The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part III

The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part III

(Continued from Part I and Part II)

Our visits to East Coast had been very infrequent in the past several years, save for the occasional barbecues and evening drinks by the beach with friends. So it was with a little trepidation and curiosity that we mounted our more than forty year old selves on our bikes early that morning. 

Much of East Coast Park was exactly as we remembered. Morning joggers, bikers, skaters, walkers, amblers, dog owners with their pets, young and aged couples, families, children playing in the sand, the smell of the sea, the ships in the distance, all of it as though the place was frozen in time. We rode past bike rental shops, food joints that would wake up to business closer to noon, little tents of overnight campers, even the cable ski park was beginning to buzz with activity. 

As always, the whirring gears of their race bikes was what announced their arrival, and in less than an instant a whirlwind of cyclists had bolted towards, past and away from us and disappeared from sight. It took a long time for the dust to settle. 

The world, as we knew it, unobtrusively slipped away behind us to give way to mostly deserted grasslands and sea almonds and white beaches, which soon segued into dense foliage and twittering critters and fragrant air. The colours were more brilliant than we had ever seen. The waters sparkled like polished stones of lazurite, the leaves glowed in the light of the sun as if it were their own, the clouds dazzled like snow. Enthralled, we ploughed on until we heard them again. Annie and I sensibly hopped off the path this time to give way to the returning heroes to whiz by. 

Were they the same riders from all those years ago, it was impossible to tell. Were there five or seven or nine, how could we know? All we could see, back then and even now, was a blur, a haze of colours going past like a streak, cyclists in fast motion. Nothing more was known about them, nothing more needed to be known. As with art, these are experiences to be dazzled by. A fleeting glimpse was all it took for us to be overwhelmed with wonder and marvel. 

It is perhaps fitting that Annie and I should have met our ends in a biking accident. What is ironic though was the way the incident panned out. We were at our usual spot opposite the airfield, watching the giant birds launch into their journeys in the skies. When it was time to go home, Annie and I got on to the main road from the pavement and mounted our bikes. We had only begun to pedal when the driver of an Audi car, headed in our direction on the opposite lane, chose that very moment to lose control and let his car careen wildly and come crashing into us. Life must have been knocked out off me instantly, I do not remember feeling any pain. Annie didn’t linger too. The driver of the Audi was not as fortunate, he writhed in pain for a long time before he was carried away in an ambulance. I suspect he survived, I haven’t seen him since. 

My first memory of death is that of a group of cyclists swiftly descending upon Annie and me to help us get on to our feet. We were curious to see our human remains but the cyclists cautioned us against doing so. “It will be harder to move on,” one among them said.

There were six of them, I could now see. Four guys, two lasses. The girls appeared to be in their early twenties, dressed in front-buttoned shirtwaists and a turnover collar. Two of the guys were in their mid-forties; one seemed to have leapt straight out of an Ernest Hemingway novel, the other was a modern day family man dressed in a floral-printed shirt and shorts as if he had last been on his way to a family picnic on a Sunday. I later learnt he was only a recent addition to the group. The other two guys were merely lads, not more than sixteen or seventeen years old, I should say. I didn’t want to know how they had died so young. I didn’t want to ask. Their faces looked serene and content, they did not warrant any unpleasant probing into their lives and deaths.

But even in death we create memories. I remember being thrilled at the epiphany I had when I laid eyes on the cyclists. 

“That is some incredible biking you all do out there,” the words tumbled out of my mouth. “Breakneck speeds!”

“It cannot kill us,” one of the young lads jested. “Not anymore.”

I am adept at doing wheelies now, Annie excels at stoppies. She can twist and turn and pirouette on the front wheel of her bike more gracefully than a ballerina. 

Speed is not a constraint when concerns of bodily harm no longer exist. What we enjoy the most are the meteoric rides on our bikes. We whiz past, biker and bike moving together in one fluid motion. We see the adventurers on our trail. Not all of them can see us though. But I think our girls are beginning to. They turned eighteen this year.

We still haunt our favourite spot opposite the airfield. Annie and I have introduced the others to our preferred activity of leisure, and we have invented our own games. On a good day like today, we race with the aircrafts, tearing alongside the runway, catapulting ourselves into the skies, doing somersaults in the air, and landing on the ground lighter than a feather does. For me, this will always be the place where reality ends and magic begins.

The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part II

The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part II

(Continued from Part I)

This has been my favourite bike trail for as long as I can remember. It is about thirty-five kilometres, the entire route, and it takes me about two hours to cover on a good day. I am a slow cyclist, but in my endurance lies my strength.

