It all began in the park one evening as he sat on a bench, shrouded in self-pity, staring at his cell phone in despair. His girlfriend had just dumped him – by SMS – and he felt all alone in the world. He no longer cared what happened to him now that there was nothing on earth for him to live for but… wait! Who was that in the Western sky, curled up above the horizon with a shy silver smile?

And in that moment – moonstruck – he knew he would never love anyone but her again.

She soon retired for an early night, being but a young thing and her admirer stretched out on the bench where he was, staring up at the sky in sheer gratitude, hoping beyond hope that she came there often.

He passed the next day with his nerves on edge until around sunset he saw her again, a little higher in the sky this time – and she how she had grown in a single day! When the fat old sun in the West flopped over the edge of the horizon, the moon gracefully followed, too young to stay up late.

Over the next few nights she began to mature into womanhood, staying out for longer after dark and when the man courted her by the pond in the park, small shoals of moonfish swam to the surface to feed on her light.

With each passing night she grew brighter and brighter until her radiance banished the smaller stars from the sky. Finally, on the 14th night the man could hold back no more. He awaited her entrance at the eastern horizon anxiously and as she rose majestically into the sky he thought he would go mad with love. He danced and sang to her all night, even climbing the trees to be closer to her, but still the moon drifted across the sky without paying him any mind. Was it possible that he would be rejected again?

The next evening she was late to arrive and he wondered if she might have moved on to other skies. But then she rose again from the east, seeming to struggle against the jealous pull of gravity until she broke free and began her journey across the night. Again the man howled declarations of eternal love until his throat was hoarse. He begged for a single word of kindness from her, a sign that she would accept his devotion but she seemed not to hear and continued her way calmly.

The following night the moon arrived even later and he noticed that she seemed to have lost some weight. She seemed thinner around the edges, no doubt due to the long distances she had been traveling but still he worried for her health. Night by night she became thinner and thinner, losing her healthy shine as though she were being eaten away by an illness of the heart. He dragged a doctor to the park at 3am to see what could be done but the medic just shook his head and wrote him a prescription for a sedative.

Nothing it seemed could be done. The man kept a solemn vigil, staying awake each night and late into the mornings, his beloved these days unable to even make it across the sky, so thin and tired had she become. At last came the day he had known in his heart would arrive, the night when she didn’t come at all.

He couldn’t bring himself to move from his bench and sat there weeping feverishly through the days and nights, surviving only on the coffee and bread that kindhearted passers by brought him. He stared at the pond and wondered whether he should end it all for what was life without her? He had more or less made up his mind to throw himself in when… there! – in the Western sky – he had to wipe his eyes and pinch himself to be sure, there she was once again, a new-born babe with a bright innocent smile.

As the sun’s rays filtered through the branches the next morning, the man suddenly understood. She was probably too shy to make such a public love affair here in the town. He laughed as he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before and drove out to the desert where they could get some privacy at last.

Alone at last, surrounded by nothing but dust and cactus, the man watched his love grow each night, now more beautiful than ever without the distracting lights of the city, each day assuming greater possession over the reign of the dark heavens. And when she reached maturity on the 14th night he once again sang out loud his love to her, dedicating his life, his heart, his soul, he was hers for the taking. And again she made no sign that she had heard and towards the western horizon, the hounds of dawn hot on her trail.

And though she was now far from the polluting influences of the city, still she was struck by the same wasting illness as before and again her admirer went through untold agonies on the earth, watching her fade away. Months passed by in an endless cycle of passion and despair and the lover of the moon could take it no more. He wanted to have her, to hold her, to possess her love all for himself. And finally, he came up with a plan.

On the 14th night of his 7th month of courtship, he waited until his love was at the peak of her beauty and withdrew a long knife which he then plunged deep into his chest. Withdrawing the blade with a little piece of his heart on the end of it, he threaded it around a fishing hook and line and cast it high up in the sky to the left of the moon. A hungry star swallowed it at once. He plunged the knife in again to take another piece of bait and cast his line out to the far right of his love where another star wasted no time in biting hard. He cast out five lines this way and tied the ends around his bleeding heart and fainted, overcome with the effort.

The moon, having taken center stage of the night, began her song of departure, drifting across the sky and downward to her bed in the west as always but on this night found her way blocked by a kind of net. She was caught like in this web stained with the blood of a lover’s heart and could not break through. The sun came up some hours later and she winced before the merciless brightness of his light and scorched by his heat as he passed close by.

