Fairy Stories & Other Tales

Have you heard the tale of the Wolf and the Fawn? The one where the little animal child was left in the woods all alone when the wolf came upon it? The story of the wolf thinking how nice the fawn would feel cuddled up against his side, instead of between his jaws? The empathy that made the wolf think what it would be like if this was one of his cubs? And if the world stopped tomorrow would he rather eat his fill or have a small comfort? The one where the fawn nudged her little nose against the big wolf's great one? And where the fawn was always safe near the paws of the monster? If you haven't, best to listen for it, for I can only hope that it would touch your heart.

The night had in it a curious wonder and a strange beauty.             It was born of the world having flipped over onto its underside, its very back, and forced all the people on that side of it to look at the whole of everything quite differently.             The moon rose, and acted the guide for the new insights and thoughts and keen plans that made their way into minds and hopes and dreams.             And offered a note of pity for all who had gone to bed too early.

There is something in the wave of a branch that comes from a gentle breeze that makes one feel it does so because it is alive.              Indeed, it must be alive! Not in the sense that everything that grows lives—taking in food of some sort and reaching further and further for the heavens. No, not that sense. But in the sense that somehow, when a tree waves in a particular way, it reveals some truth about its mental state: that it has a conscience! Or, to put it in a far simpler manner: that the tree is waving its limb in a concerted effort to offer greeting.             I saw a tree wave just like that only yesterday. And perhaps it only feels that the tree has a conscious mind because I want it to with such grave desperation.             Or perhaps, just perhaps, it feels this way because long ago, all of the trees were consciously alive, waving and greeting and passing on the slow wisdom of their incremental growth. And even now, it may be that they only need the smallest o

 When you looked cleverly amongst the broken places between the trees at night, you saw the stars. And among them, a particular star, the one that danced and twinkled and said, 'I'm here. Wish on me.'     Which, of course, you did. For what else was there to do with such a kind offer?     You wished, quite naturally, that you could fly. And up, up, up you went into the sky, soaring about on air as though you had wings. And, who knows, perhaps you did? For there was no one to witness the fulfillment of your wish. And indeed it felt as though air coursed through gleaming, slick feathers, pushing you up and and around, higher and lower, through spinning whirlwinds and about stark drafts.      You came down from your wish elated with the knowledge that you had flown.     But all the wind that flew you about had moved the trees in such a way that you could no longer see the wishing star.     In all your long life, you never again found it.     But you never forgot that one night