As kids, we’d be panting by the time we reached the area with the grasslands and the beach. In our teens, we’d usually make it past the jungle but would return after a little picnic at the pier. It was only on my seventeenth birthday that we made it as far as the airfield, and since then I have never taken a shorter route. 

But it was only as an adult that I first noticed the cyclists. The incredibly fast ones. Well actually, Annie pointed them out to me the first few times. We used to think there were five in all, we could not be precise though. They’d zap past us like a swarm of irate bees; it was impossible to tell how many they were. 

We’d see them twice. The first time was always at the start of the grassland where they’d race past from behind us, leaving a vortex of buff-coloured air in their wake. Our second encounter with them was always somewhere in the thick of the jungle. They’d come hurtling towards us like a tornado. We would hear the whirring gears of their race bikes from afar. It was hardly sufficient warning. We would barely have time enough to dismount and step away from the path for safety, and they would have whizzed past us, leaving everything shuddering behind them.

“Amazing!” exclaimed a breathless Annie one day. “They are incredibly fast.”

Her observation was accurate. The gang covered the entire route of thirty-five kilometres in the time it took us to cover two kilometres, which was about seven minutes on average. Which was more than twice the world record. You could always argue there was no certainty they went the entire way to and fro, and that we may simply have been beguiled into believing they were the swiftest. Back then I had no doubt in my mind; the cyclists hurtled at such breakneck speeds, it was impossible for them to stop or slow down before they had reached the very end.

Our hearts and minds, free of the nagging doubts that age brings, we cycled in the East Coast Park as often as we could. As we grew older, we were not always able to go as far as the airfield, but we always crossed the grassland into the forest and waited for our winged cyclists to race past. They never disappointed us.

I married Annie when I was twenty-four and she, twenty-six. We had twin daughters a year later. Little darlings they were, they took to cycles like moths to a flame, much to the delight of Annie and me. 

We moved away from the East Coast when the girls were two. We moved up north, real estate was arguably more affordable there. So it was a good fifteen years before Annie and I decided to move back to the East Coast. By then, the girls had flown the nest. I was forty and disillusioned with life. So was Annie. And because wisdom and good sense tend to dawn upon us only after we have indulged in a bit of foolishness and labelled it as mid-life crisis, Annie and I decided to plunge our life savings into setting up a bicycle shop in the East Coast. 

Business got off to a rocky start. Things had changed in the past decade and a half. We soon discovered that too few people took to cycles anymore. But the ones that did loved bikes with an ardent passion. This was the lot we catered to. A handful of avid bikers. 

They were a delightful lot. They regaled us with tales of their rides, many having scooted past the airfield (we were euphoric to learn that the bike trail there had survived the onslaught of urban development) to discover many more bike trails, all paths leading them to regions of surreal beauty. 

We wondered if the supersonic bikers still stormed the East Coast Park but none of our clients seemed to have a clue. But that was not altogether surprising; not everyone’s paths led them through grasslands and forests and bridges. But even so, none of our customers had bikes that could propel them to inhuman speeds. So when business affairs had settled to a comfortable routine, having grown mostly by word of mouth - the delightfully old-fashioned way - Annie and I decided to set forth on our Kona Entourages to rediscover our path.

(To be continued ...)

The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part I

The Cyclists on East Coast Park

Do you know that stretch of East Coast Park where, once you’ve entered it, the rest of the world seems to slip away behind you in an instant and you find yourself in a place that is at once wondrous and surreal? 

Large tracts of lush green grass flank the bike path. Sea almonds with buttress roots stand in majestic elegance, their large leaves playing with shafts of warm sunlight. To the right, the grassland gives way to a narrow beach of soft, white sand, that spills into the sea, which on a good day like today bears a milky green hue mirroring the skies in a dulcet turquoise garb. Even the ships that are usually docked so as to block out the horizon seem to maintain a deferential distance from the shores here.

The bike path unfolds in gentle curves, its route defined by the trees. But a few minutes into the ride, the path usually veers to the left, trailing away from the beach. On a bad day, when the skies don the grey colour of a mourning widow, and tumultuous seawaves, foaming with fury, hurl themselves on the beach as if in grief of bereavement, the path quickly curves away and leads you to the safety of your home. 

But on a good day like today, the trail meanders gently like a lullaby and the landscape around you transforms itself as if you were slipping into a dream. The tame grassland gives way to a thick forest. The bike trail shrinks as tall trees demand to close in on you from both sides. Leaves on the low-hanging branches kiss your cheeks; it is their way of capturing your scent and leaving their mark on you, that is how they remember you on your next visit. The crisp, salty breeze of the seaside is replaced with cool, sweet-scented air, freshly churned out by the wilderness. You hear the gentle rise and fall of waves on the shore, but it is a distant music drowned by the urgent calls of wild birds and the persistent trills of crickets and katydids.