She passed several days of this torment before she shook herself free awake from the dream of birth, decline and rebirth that she had lived for millions of years. Held motionless in the sky, her magic began to fade and her light became more dull each night. She looked up and saw that the stars were holding her in place.

“Why are you holding me prisoner like this?” she asked reproachfully.

“Don’t blame us!” the stars cried, “We also want to move on but we’re stuck too!”

The moon looked down and saw for the first time her lover and perceived at once his total desperation and how much he had sacrificed for her. His passion so great that her light had filled his soul almost entirely and there was very little of him left. She told the stars to all pull together and they slowly lifted up the barely conscious man through the sky, swaying through the air and then out into the space, setting him down gently on the surface of the moon. With a sob the man cut the lines and threw himself upon the object of his heart’s desire.

“Please forgive me!” he begged.

“If you had held me there for much longer I would have died forever,” the moon replied gently, “My light is for everyone and cannot be owned by any one person, however in love they may be.

“But stay, ride with me now and sing to me during the dark passages when even my heart grows afraid. It will be a comfort.”

And so ends our story of desperate love. But if, on a clear night, you hear snatches of song from far away up above, look closely and you just might see the man in the moon.

But none of the hardworking folk begrudged the men their idle nature, nor did they ever ask them to lend a hand as they brought in boxes of food and stacks of firewood – after all, the village depended on these men for its survival.

They were the Dragon Slayers.

Broad-shouldered and vigorous in their youth, the Slayers tended towards beer bellies and double-chins as they aged, their hair scorched off from close encounters with fire-breathing beasts and a warrior without a collection of impressive scars and burns was the laughing stock of his comrades. Still, old or young, veteran or virgin, there wasn’t a man among them who wasn’t ready to down his mug of ale, shoulder his axe or sword and dash up the mountain to do his duty at a moment’s notice.

The courage and strength of the Dragon Slayers was without parallel in the valley and villagers would walk for days across the slopes to seek their help. The surrounding mountains were steep, deep and treacherous and though it was commonly believed that dragons reproduced slowly, yet it seemed there was no end to the beasts found skulking in a remote cave, awoken by the locals mining for coal or gems.

In the worst cases, an entire village might be consumed in fire before a few charred survivors might hobble into the tavern garden to beg the warriors for vengeance. On luckier occasions, the discovery of a dragon might be ascertained from a distance, given away by traces of smoke rising from a fissure in the mountains – and a Slayer might be sent for to do the beast in while it was still asleep.

Our story finds the warriors in a period of unusual calm when none had tasted the acrid flavour of dragon blood in over a year and the daily head-butting contests led almost inevitably to all-out brawls, breaking noses and furniture and keeping the local carpenter in constant work. The landlord had no way of controlling them and knew better than to try – he had once been a Slayer himself and now had to endure the shame of having grown old and fat without having died a glorious death up on the mountains in battle.

So it was no small cause for relief when an abject villager arrived one morning, hesitated for a moment at the stone dragon heads on either side of the gate, burning coals set in the jaws, before stumbling in to announce the discovery of a new dragon, pointing at a distant crag high above the lake. A young warrior with only 2 kills to his name was less hungover than the others and thus faster on this feet out of the gate, claiming the right to be the first to meet the challenge. The other Slayers let out a sigh of disappointment and called for a fresh barrel of ale – at least they would soon have a new story of heroics to savour.

All eyes were fixed on the mountainside for a tongue of flame or the mighty shadow of a dragon in flight but when 2 days had passed without word, hopes were raised that the challenger might have been burned to bits or found a new home in the dragon’s belly. One and all sharpened their blades and drank lightly – by dawn of the third day another Slayer would by law be afforded the right to set forth on the quest.

But they didn’t have to wait that long.

Towards evening, a young man with sunken shoulders and a downcast head wandered into the garden, found a secluded corner and crumpled into a heap, his head buried deep in his hands, sobbing violently. It took them a moment or two to recognize the bold young warrior who had set out just a couple of days before and never had they seen a Slayer in that condition.

The oldest of them, a warrior who, having grown too heavy after years of heavy drinking, rarely made it first out of the gate, took advantage of the confusion to shoulder his axe and puff his way out of the tavern and up the mountain path. But while he was slow on his feet, his arm was still strong and with over 30 kills behind him, few doubted that he would soon return in triumph.

