. “This is our last h-HIC-ope,” announced Vulture grimly. “We must ram into each other and jump up and down and try and get our patterns back.” Leopard and Vulture were first to test the theory and they took a running (and flying) charge at each other. Their SMASH was hard and both were stunned by the impact, but the pattern did not move. Even when the collisions happened mid hiccough their colours would not change.

“It’s hopeless!” moaned bug, rubbing her bruised shell after trying a trade with Giraffe and landing upside down in the dirt. “We’ll be stuck like this forever!”

“Should we change our names?” Giraffe asked the group, looking longingly back at his herd. “Can I still be a giraffe when I look like a vulture?” 

The question took them off guard and no one could offer an answer. They stood in miserable hiccough-interrupted silence for several minutes, until...

“Hey everybody! What’s wrong with you? Why are you all so sad?” It was Zebra, the most unusual looking animal in the whole Savannah. They all stared back at him sadly and Bug answered for all of them: “We’re all jumbled up... this is the worst day ever! I don’t even know who I am anymore!” They nodded their agreement.


Zebra stood quietly looking at the depressing clan of animals in front of him. 


“Identity crisis is nothing new to the zebras, you know. We’ve been struggling with appearance for generations! Are we white with black stripes or black with white stripes? Some of us are brown! Some are almost as patternless as you are Leopard, but that doesn’t change a thing.” The other animals seemed sceptical at best. Then Zebra had an idea. “I am going to teach you something that all Zebras learn when they are very young. I think it might help.” Zebra cleared his throat and stood up tall as he began:

“You are who you are
Not because of your skin,
Whether spotted or striped
Whether fat or quite thin.
Your self’s on the inside,
It’s the stuff you can’t see 
That says you are you
And that lets me be me.
So don’t fret about pattern!
Don’t worry ‘bout size
'Cause the fuss about external
Worth is just lies!
Take pride in your spirit
Take care of your heart
Because that’s your most
Valuable, beautiful part.”

None of the animals spoke for a moment or two, but in their faces a change was easy to see. Their eyes had gone soft and their mouths had turned up into a very different kind of smile than they had ever experienced before. 

“I feel weird,” confessed Vulture. “So do I,” added Bug. Each one nodded their heads. “So... what do we do?” asked Leopard, looking to Zebra. “Well, I do have one idea that doesn’t lead to death...”

And so, deep in the heart of the African Savannah on days that are not quite so quiet and still you can still find the effects of the Zebra’s great plan. Each animal stood in front of a stone and with all of their might each one hiccoughed their last.... 

and prowled and galloped and flew stripped clean, into the reddest of sunsets.

Mellow Milo & Melanie Ryne

It wasn't the eye-popping poster pinned on the porch, nor the cheerful and chortling chatter which charmed the atmosphere outside that drew people in by the droves: it was the air.

A tropical breeze perpetually wafted out from between the two large wooden doors which hung on their hinges beneath the cautionary sign that read, "Take care: this door swings both ways," and trailed off merrily by quoting the rest of the Herman's Hermits' hit. The clinking of cutlery could be heard beyond the entrance was the second most common reason for passers-by to become partakers-in the little shop. The third reason that new people seemed so magnetically drawn to the building was its extraordinarily snowman-like shape. Three large globes sat stacked atop each other in architectural madness. Even the highest of brow and most impervious to temptation were finally broken by the curiosity stirred up by this magnificent feat. No one knows whether or not a fourth reason to enter was ever contrived of, as it was never required; every local, visitor and tourist was inevitably conquered by one of the first three.

Walking through the doors was like diving headlong into a giant vault of rainbow sorbet without any feeling of stickiness or chill. The experience was intensely pleasurable and refreshing, and if staying inside was not so obviously the superior decision, I wouldn't be surprised if people spent their whole day simply walking in, over and over again. But insidewas better.

Suspended in the middle of the enormous, open, multileveled space hovered threehumungous fruits. No matter what day of the week you choose to come you will always be met by one watermelon, one honeydew melon and one of six rotating berries: strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, huckleberry, appleberry and chinaberry (a hybrid of Milo's clever invention which took a juicy, bulbous form with the crisp flavor of an Asian pear). They were open six days a week (closed on Sundays as a matter of principle), and every day the place was packed. It was no surprise, therefore, that Dani Dulce stood in the cue for a full nineteen minutes before finding herself next in line.