When the path has had its fill of the forest, it plunges down into a shallow pool of muddy water. As you splash through the puddle, you emerge on to the end of a pier overlooking waters bluer and greener than you have ever known. You skid to a halt, pausing for breath, overwhelmed by the infinite expanse of water and skies. 

When you resume, the path leads you along the pier, away from the waters, and onto a narrow bridge of concrete slabs that go all clickety-clack when you cycle over them, with the soothing rhythm of train wheels running over the joints of rail tracks.

On the other side of the bridge, you exit on to reality. First, you hit a pavement cruising along a mostly deserted road that converges with a larger road a little ahead. You pause at the traffic light. Trucks and cars race past, drenching you in a cloud of dust. The light turns red, and you cross over to the other side. 

More bridges, more roads, and soon you are cycling on the edges of the city. Straight asphalt roads, straighter than a crow can fly, no twists, no turns, no surprises here. When the time is right, you get off the road and push your bike over to the pavement. And then you wait, looking intently across the road. 

The aircrafts are lined up, each patiently biding its time. The one at the head of the line drifts noiselessly into position. The pilot revs up the engines. Then like a bull at the gate, the aircraft charges straight ahead with a mighty roar. Before you know it, it leaps into the skies, flying farther and faster until it disappears from your view. 

You return home the way you came, only it’s faster this time. Every time. 

(Peek-a-boo, here is Part II)

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Birds of a Feather Flock Together - Image courtesy of JeeYoung Lee

Folklore has it that, long long ago, all living beings spoke the same language. 

(Of course, this was all long before mankind and animals and birds went their separate ways and conjured up their own secret tongues so as to keep from each other what they really thought about the other and what they planned to inflict upon each other.) 

But back when everyone understood each other, and the world was in peace and harmony, it was the ravens that were mankind’s trusted messengers. Not the pigeons. The use of pigeons to ferry messages across mountains and seas was a romantic notion that took root much later. 

The bearer of messages has a very important role to play. 

His is a task that requires much wit, deep awareness, the ability to make complex decisions in the face of danger, bravery so as to not allow any private messages to be intercepted, and enough empathy so as to be able to express joy when the message is a happy one and dignified solemnity when the news to be conveyed in tragic. 

These were the qualities in ravens that made them aptly suitable for the job.

Above all, what set the ravens apart from other living beings was the speed and efficiency they exhibited in transmitting messages, thanks to their knowledge of the shortest routes and paths, which enabled them to travel as the crow flies. 

Of course it helped that the ravens were found in abundance - in the jungles, on the streets, on treetops, in people’s backyards, in their gardens, on their windowsills eating breadcrumbs, and sometimes inside their kitchens if no one was looking.

Our big, black birds found it offensive to have rolls of paper tethered to their claws. They preferred, instead, to have the addressor tell them the message, which they were then happy to repeat to the recipient. As I said, this was back in the times when all living beings spoke the same tongue. So this did not pose any problem at first, and the message creators and receivers were only too happy with this arrangement, as were the ravens who were politely treated to goodies every time they received or imparted a message. 

All the trouble started when the ravens started to contort the messages. At first it was harmless distortion, and some of the misrepresentations were in fact very funny to begin with, created out of boredom and the overall monotonous nature of their work and lives. But then the ravens took to telling tales and lies, and in no time untruths and falsifications were being transmitted back and forth until eventually mankind declared war on the animals over a simple misunderstanding and the world was engulfed in several decades of violence and mayhem.

Did you know? 

One of the collective nouns for a group of ravens is a storytelling of ravens.

At another period of time, when pigeons began to rise to the fore as messengers of love, the ravens took to stealing the pigeons’ eggs out of spite. They, the ravens, reckoned that if they could stymie the growth in pigeon population, the ravens would regain what they considered their rightful place as trustworthy and reliable messengers of the living world. It did not take long for the rest of the world to figure out what the ravens were up to, which only made pigeons more popular than before.

Did you know?

One of the collective nouns for a group of ravens is an unkindness of ravens. 

Before long, mankind learned not to trust anybody but his own clan and started to deliver messages by hand. 

Did you know?

One of the collective nouns for a group of ravens is a nevermore of ravens. 