Early the next morning, however, the Slayers were awoken from where they slumbered, passed out across the tavern’s tables, by a loud cry of anguish from high above them in the valley. Wiping the dust from their eyes, they looked up to see a distant figure cast himself off a mountain peak and fall several hundred meters down into the lake, causing a wave that almost upset the boats of the fishermen. They brought him in later that day with their morning catch; his lungs were full of water and his face fixed in an expression of utter terror. Yet otherwise he was unharmed without a single scratch or burn.

Within a month, the tavern that had been home to loud, drunken warriors swearing and spitting, feasting and brawling, was now the asylum of some 20 traumatised men weeping on their knees or staring off into space with vacant expressions on their faces. The bodies of another ten who had cast themselves off the mountain had been buried around the back and the reputation of the tavern was at stake.

“Well, after all, it’s been a long time that these fingers have held nothing but a chopping knife,” the landlord mused, eying his old, trusty axe on the wall.

“i’ll go.” Leon, the cleaning boy said.

“But I don’t know if these legs will still carry me up the mountain…” the landlord admitted to himself.

“I‘ll go!” the boy repeated.

“But if I don’t go then who – you‘ll go?” the landlord sneered, taking notice of the boy for the first time and turning a sneering, contemptuous look on him. “You who have barely a tuft of baby fur on your lip? You with less meat on you than the rabbits in the pot? You who can barely bring yourself to kill a fly when it buzzes around the sugar?”

“Who else is there?” the boy replied cheerfully.

The landlord opened his mouth to deliver a cutting retort but then closed it again as he realised the boy had a point and nodded gently. “That it should come to this.” he muttered and, plucking hi own axe from the wall with one hand, he grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and marched him out to the tavern gate. The boy smiled in anticipation of the adventure ahead.

“I don’t know what you’re grinning about,” the landlord growled, “Who’s going to wash my dishes and sweep my floor when you’ve been turned into toast or ended up inside a dragon’s belly or sent as mad as the poor fools?” he exclaimed as they passed several Slayers who now lived in mortal fear of their own shadows.

“To be honest, if any of those things happen to me I doubt I’ll care very much about your kitchen chores.” Leon observed.

“True enough,” the landlord admitted, “Well, you’ve got spirit even if you don’t have sense. Or strength.” he added, shaking his head as Leon tried in vain to lift the axe. Strapping it on to the boy’s back, who had to bend double to carry the load, he gave him a starting push out of the gate and watched him stagger awkwardly up the mountain. He was going to miss the lad. But at least he hadn’t asked for his pay before he left.

Leon got around the first corner and now that he was out of sight of the tavern he unslung the axe and it clattered to the ground behind him. After all, he reasoned, if mighty weapons and brute strength hadn’t helped the other Slayers, what chance did hehave in taking on the dragon that way? He’d just have to rely upon his wits and good luck instead. He had no guarantee of being alive that night but in the meantime it was a beautiful day and so he whistled old tunes to himself as he walked. Leon was used to walking in the mountains to gather mushrooms in the rainy season and so he kept up a brisk pace, the air growing thinner with each step and he only paused once in a while to eat apricots or walnuts from a tree in season.

While Leon had never actually seen a dragon with his own eyes, growing up in the tavern he’d heard a thousand tales of them; giant red beasts with mighty beating wings and snake-like necks that swooped down on you with mighty jaws that could snap a man in half with a single bite; thin, green dragons lying on piles of treasure who would incinerate anyone who so much as glanced at a gold coin in their possession; black dragons that flew only at night and were invisible against the sky until it was already too late and they were upon you, seizing men by the shoulders and then letting them fall from great heights to land in unrecognizable heaps on the rocks below.

He expected he would know in which cave the dragon was living in long before he reached it; he had heard that it was usual to see smoke spewing out of the entrance; or to hear the beast’s terrible growl echoing through the mountains; or just to find the skeletons of humans and sheep scattered around nearby.

So it was with some surprise that Leon rounded a corner and almost walked into a dragon crouched in a ray of sunlight in the mouth of a cave, its eyes closed and its chest rising and falling slowly. But this wasn’t like any dragon Leon had ever heard of; far from being a mighty green or red beast of the air, this creature was albino white, barely 2 metres long and its wings were too frail and thin to fly – they probably only served as fans on a hot day.