"Good morning! Welcome to Milo and Melanie's Mega Melon! Healthy is our philosophy and sweet is our tooth. Do you know what kind of spoon you'd like today?" Mounted on the wall behind the pretty cashier was a rhinocerosly large collection of spoons arranged in boggling spectrum.

"Yes," said the man at the counter. "I'd like a glazed candy-apple red spoon, short handled, medium weight and… let's go with strawberry Jolly Rancher this time. Thanks, Molly."

The girl gave the gentleman a flouncy sort of bow and spun around to face the wall. After a half-second she stretched up on her toes and lifted a spoon from its peg. She handed it to the man. "That will be thirty cents today, Mr. Jordan. If you have dimes, that would be lovely." The man chuckled. "I fill my pockets with them these days," he said, counting three out on the counter. The pair laughed mirthfully and he shuffled on his way. Dani stepped forward.

"I haven't seen you before!" beamed the girl behind the counter. "I've worked every shift since we opened and I can confidently claim that your face is a new one. This is your first time here, yes?" Dani nodded. "I couldn't resist the smell!" "Ah!" exclaimed the girl, "That's our primary marketing strategy - but as you can see, it isn't false advertising! Do you have a preference of spoon?"

The tinkling utensils were displayed without the clutter of labeled explanations. Thankfully Dani's dazed expression was answer enough and she was spared the uncomfortable confession of confusion. "I'll call Melanie and she'll show you around. I know it's a sensory overload at first, but you'll have the codes cracked in no time! Just take a seat over there and she'll catch up with you in a few minutes."

Dani was ushered toward a long bank of chairs that were oblong and dark in colour. They were carved of variously sized giant seeds collected from the days before Milo figured out how to reduce them in size from five feet in height and circumference down to one foot. The seeds collected nowadays were washed thoroughly and dropped into a machine that whittled them into helmets, for customers without the freedom of time to stay their hour. The Melon Baller (an intern in his early twenties, working his way towards a culinary scholarship) would scoop a sphere of their selected fruit into the helmet and send it down a long chute to the front counter. "Protect Your Melon!" was inscribed on the front edge of each container. Almost everyone still chuckled at the little joke.

A designer from California who specialized in the creative upcycling of giant orange pips ergonomically engineered the seats. His only requested payment was unlimited spooning privileges whenever his family found themselves across the country. Melanie and Milo were both thrilled by the arrangement and made a point of inviting them a few times a year. It was a profitable partnership for both parties and in a few short months "Seeded Seating" was in every other household for three towns around. But Dani didn't know any of this and she never thought to ask - there were so many other things to think.

Melanie Ryne, co-owner and co-founder of the Mega Melon, slid across the floor with the tap-dancing suave of Fred Astaire, leaping with the grace of a gazelle and landing with the confidence of a lion and the lightness of a bird. Her dress was of a pearled pink that matched a column of spoons and she wore jewelry of a gold so warm as to almost be rose-coloured. Her voice was both calm and excited: a sound that enticed a listening ear.

"Good morning!" she sang in a tone that reflected the joy of her expression. "My name is Mel. Molly tells me that you're looking for a tour?" Dani smiled and nodded. "Well," said Mel, "first thing first. We need to get you a spoon."

Pulling up a neighbouring seed, Melanie unfolded a large card from her pocket and spread it open across her knees. It was an oversized photograph of the cutlery wall, with pull-tabs at the head of each row and column. "You may have noticed," she politely began, "that our fare is a fairly fine-tuned affair. We peddle plastic and medal handles with sculpted sugar scoops and we sell the dissolving not-so-silver wares to our patrons by the hour. We needn't charge much, as the fruit is donated daily and sugar is cheap. My husband is a brilliant chemical engineer and concocted a formula that, regardless of flavouring, would stay stiff for fifty-nine minutes and dissolve by the sixty-first. We sell the spoons for thirty cents a piece: ten cents covers cleaning and reforming of the spoons, ten from each goes toward the cleaning and maintenance of the building, and ten is divided amongst the volunteers at the end of each day. We don't have a cash register - just four large jars behind the counter. If we are paid in dimes, they are immediately divided among the first three causes. The fourth jar holds any other money that needs to be divided later. We have never been stockless, lightless or dinnerless in seven years of business, thanks to the loyalty and generosity of our clientele."

"But what of the fruits?" asked Dani, still mystified by the magnificent melons.