Enraged by the ‘disrespect’ they perceived, the ravens took to ambushing human messengers whenever the latter had to travel through thick jungles and forests. Clad in shockingly black feathers, the ravens were indiscernible from the thick blackness of the night; so no one could ever tell who was responsible for the attacks.

Did you know?

One of the collective nouns for a group of ravens is a conspiracy of ravens. 

So as to not lose any more of his brothers and sisters, mankind developed advanced technologies that would obey his command and do no more or no less than instructed to. This involved the erection of transmission poles and wires to dispatch messages in the form of invisible little pieces of information strung together by invisible threads of … well, invisible stuff.

The ravens, helpless when confronted with things they had little clue about, then took to sitting on telephone wires yelling blue murder, crowing and cawing about the unfairness of it all, but with little action to back up their claims. Everyone ignores them, and now no one understands anymore what the ravens cry about perched above the world and dumping turd on unsuspecting passersby.

Did you know?

One of the collective nouns for a group of ravens is a parliament of ravens.

Reindeer on Strike!

Reindeer on Strike

All the reindeer had gone on strike. 

And so Santa had resorted to travelling in a time and space capsule.

“Modern times! Need to keep up with technology, eh,” he retorted when we asked him about the missing reindeer.

The reindeer, he said, are protesting long working hours and demanding higher wages. And since nothing could be done about their complaints, they had decided to freeze in time, Santa said. The "stubborn creatures" (his words, not ours) had become useless when it came to drawing sleighs.

“Lazy creatures with their brains caught in their antlers,” he snorted as he heaved himself down our chimney. 

A sack of presents came tumbling down after him. 

He brushed the soot off his garments, his chirpily red coat and trousers laced with sparkling white cuffs, not a speck of dust or soot from the chimney on them nor on his snowy white hair and beard.

“The capsule is not all that bad,” he continued, as he proceeded to stack our presents under the Christmas tree. “It’s incredibly fast. I can go anywhere in the blink of an eye,” he said, stressing he needs the speed in order to cater to six billion gift-seekers in a single night.

“What about tradition?” we asked. “The stories don’t talk about time capsules, the carols we sing are about reindeer and sleighs,” we insisted.

“That was then, this is now,” he brushed us off. He then emerged from under the tree, warned us to be good children and not go peeking into the gifts before morning, and wished us all a merry Christmas, before scampering up the chimney and out of sight.

The next morning we opened our presents to find nine little reindeer figurines, one with a bright red nose. There was also a note from Santa, asking us to look after the nine reindeer. “Keep them by the fireside, and they will unfreeze with time,” he instructed us.

It’s been a year now. 

Last month, we moved the reindeer closer to the fireside.

Last week, they started to stir.

One went missing this morning.

We think the rest should be back in action before time. 

Well-Intentioned Advice for Children Unattended To

Well-Intentioned Advice for Children Unattended To

Children unattended to will be given espresso and a free kitten.

As you sip your coffee and help yourself to some cookies, your child can choose from among pixie-bobs, ragamuffins, ragdolls, ocicats, persian kittens, munchkins, minskins, Australian Mists, and Abyssinian cats. 

Whichever your little one chooses, the kitten will wrap itself around your child’s legs and cast a benign, binding spell.

The kitten will then lead your little girl or boy to the park across the road. 

(Oh, don’t bother to look. The garden is not visible to adults. Only little children and kittens can see it.)

The garden has a jungle gym to climb on to, rabbit holes to fall into, stars to count all night, and invisible friends to talk to. 

When your child has had his fill of the park, the kitten will lead the little one through the hedgerows to the other side where treasure-hunters are digging a hole through the earth to China. We hear the hunters have very nearly completed the hole, so your child could be the lucky first to disappear through it and reappear in China, halfway across the world on the other side.

(Oh, don’t you worry, dear parents. The children will be completely safe with the kittens by their side. And if you insist, they can always come back from China in a jiffy simply by sailing over the rainbow.)

If the hole has not been completely dug, the kitten will lead your child beyond to meet The Famous Five. The five - (and Timothy the dog will be there too!) - are a jolly bunch and they will welcome your child to join them on their summertime camping adventures.

When the summer holidays are over and the Five have to return home, the kitten will lead your child to the wise man’s hut, where he has a stash of fairy tales to regale them with. He will read stories to your child until the little one falls asleep, and the kitten will then bring your young one back to you. 

You must then take your child home, tuck him in, kiss him goodnight, and leave him to dream of fairylands and magic and adventures.

The only trouble is, when your child wakes up the next morning, he will go looking for the adventures he dreamt about. Nothing you say or do will dissuade him. 

So, dear parents, if you don’t want your children to go seeking adventures you think do not exist, please do not leave them unattended to.