“Not quite what you expected, am I right?” the dragon yawned without bothering to open its eyes to look at its visitor.

“Well, no – I mean yes, you’re right!” Leon stammered, caught quite off-guard by the nonchalant greeting, “but then I’ve never seen a dragon before.”

“How could you have? Working all day in the kitchen, listening only to stories and dreaming that one day people might listen to yours.”

“I do dream a lot,” Leon admitted.

“Life is so much safer when lived in dreams,” the dragon agreed, “It’s reality that hurts people. Like your mother who died giving birth to you. You might have dreamed that she would have been proud to see you on this quest. But then again, you’re here and she’s not.”

“How did you know-”

“The people in the tavern were very kind to you. Taking you in like a stray dog that wandered into the garden. But then a dog doesn’t know it’s worthless, a drain and a burden on its host’s charity.”

“But I work hard-”

“Yes, cleaning dishes. Of course you try to win their respect and love.. what a shame you only get their pity.” The dragon flicked open its eyelids to reveal a pair of cold blue eyes that regarded Leon with sympathy. “But who could love a boy who had killed his own mother? How could they respect someone who didn’t have the courage to do the decent thing?

“And yet there is a way you can make up for it all…”

“How?” Leon whimpered, the blood draining from his face.

“Take a leap of faith. Show your courage once and for all by doing the honourable thing to pay for your crime. A life for a life. The mountain waits for you.”

Leon nodded and wandered away slowly, his feet moving of their accord, his head spinning as the dragon’s words ignited feelings buried so deep he didn’t know they were even there. He stumbled towards the precipice of the cliff, drunk on grief, a chorus of voices from deep within urging him to just jump and put an end to it all.

In that moment, however, a red-breasted robin flew onto his shoulder and chirped in his ear. Getting no response it fluttered round onto his nose and pecked at his forehead before hopping down onto Leon’s outstretched hand. The sight of the cheerful bird on his palm called him back to the here and now and broke the spell the dragon had cast upon him, the torrent of emotion within easing a little like a lull in the storm.

He took a seat on a rock overlooking the valley and, breathing deeply, he let each of the doubts and feelings of guilt come out one by one, listening carefully to each one before allowing them to go on their way.

“So, you lacked even the courage to end it like a man.” the dragon drawled in a tone of infinite patience.

“You know, you really are a very beautiful dragon.” Leon remarked.

“Have you now lost your wits as well as your courage?” the dragon snorted.

“No, really. I had no idea a dragon’s wings could be so soft. And your eyes are bluer than the lake. It must be lonely up here in this cave – have you never thought about coming down?”

“To be pierced with arrows and decapitated with axes? A dragon is not so easily deceived, my boy!”

“Who would want to harm a creature as lovely as you?” Leon insisted and the discussion continued long after night fell and soon there was nothing to be heard but two voices in the dark, one fresh and young and the other weary and ancient.

The old innkeeper broke the 5th plate that day and cursed the boy for leaving him to deal with the kitchen on his own. Looking after a gang of catatonic barbarians on his own was no joke, especially when he had to spoon-feed half of them.

A sudden cry of dismay came from the garden, hoarse voices wailing in despair and the landlord rushed out to see something he never could have imagined had he lived to a thousand years old; Leon came strolling in to the garden with… a thin, white dragon on a leash.

“He doesn’t eat much!” Leon explained cheerfully, “He can be our mascot!”

And so Leon the kitchen boy won his place in the halls of fame for his unprecedented feat of courage – there had been countless Slayers who had killed terrible dragons in fierce combat up on the mountains but never before had there been a warrior who made peace with one.

I even had to sit down when I went to pee.

I couldn’t wait for spring to come and at the first sunny weekend that presented itself I suggested to my girlfriend that we go for a walk in the forest. She nodded slowly in approval and said that I might join some of her friends who were planning to go hiking not far from Berlin. She said that while she wouldn’t be able to come (she had to prepare for an exam on the Monday – responsibilities!), in any healthy and functional relationship it was good for a couple to spend time apart.

And so it was I ended up walking through the forest with a party of Germans all dressed up in hiking gear with sturdy boots reserved for the occasion, waterproof ponchos, windproof fleeces and, of course, extensive maps of the area. They grinned at the sight of my deck shoes with a hole at one end, dirty jeans and faded suede jacket but I could see them wondering just what kind of idiot they’d been saddled with.