"We befriended a family of foreign giants shortly after we were married, you see. Each of our great fruits is gifted to us by one of three salad-growing farms. Agriculture in their lands functions quite differently from the fields of the human realm: instead of one or two crops that will be manufactured into many different products, giants simply choose one or two products they most enjoy and raise them directly from the earth. On one of our travels we once came across a greenhouse full of baby ice cream parfaits! Unfortunately they weren't quite ripe and we had to forgo the experience. Too bad, really. But I digress."

Melanie gave the first tag a tug and the column furthest left popped up like a children's book. "From left to right the spoons are arranged by colour. We begin with pearled pearl," she said, wriggling the first tab, "then pearled rose, saffron, apricot, buttercream, wild lemon, aloe, mint, forget-me-not, corn flower, eggplant, mica and chestnut. Then come our glazes in a similar array, then the mattes, the chrome metallics and we're waiting on a new line of organic stained bamboo." She worked her way across the board, tugging out and swiftly returning each tab. In total there were ninety-seven represented pigments on the pop-up pictograph.

"In each colour set," she continued with the rapid precision of language that comes with a passionate and familiar speech, "there are seven rows organized by sets of nine spoons." She indicated the top block of pearled pearl, running her finger along the micro row of three. "By weight across, we have light, medium and heavy; by length down, short, medium and long in each flavour. So, we begin here with pearled pearl, vanilla, light-short and work our way down to black licorice bamboo, coconut, heavy-long, giving us a grand total of 6,111 different options. About half of our flavours never change: vanilla yogurt, chocolate, marshmallow and coconut. The other three rows are on a monthly rotation of popular sweets. Right now we have Fuzzy Peach, strawberry Jolly Rancher and Swedish Berry. We've had everything from Milk Duds to Big Feet and we'll do almost all of them again."

Dani gave her a curious look. "Were there a couple of failures?"

Melanie almost winced. "Last year one of the local boys spent a month convincing Milo that garlic-avocado would be the next big hit. It was not, but even after trying it himself Milo wouldn't believe it was a terrible business move for weeks. When he finally did see the light, he forced the kid to eat all of the remaining stock over a three-day period. It was disgusting," she smirked, "but hilarious. He works for us now, up in product testing. Cast iron stomach, that one."

Melanie moved the card from her knees to Dani's and asked a few leading questions. Before long Melanie was armed with her usual pearled rose, chocolate, light-long and Dani had chosen a sky-blue glaze, Swedish Berry, medium-long spoon which she was quite happy about. After they placed their order with Molly and retrieved their respective thirty-cent spoons, Melanie led the way across the great hall, almost directly beneath the hovering honeydew. She leaned against the simple fence that ran around its base. "This is a giant melon," she said, giving the slippery fruit a little jab with her handle, "and we only have one rule that must, without exception, be obeyed. ONLY spoons may come into contact with the fruit. My Milo has made the mouth-parts of our products to be self-sterilizing. Don't ask me how, he's a genius and the science he can employ is far beyond me! He ran several hundred tests before we settled on the final process, but even self-sterilizing spoons can't stop contact-caused contamination. That's why we came up with this." She walked towards a large wall panel plastered with goofy looking mug shots. A plaque above it read "Melon's Felons" and each person photographed was wearing a look of the most exaggerated guilt. "Anyone who lays finger or face against the fruit gets their picture taken. We keep it fun and as painless as possible for our patrons, but we decided that we needed something to deter misbehaviour. It's been working well so far. Very few repeat offenders. Well, the smell must be driving you crazy! Shall we dine?"

Dani's mouth had been watering with anticipation from the moment she'd arrived and she was very ready to eat. Her shiny blue spoon seemed equally anxious, digging deeply into the flesh of the fruit. She was not disappointed: the first bite was nothing less than euphoric.

Clean, sweet juice flooded her tongue and her mouth filled with the deliciously light syrup; the slice of melon melted away after a chew or two and trickled its merry way down her throat. She could taste that first bite half way through her digestive system it was so good. If it was possible, the second spoonful surpassed the first... and the third the second.

"Pace yourself," Melanie cautioned with a smile in her voice. "Don't fill up on the first floor - we still have two and a half more to see!"

A spiral escalator that wrapped around the perimeter of the building carried them up to the watermelon floor. The bowl that hung below the fruit was more prevalent on this level, as was the tube that extended from the center of it and into the wall... But that may have been because of the man dangling from it by his knees.

"Milo! Honey, what are you doing upside down like that?" called Melanie, running over to help him upright.