When Dragons Forget They Can Fly

When Dragons Forget They Can Fly

We asked the dragon what she was doing behind the fence.

She was waiting, she said. Waiting to be transported to her next destination.

Couldn’t she simply fly, we asked.

No, she didn’t think so. Well, she hadn’t flown in a very long time, so she couldn’t quite remember how to go about it anymore, she said.

No one can forget how to fly, we insisted. Just as people didn’t forget to walk or swim or ride a bike, even if they hadn’t done it for decades.

That’s not how it goes with flying, the dragon reasoned. 

We couldn’t argue for none of us had ever flown before nor did we know anyone who could fly. (Except the birds, but they have long stopped sharing their secrets with humans, so there was no way we could verify the dragon’s claims.) 

We urged the dragon to try and fly.

Nah, she dismissed. It probably involved too much effort, so she couldn’t bothered to try, she said, and anyway she was scheduled to be transported to her next destination, the events crew should be here anytime now.

She said they’d dismantle her into small blocks, box them up, and piece her together again when they’d arrive at the next destination.

Didn’t it hurt, we wondered. 

It does, she admitted, but at least this way she knew she’d soon be whole and in one piece again. As long as she avoided the hazards of flying.

The Man who fell in love with The Moon

The Man who fell in love with The Moon - Image courtesy of Laurent Laveder

“Legend has it that the man was banished to the moon for a crime he did not commit,” Grandpa began, in that deep mysterious voice of his that made fidgety children sit still and listen to the story with rapt attention, even if they have heard the tale countless times before.

“Why Grumpa?” curious little Pippin piped up as always. “Why was he sent to the moon?”

“Because,” Grandpa said slowly, “people are afraid of unknown, unfamiliar things. No one had been to the moon. Back in those days, she was still a strange, distant, unfamiliar land. People saw her only at night-time, and no one knew where she disappeared during the day. So they thought it was a lonely, terrifying place where unspeakable things could happen to you even during the day.”

Grandpa wrapped his shawl a little tighter around him and huddled closer to the fireplace. A little shiver ran down our collective spines as we momentarily wondered about the unspeakable things that happened on the moon.

“But good things happen to good people,” Grandpa assured us. “So when the man went to the moon, imagine his wonder when he found that the moon was in fact a lovely, little lady. A misunderstood lady, as she liked to refer to herself,” he chuckled.

“Why Grumpa?” curious little Pippin piped up again. “Why misunderstood?”

The other children shushed him but Grandpa waved a hand to quieten them.

“Well, people have always believed it is the moon that drives people mad. They have always accused her of causing werewolves to emerge from hiding. The oceans turn restless at the sight of the moon, they say. They also claim she steals the light of the sun and calls it her own. And to this day many people continue to accuse the moon of all these wrongdoings,” Grandpa huffed.

And then, as if some faraway memory had suddenly returned to him, his face creased into a million wrinkly smiles and he said, “But of course, it doesn’t matter what people think. Because the man who went to the moon saw her for what she really was and fell in love with her.”

“Did they marry, Grampa?” it wasn’t curious little Pippin this time.

“Of course they did,” Grandpa beamed.

“Did they live happily ever after, Grompa?” another not-Pippin chirped.

“Of course they do,” Grandpa said. “But that is not where the story ends. Because you see, the man was banished to the moon for only two decades. When his sentence was over, he was summoned back to the earth. He pleaded with her to come with him to the earth, but her abode was in the skies and she begged him to not leave.”

“But she is still up there in the skies,” another little voice piped up.

“On most days, yes,” Grandpa said.

“Does that mean he left her behind?”

“Yes and no,” came Grandpa’s reply. “It is true the moon couldn’t leave the skies and the man had to make his way back to the earth. But when the man returned to earth, he brought back with him a small part of her. And he promised to visit her every night, which he did, and each morning when he returned he brought back a little part of her with him.

“With each passing night, the moon waned in the sky, a part of her having made its way to the man’s abode on earth. So when it was new moon and the moon disappeared from the sky and the world barely gave a second thought as to where she had disappeared to, no one knew that the moon was playing in her lover’s backyard unknown to the rest of the world.”

And this is how Grandpa always ended his story.

Sometimes one of the kids would ask him how he knew all this. And if it were a new moon night, Grandpa would take us all into the backyard where the lovely moon would play with us until bed-time. And in the cover of daylight, she would return to the skies, bit by bit, sliver by sliver over the course of a fortnight until she was a little globe of dreamy white again.