My idea of walking was always to just take whichever path seemed the most interesting but I was assured they had everything ‘all worked out’. They had determined where we would go, how long each part of the trek would take and where and for how long we would take our rest stops. They were all engineering students and though we tried some cheerful smalltalk it soon became clear that we had little in common. They fell to talking and laughing among themselves in German, looking behind them ever now and then to see if I was keeping up, much as if I was a dog trotting along at the back.

Still, I was happy enough to be out of the city and to have the space to follow my own thoughts. I must admit I was a little amused when their maps let them down though. It appeared that the route we were due to follow had fallen into disuse and was now covered with brambles and ferns. After a quick consultation of GPS on their cellphones, I was assured there was no cause to worry and that we would simply take another path that would only put us 15 minutes behind schedule.

I rather liked the look of the overgrown path, however. The walking had all been a bit too straightforward along wide, clear trails too well-marked to ever risk getting lost. My suggestion that we just try to hack our way through was met with polite smiles and then impatient complaints as I began to scramble over the thorns.

“Don’t worry about me!” I called back, “I’ll just meet you at the car.”

I heard sounds of exasperated German behind me but they were already running precious minutes over schedule and they hurried off down the alternative path to make up for lost time.

It was their loss because once beyond the initial brambles I found myself walking in some of the most gorgeous forest I’d ever come across. The grass was soft and spongy beneath my feet, clumps of moss grew on trees and twinkled with moisture and a stream ran along one side, the water trickling over the quartz crystal like liquid bells.

A purple flower hung down from a vine over the path and as I pressed it to my nose I felt all the dizzy promise of spring, the intoxicating scent of the forest and… the distant sound of voices? But probably it was just the sound of the stream to my side. Still, as I released the flower and walked on I felt a little dizzy from its aroma. The trees seemed now like sombre guardians granting me access to the place, songbirds announced my arrival and I nibbled on wild strawberries that grew amid clumps of star grass – a plant that had fallen so much in love with the night sky that it had decided to reflect it.

The forest seemed to have come alive around me; I could hear the trees breathing; spiders whispered to each other on the branches; and I could feel the pulse of the forest, ancient and deep, the voices of a thousand birds and insects coming together in harmony.

“Blue eyes!” I heard a female voice giggle to my left but when I turned to look all I saw was something flutter behind a tree.

“Messy hair!” Another voice shrieked and I span around just in time to see a flash of light disappear into the shadows.

“Doesn’t know where he’s going!”

“Then he’ll probably get there!”

The voices came from all around me now and I gave up trying to see where they came from. But out of the corner of my eye I could see tiny twinkling forms flying alongside me in the forest as I walked.

I came to a grove of beech trees and up ahead was a hill of fallen rocks, a mysterious light coming from the top, a glowing illumination that drew me irresistibly closer.

“Hurry up! You’re late for your date!” Mischievous voices tittered as I jumped up the hill from rock to rock, arriving at the top out of breath and quite blinded by the intensity of the light. Gradually, though, I began to discern a form; sitting on a rock with her feet dangling playfully in the air, with sharp, pointy ears and nose, pouting mouth and large restless eyes, I had no doubt that I was looking at a fairy.

As I stepped forwards her eyes seemed to drink me in and at first I thought she was growing in size but I later realised it was I who began to shrink until we were both of the same size.

“Where have you been?” she suddenly demanded, “Don’t you know it’s rude to keep a girl waiting?”

“But I didn’t know-”

“Blah blah blah blah blah – in Fairyland there are no explanations!”

“Then why did you ask?”

“Oh, hush!” she sniffed and as she stood up and drew closer I noticed with surprise that she had only one wing, silky and translucent.

“What happened to your other wing?” I asked, “Were you in a fight or-”

“ You really don’t know anything, do you?” she laughed gaily, “All fairies only have one wing.”

“Then how do you-”

“It takes two to fly.” she replied simply and, reaching out one hand, her little fingers stroked my cheek, ran down my neck, across my shoulder and… out onto a shiny, gossamer wing extending from my shoulder blade like it had always been there.