"The tube sprung a leak," said Milo after climbing back to his feet. "We were losing a carton a minute all over the tile. Getting mighty slick up here, which would have been reason enough to hurry even without the product loss. A little gumpaste and it's patched for now. I'll have to brew up a batch of caramel caulking tonight and really fix it for tomorrow, but it'll hold okay." He smiled broadly at his wife as she slid her arm behind his back and began an introduction.

"Dani, this is Milo. He's brains and brawn behind every technical operation in the place, and very good at holding it all together. I'm crazy proud of him." Milo glowed.

"If I'm brains and brawn, this woman is heart and soul," he said and kissed her on the cheek. "But don't you believe she's no brains. My girl is a visionary like no other. I'm heading down to Mikey in mailing; we got a letter from another Belgian confectionist and he needs a little help translating. Thought I'd call my cousin again?"

"Good plan. Say hello for me?"

"Will do. Enjoy the rest of the tour, Dani; it was nice meeting you. See you in a while, lovely."

The watermelon tasted everything like a perfect summer day. Every spoonful evoked a memory: the splash of your first dive off the dock; the drip of a popsicle into the sand; barefoot running through fresh cut grass; guitars and lightening bugs around a campfire; new freckles on your sun-kissed face and the tangy, ubiquitous smell of sunscreen. She spent thirty-one minutes in this glorious immersion before Melanie called her back and they caught the escalator again.

The roof of the building was made of a retractable glass. Every morning when the fruit was brought in by helicopter from the giants’ farms the great glass ceiling would sway aside to allow the daily load to be lowered into position. Once everything was in place and the chopper had moved safely out of the way, the roof would close up again like a Venus flytrap. Although the berry station was on the third floor where they hopped off, the escalator didn’t stop with them; it continued climbing another twenty feet up toward the high glass windows, wrapped around the top and then dropped off quite suddenly into a hole in the wall. “That’s our way down,” pointed Melanie, “but not just yet. Raspberry first.”

It had been a fifty-seven minutes between the first bite of honeydew to the first bite of raspberry. For Dani, most of those minutes had slipped away quietly while her eyes were closed and her mouth was full. Time had sped past with the illusion of standing still in those blissful moments, and the candied cradle of all such splendid seconds was about to melt away. The berry was exactly the perfect balance of sweet and tart. The Swedish Berry lacing behind it was a magical combination and her face burst with a wide, unhindered grin. It was wonderful, but it was briefly lived. Two minutes later the spoon felt thinner between her lips, and in another thirty seconds she felt a hole beginning in the center of it, like a lifesaver. Then it was gone. Just the handle shining in its glossy sky-blue remained. She looked to Melanie.

“It only lasts an hour,” she gently reminded. “Come on. This way.”

Together they rode the escalator once again, taking in the whole scene for a moment from the highest possible vantage point in the place. The rising air brought vaporous smells from every floor and they blended together in the rafter spaces like a smoothie of reverie and sensation that could make your skin tingle. Dani took a very deep breath… and then she dropped right out of the world. Gravity vanished. Light vanished. She could feel something smooth and cool against her back and then, just as abruptly as its disappearance, the world popped back into existence around her. She plunged into a deep pit of foam cubes, the kind found near running trampolines in Olympic-quality gymnasiums. In a few seconds she felt four sets of hands hoisting her up, out and onto her feet. “There you go, miss. How do you feel?” She gave her thoughts a moment to follow her back to the first floor. “I’m… elated, actually,” she said.

“Glad to hear it,” came Melanie’s voice from the pit behind her. “I thought about warning you, but by the time it occurred to me you were already dropping past the second floor.” Her hostess was lifted out by her arms and brushed off by one of the littler attendants. “Thanks, Max. You’re a dear,” she said and hugged the boy child. I don’t know how you grew up so fast and so tall, but it is so nice seeing you all the time!”

Melanie walked Dani to the take-out counter. They crossed the parade path of people, each waiting for their helmet with spoon in hand. “Spoons are thirty cents, and one helmetful is complimentary for those in a hurry. Here you can also purchase a carton of pure juice for seventy cents a litre, freshly strained from today’s delivery or iced into a slushie from the frozen collections of the day before. But you get one on the house for taking the tour, if you’d like something. Or another spoon, it you’d rather dive back into one of our levels?”

Dani gazed around the room. She had never been anywhere quite so wonderful, and wasn’t keen to leave. “Well, I was thinking, marshmallow would look pretty great next to a midnight lightning chrome…” Melanie smiled. “Believe it or not,” she said, “I get that all the time.”

The End.