But what the little kids do not know is that Grandpa also leaves behind a part of him on the billowing moon after each visit. There isn’t much of him left on earth anymore. One day he will be gone for good. And it will be up to me then to tell the children to look for him not among the stars but to seek out the man in the moon. I know the little ones will believe me.

Monsters, of all kinds, are to be trusted under no account.

Monsters, of all kinds, are to be trusted under no account - Image courtesy of PrettyHowTown

The little monster was dressed as a clown. In loud, bold colours and with a red bulbous nose to top it all. He insisted the nose was real and when I tried to yank it off, he howled, so I let go. 

Granny said monsters, of all kinds, were to be trusted under absolutely no account. 

But the clown and his pumpkin looked so tiny and pathetically harmless, I dismissed her warnings and asked him what brought him to our neighbourhood. 

He said he has come to offer his services. 

What kind of services?, I asked.

He must have known somehow that I had little patience with children of any gender or size or age, for he offered to stand guard at our doorstep on Halloween and attend to the little imps that will make their customary call at our house that night yelling trick-or-treat.

I was only too happy to not have to repeatedly answer the door to the summons of pesky kids. But I also had good sense enough to ask him what kind of payment he sought for his proposed service. He coughed and cleared his throat and said that the only payment he sought was in kind; chocolates to feed his little pumpkin, he said, patting the orange fruit on its head. I agreed. The pumpkin’s toothy smile widened and it bounced up and down in a hideous display of happiness.

Silly as it may sound, I made the necessary arrangements to ensure a steady supply of confectioneries for the pumpkin, and left the clown and his fruit pet to their own devices. I did not see them again until Halloween when they reappeared at our doorstep. 

The instant she saw them, Granny huffed and said monsters, of all kinds, were to be trusted under absolutely no account. I told her that this year we will not be troubled by demanding little imps knocking at our doors in the dead of the night. Even that did not assuage her. She only shook her head and said monsters, of all ... I tuned her out and returned to my chair by the window where I sat knitting.

When the first of the children came to our house, the clown caught their attention before they could reach for the door. He spoke in animated gestures but I could not hear what was being said. Perhaps in response to what the clown said, the children then stuck their tiny hands into the pumpkin’s mouth - presumably to grab their treats - when the pumpkin opened its mouth wide, as swiftly as ink blotting on paper, and in one sudden gulp swallowed the kids. The little children, there now, gone forever.

The following morning, I found the pumpkin had ensconced itself in our backyard. Whole and ripe, ready to be cut and cooked. No toothless grin. No hollow eyes. Just a harmless fruit. The clown was nowhere to be seen. Granny said monsters, of all kinds, were to be trusted under absolutely no account, and bade me destroy the fruit. 

I tried hacking it to pieces, kicking it out, and even setting fire to my backyard. When nothing worked, the clown’s voice piped up out of nowhere, offering me his services. Granny’s words rang in my ears - monsters, of all kinds, are to be trusted under absolutely no account. But this time, I truly have no choice.

Trees On A Mission

Trees On A Mission

The trees are in a hurry. 

You can tell they have come a great distance from the way their trunks seem to have disappeared from under them, as if eroded from all the walking. Or gliding. Or dragging. Or whatever it is that trees do to get themselves from one place to another. 

They know we are watching them, so they momentarily freeze in place. Innocuously, as if they have stood their ground all along. As if the visible absence of their trunks were some sort of nature’s well-intended aberrations. 

We ask them where they are headed but they maintain a stony silence.

The instant we look away, they shuffle forward. 

Shuffling - that’s the word! Shuffling is what trees do to get themselves from one place to another. 
(Like determined old women tottering through memories to find the right one. Or like maidens in Elizabethan gowns skipping over moorlands in small steps, their feet searching for safe ground to step on amid the cascading folds of their skirts.) 

We have been following them for days now.

We keep ourselves well out of sight, as otherwise the trees would halt and make no further progress. 

Theirs is a noisy group. There is constant chatter amongst them and with other trees.

So far we have only caught a few words from their conversations - war, the Dark One, danger, annihilation.

We have also figured out that the trees can keep going only as long as they have enough leaves to keep up the momentum. When they fall short of leaves, they seek help from other trees en route, but they keep going. 

They worry winter is fast approaching and soon there may not be enough leaves to go around. But if it comes to that, we think we can help by carrying them on our backs until spring arrives.

In which you encounter angels banished from Heaven and looking for a place to live on earth

In which you encounter angels banished from Heaven and looking for a place to live on earth
- Image courtesy of PrettyHowTown

The angels admit they were banished from heaven but they will not reveal why.