“But how-”

“Blah blah blah blah blah! Let’s go!” she cried and before I knew it I was running hand in hand with her towards the edge of the rocks. My head span at the drop below and as we leaped I braced myself for a rocky landing and the terrible crunch of broken bones. But instead something else happened – our wings began to beat in unison and I found myself flying through the forest as if I had been doing it all my life.

The trees were enormous now and I began to perceive entire societies of imps and insects living among the branches and leaves; there were centipede kings holding court in the ferns, armies of marching ants declaring war in the high grass and orchestras of crickets playing symphonies in the reeds of the stream.

We arced and swooped and looped through the air and I had not a single thought for the past or the future. Flying through the forest with a beautiful fairy at my side, there was nowhere on earth I would rather have been.

We then flew up through the roof of the forest just in time to see the sun going down in a blaze of glory. We rested on a branch and the sunset lit up the fairy’s eyes and made them dance in a thousand colours.

“I don’t know your name.” I murmured.

“Neither do I!” she sighed dreamily, “But then fairies change their names every day. I think today I’ll call myself… Lala.”

Despite the magic of the moment I felt a wave of disapproval stir within me. 6 months of living in Germany had had their effect after all.

“That’s not very responsible?” I suggested.

“Since when were fairies ever responsible?” she laughed.

“Well, love and stability come at the price of responsibility,” I stammered, “And for every action there’s a consequence…”

Lala just smiled and, leaning close, she whispered: “In Fairyland there are no consequences!”

Then we kissed.

If you’ve never been kissed by a fairy before then, well, words can’t begin to express it. But imagine a thousand streams flowing through you. A thousand birds singing inside your mouth. A thousand stars born on your lips and lighting up something deep inside you.

When it was over the sun had gone down to let a crescent moon and a gang of stars try their follow up act on the stage of the night sky. The forest below glowed in the remaining light and I knew that whereas I’d been a guest before, now I had returned home.

We swooped down and shook old, wise owls awake. We danced with imps and elves around pine cone fires and dined on moon berries and crystal nectar on islands of lillies in the stream. We attended counsels of witches, chased willo-the-wisps through the trees and teased dim-witted giants who tried to swat us out of the air like mosquitoes.

I felt utterly weightless and knew that in Lala I had found my true soul mate. One with whom I could share the greatest joys that life had to offer,

“You know, Lala, I think the reason we can fly is precisely because we take ourselves to lightly!”

But Lala wasn’t listening. I followed her eyes to where a male fairy stood on a branch, proud and independent as he tied the lace of his boots. He caught Lala’s eye and in the same moment that she let go of my hand he jumped from his perch to meet her. Their wings beat in unison and they soared up through the forest.

“Lala!” I screamed as I fell through the branches and leaves – but she either didn’t hear me or had already changed her name.

I plunged into the icy stream, gashing my head on a sharp rock and was swept along by the current towards some white horse rapids, neighing furiously as their hooves galloped on the spot. I prepared to be stampeded to pieces but just then an enormous hand came out of nowhere and scooped me up.

When I gathered my senses I found a little old man in a waistcoat and hat peering into my eyes curiously. I seemed to be returned to my normal size and the forest looked not so much enchanted any more as dark and damp.

“Your first time was it?” the old man asked and then nodded to himself, “Well, the wound on the head will heal soon enough but the bruises on the inside might take a bit longer.”

“Excuse me, but who are you?” I asked, sitting up quickly and regretting it at once. I felt like I had been badly beaten up.

“Ah well, that’s not an easy question – see, I change my name every day.”

“Do you mean to say you’re a-”

“Oh no!” he laughed, “But let’s say I’ve had the pleasure of their acquaintance from time to time. I first met them 40 years ago and, well, there was no way back for me after that. Job, wife, home – I gave it all up and came here to build a little cabin for myself. Amazing how well you can get by on moon berries and mushrooms.”

My phone began to ring in my pocket and withdrawing it I saw my girlfriend was calling but I wasn’t ready to face reality just yet. Before I turned it off I saw that I had missed 16 other calls from her.

“Best get back. People will be missing you.” the old man smiled and turned to walk off into the woods. Before he disappeared into the trees he paused and called: “But if you ever want to come back , don’t worry about finding them – they’ll find you!” And with that he walked off into the shadows and I could swear that I caught a glimpse of a bulge beneath his jacket, just where… a wing would be…

When I got out of the forest I found 4 tired hikers explaining to a police officer in the glow of a flashing neon light what had happened. When I walked up, the policeman took one look at the cut on my head, heard me stammer something about fairies and at once called for an ambulance to come and take me away.

I was treated for shock and concussion and after a good night’s sleep I had enough sense not to mention anything more about my night in the forest. I was escorted back home by my girlfriend but she sensed I wasn’t telling the whole truth when I declared that I had simply slipped and hit my head. We both knew that there was now something unbridgeable between us now, a gulf that would never be crossed. So when she awoke one morning to find me with my backpack and guitar already packed, she nodded, kissed me on the cheek and escorted me to the door.

I stepped out into the street, took a deep gulp of fresh air and began walking off in no particular direction, lighter than I’d felt in months. Lala was only half-right – a night in Fairyland had its consequences, after all.

Ho, bloody ho.

When I was 5 I saw Father Christmas.

I know what you’re already thinking: I saw my parents sneaking into the room and made the mental switch. Fueled by an afternoon of awful Christmas TV, I saw what I wanted to see. The power of suggestion. I was 5 years old!

I’ve heard it all before. With each passing year less and less of the kids at school believed me until finally they made fun of me for it. I learned to smile and admit that I probably had just dreamt the whole thing up. Ashamed of my credulity, I became the world’s most anti-Christmas child. From the age of 10 I refused presents, declared the whole thing to be just an exercise in consumerism. Merry humbug.

It’s not easy to escape Christmas and mention of That Man. His face is on book covers and magazines. He’s acted out in department stores by desperate overweight actors. You can’t buy a shirt or a packet of cornflakes without hearing one of the sickly sweet tunes composed last century that will never quite die. Santa Claus is coming to town – really? Tell him to stop for a photo this time.

There’s no moment more lonely than when everyone else is celebrating and you’re not. Everything is closed, people are singing drunkenly and badly in the streets, and no one bothers to reply to emails. By the 26th I’m drumming my fingers against the table – is it all over yet? can we please get on with things now?

The only thing I like is to walk the streets on Christmas Eve when everyone is busy gaining weight with their families. There’s a short break from the forced cheerfulness of the past fortnight and the town falls quiet. There are hardly any cars on the roads and the only people to be seen are those hurrying to some party full of merry noise and light. Or the odd stray soul who has no one to celebrate with.

It was cold this Christmas Eve. Catching sight of a fire burning in a drum, I joined a couple of homeless guys in warming my hands. People are scared of those who live on the streets, I don’t know why. Maybe because they think they have nothing left to lose. My company was accepted with brief nods from the men who stood there staring into the flames. The man to my right was old with a white beard and a hacking cough. He passed me a bottle of vodka and I took it gratefully. As I passed it back to him, however, I caught his eyes and a five year old boy screamed loudly inside me.

‘You!’ I whispered fiercely.

‘Me – what?’ he grimaced, snatching back the bottle.

‘You were in my house!’

‘You calling me a thief?’

‘No, when I was a kid!’

‘Oh, right.’ he nodded to himself, relaxing again, ‘Well, that was all long ago.’

‘Then you’re… real.’ I found myself wobbling on my feet as I took in this old bum, dressed in a smelly black coat, covered in dust and shuffling about in worn-out boots. It was him, I didn’t have the slightest doubt – he had that same troubled look around the eyes that I had seen when I had shone my torch on him all those years ago in my bedroom. On that occasion he had muttered something under his breath, climbed out of the open window and was gone before I could scramble out of bed.

‘But if you’re Fath-’

‘Just call me Nick.’ he sighed, passing me the bottle again. I clung to the taste of cheap vodka and tried to resolve in my head that watershed moment of childhood when you realise your parents have been lying to you for years. They bought the presents. Period. I felt vaguely absurd standing there with a bottle in my hand, ridiculous questions on my mind. But I had waited years for this moment. I just had to know.

‘Take a drink, kid.’ he insisted, reading the doubt in my face. A hundred queries jumped to my lips and I would have spoken but he waved me down. ‘So you think you saw me. Maybe you did, I don’t know. I got around a lot back then. But that’s all in the past now – look around you, Christmas does just fine without me.’

‘What about the presents?’ I insisted desperately, evoking the essential flaw in his entire myth.

‘Your parents bought them, stupid.’ he sneered. ‘How would I carry enough for everyone? In a sleigh? How would I make them all for free? You think I have, what, elves working in a sweatshop somewhere?’