Some say the angels must have done terrible things but the angels themselves neither confirm nor deny these rumours. 

They (the angels) say very little, in fact. 

They mostly stand at the market square all day, still as stone, so you can’t even see their nostrils flare or their chests heave and you wonder whether they breathe. Or perhaps they are just cheap mannequins stationed to prey on the generosity of tender-hearted souls, you think.

And so you move closer to them, wondering whether or not you could glide the back of your hand over their smooth cheeks to determine if they are made of flesh or stone. 

You finally muster up enough courage to hold your finger under their noses and feel their warm breaths tumble over your skin in unwavering rhythm and dissipate into the atmosphere.

You fish around in your pockets for a dollar or two but come up with a handful of loose change, all that you’ve accumulated so far this month. And you are about to tip the coins into the jar but the angels say they have no use for your money.

You look up but they remain motionless. Their lips unmoving, their eyes looking vacantly into the distance. Yet you can hear them speak. They tell you what they really need is a roof to live under, a place to call home, and ask if you would be so kind as to invite them into yours.

You shrug your shoulders and pretend to not have heard them. The coins feel uncomfortably heavy in your hand and you tip them noisily into the jar and walk away, mentally patting yourself on the back for having done your good deed for the day. 

There is nothing more you can do, you tell yourself. After all, mother did teach you to not talk to strangers. And angels are no exception to the rule.

The Wedding of The Tin Soldier and The Paper Ballerina

The Wedding of The Tin Soldier and The Paper Ballerina - Image courtesy of PrettyHowTown

Dear Santa,

After years of simply loving her from a distance, the tin soldier has finally asked the paper ballerina out and the two of them are quite the couple now. 

Happiest about this is the cat who has been practising playing the fiddle and he intends to give what he hopes would be a stellar performance when the wedding bells ring next year.

We intend to invite Her Most Gracious Majesty and we hope she will grace us with her presence at the wedding but the ballerina is worried that a last minute incident could prevent the royalty from attending, and so she insisted on having a backup. So the frog has been practising hard at shape-shifting and she can now turn into a gorgeous princess at the snap of a finger. 

We do have a (real) princess in our midst but she has been very upset that the tin soldier fell in love with the ballerina and not with her. We think it would be cruel to invite her to the wedding. But that is not to say she is bitter about it all. She has promised to stitch dresses for all of us to wear to the wedding. 

But she has also secretly planned to leave town the night before the wedding, and the cow has promised he will let her ride on his back that night as he jumps over the moon. They say there is a man on the moon waiting for her. 

And all this, we promise, will be no trouble at all to the family that lives in the house. We do not really know who they are for during the day we lie quietly on top of one another in the dusty, old shoe-box tucked under silver-grey cobwebs in the darkest corner of the forgotten cupboard under the rickety stairs. We troop out only at night after everyone has fallen asleep and slip back into the shoebox without a noise before the first light of dawn.

The only trouble is the tin soldier and the ballerina have no other home to go to after their wedding. So, dear Santa, when you sail through the chimney this December, could you please gift them a doll-house this Christmas?

Yours obediently,

The Blue Doll

The Decade of Seasons

The Decade of Seasons - Image courtesy of Investors Hub

Summer that decade lasted two and a half years. 

It was the season of the fiercest parching heat. 

Flowers wilted. 

Crops parched. 

Vineyards shrivelled up. 

Leaves dried up and crumpled to the touch like old paper. 

Birdsong faded like a distant memory. 

Oceans dried up, seabeds served as mass graves. 

The earth ruptured and fissured, and began to crumble.

But everyone remembered it as the summer that mermaids disappeared from the face of the earth.

When the rains finally came, they lasted merely a month. 

That was all the time the skies needed.

As if the heat had burnt up the skies and there was nothing to hold back the downpours. 

What the heat did not destroy, the rains demolished.

The waters filled up the cracks in the earth, oceans and rivers swelled to life and transgressed whatever boundaries may have once existed. 

When they were convinced it was finally safe, the mermaids rose from their groundwater havens and swam to the surface. 

They looked around but there was no land to be found. 

And there was no one to remark this was the monsoon that brought the mermaids back to life.

En Route to the Sun

En Route to the Sun - Image courtesy of Håkan Johansson

The path leading to the sun is straight, which, in my opinion, is a little strange. I would have expected it to be littered with obstacles and dead-ends and little side streets that appear to be shortcuts but really end up leading you nowhere close to the destination. But no, not this one. No twists and turns. No hairpin bends. It is straight as the truth. 

For some reason, it seems right to walk single file, and so we do. When we reach the end of the pier, the path leading to the sun ends abruptly. The ocean lies sprawled at our feet, its waters shimmering like diamonds on fire. 

The old man says we are ill-equipped to cross the ocean to reach the sun, and that it is best to turn back. His wife nods in agreement and they walk back single file, she stepping into his footsteps.

The young man thinks it is a shame to give up after having come thus far. So he decides to build a boat that would take him across the ocean. And so he turns back, planning to head back into the forests for wood. 

The little girl sits by the edge of the pier and dips her feet in the water. She calls out to the mermaids who say they’d ferry her across but only if she sings for them. And off she goes.

Caramel suggests we try to leap across. I am skeptical at first but he keeps tugging at his leash. He puts a paw over the edge and a fragment of a bridge appears under his foot. He steps on it and puts another paw over the edge. And more of the bridge comes into view wherever he intends to step. And that is how we skip all the way to the sun, one sure step at a time. 

When we look back, the bridge has disappeared, as if it had never existed. Caramel tells me to not worry. We will find it again when we need it, he assures me.

Midnight Mischief

Midnight Mischief (In another age and another place, the image was labeled "Tonight Belongs To The Wolves")

The crescent moon hung in the inky sky like an unfulfilled promise. She cast a dull silvery glow on the forestland that lay sprawled at her feet, no more than an endless clump of interfused silhouettes at this time of the night. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves, and the whispers and the susurrations travelled urgently to the far ends of the forest.

Two little heads peeped shyly out of the hollow at the base of the oldest eucalyptus in the forest - a three thousand-year old resident of the woods well-versed in the ways of children and only too happy to abet mischief makers and trouble seekers.

The boys - no older than five and seven - hesitated. 

The eucalyptus stirred and with a stray root gave the lads a little flick each on their backsides. “Off you run, you two,” the tree bid.

“Ow,” yelped the little one.

“Thank you, Mr. Eucalyptus,” said the older one with more composure than his slightly raw rump would permit.

The boys tiptoed through the forest as quietly as they could, which, to tell the truth, turned out to be a very noisy affair and would have scared away the moon, the older boy admonished the younger one en route.

But they made it without incident to their destination - the edge of a clearing secretly tucked away in the folds of the forest. They abandoned the camouflage of the trees and stepped into the clearing together, then looked up longingly at the moon.

“Could we play tonight?” they beseeched her.

No response came their way.

“Could we play tonight?” they implored once more.

She opened one eye lazily and muttered, “Manners.”

“Could we please please please play tonight?” the little voices chorused.

The moon let out a languorous sigh at first. But unable to conceal her pleasure for much longer, she puffed out her cheeks and billowed out like a balloon into a perfectly rotund shape that adorned the sky as its centrepiece. Under her argent watch, a little centaur and a tinier unicorn frisked and frolicked in the clearing all night. 

Hope

Hope

If you want to talk to the hornbills, you will find them at the usual place at the usual time. It is breeding season. The females have locked themselves away in their nests, where they will remain for a few months laying their eggs and caring for their young. The males are busy hunting for food, feeding their women, worrying about the next command that will be hurled at them, and snatching precious moments of time to work on their secret project. A surprise for the girls and the little ones, the leader of the clan declares.

The male hornbills spend their stolen moments of time burrowing away underground in the centre of their mammoth cage. Each day they start digging close to noon and keep at it for an hour, taking care to finish before the caretakers of the bird park return from their lunch to check on the birds. Often they continue digging at night, noiselessly in the dark. When the birds call it a day, the creeper plants reposition themselves to hide the entrance to the secret tunnel.

At first they don’t want to talk about it, the birds that is. But once they are convinced we mean them no harm, they break into a ceaseless chatter.

The tunnel is to be their means of escape from the cage, they say. 

Progress is excruciatingly slow, they admit but they remain hopeful. 

Getting closer to freedom, they keep telling themselves. 

Our children will learn to crawl before they learn to fly, one of the clan chuckles.

They want to leave so their children can learn to fly in the free skies, they explain. Learn to hunt for food, fight their enemies, build their own nests. Things they can’t learn growing up in a cage, they say. 

We ask them why they won’t consider flying away as an option. They say their children will be too young and their women too weak to fly afar.

And how long would it take them to dig the tunnel to the other end of the world? They have been digging for five years now. Another six months, a year, maybe two at most, who knows. They hope to keep digging for as long as it takes them to make good their escape.

And they quote from the movies to prove they are not off their rockers. (They have seen all the good movies, they assure us.)

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all, one says. 

Hope is a good thing, another chips in, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

We think it is impossible to argue against conviction that strong.