‘Then what were you…doing?’

He shrugged. “Giving.’ I was about to object but he began to cough and didn’t stop for two minutes. It sounds like tiny pieces of his lungs were shaking themselves loose. When he had recovered he took back the vodka and gave another heavy sigh.

‘You probably think you know what I”m going to say. That it wasn’t about the presents. That people got stuck on the material stuff and forgot the spirit behind it. Well, that’s a load of crap. The kind of message you can stick up on the wall of your bathroom along with all your other little homilies.

‘It was people looking for the one behind the gifts that did my head in. Little kids, like you, sat awake for hours with torches hidden under their blankets trying to catch me out. Writing me lists accompanied with promises and vague threats. Like underage lobbyists. And don’t even get me started on the movies and the songs.’ he scowled, shaking his head and stretching out a hand towards the fire.

‘Then…what were you giving?’

He looked up at me sharply. ‘Gratitude.’ he said, making a mock sprinkling gesture with his hands. ‘For everything you have and are too dumb to realise it. You know why everyone’s so miserable? Because they think happiness is given to them by other people. Then they hold onto them until they choke all the life out and move onto the next one.’ He passed the bottle over to the other tramp who took it without a word. Then, buttoning up his coat, he made as if to leave but turned one more time.

‘Go home. Call someone you love. Whatever. There’s only one gift, kid,’ he said, leaning in and slapping me lightly on the cheek, ‘And that’s the moment you’re living. That’s why they call it the present.’ Then he stumbled off across the square beneath a light rain that had begun to fall. Before he crossed the road he turned and laughed, ‘And yeah, I read that on a bathroom wall somewhere.’

I never saw him again. Maybe you don’t think I ever did. I saw what I wanted to see. The power of suggestion.

I’ve heard it all before.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I6UB8aL4V8

I made a couple of mistakes here - for instance it should have been Birbal, not Bilal, in the 4th story. But hey, it was a lot to remember…

This is a tiny selection of the stories to be found in 1001 Nights and I mixed a couple of my own in there in the magpie tradition of the Arabian Nights that have absorbed stories from all over the Middle East over the centuries.

I tried to preserve some of the style of the original stories with the excessive descriptions and capricious characters. The original 1001 Nights were full of the sexual and racial prejudices of the time - to me that’s a fascinating cultural portrait and this performance is a tribute to a time that has long since disappeared.

Alekhine on the left

So way back in the 1930′s when Alekhine was the world chess champion, having recently defeated the great Capablance for the world title, he was asked whether any guaranteed winning strategy might ever be discovered for the great engima of the game of chess. He replied with a story.

He related that some years before he had been in a hotel room getting ready for a tournament the next day and as such he was hoping for an early night. It was stormy outside and the branches pattered against the window and so it took him some time to recognize the tapping on the door as that of a human.

He opened his door wearily and there on the balcony stood a tramp. His hair was unwashed, he was dressed in an old suit with patches and he hadn’t shaved in days.

“I can beat you in 9 moves!” the tramp told him.

Alekhine examined the man, decided that he was delusional but not dangerous and tried to close the door but the tramp placed his foot in the doorway and insisted:

“No, really, i can beat you in 9 moves!”

“Is it money you want?” Alekhine asked with a sigh, “I might have a few coins on my bedside table.”

“Just set up the pieces – you’ll see!”

Finally, Alekhine shrugged in exasperation. “If I play you will you go away?”

The tramp nodded and then shuffled inside to where a table was already set up, Alekhine having been practicing openings earlier in the night. The world champion pulled up a chair for the tramp wearily, hoping the smell he brought with him wouldn’t linger once he was gone. Then Alekhine sat down opposite him, began the game and… lost in 9 moves.

Rubbing the sleep from his eye he scowled at the smirk now hosted by the tramp’s face and demanded a rematch. But once again, the unwelcome visitor defeated him at once. Alekhine was now profoundly disturbed and hurried out of the room and down the hallway where the former champion, Capablanca, was lodged in preparation for a tournament. Capablanca was tired and moody, not feeling too well-disposed towards Alekhine since losing the title but finally agreed to give in to his rival’s caprice and shuffled down the corridor to play the tramp.

Capablanca, too, lost in 9 moves.

“So what did you do?” the other guests at the party asked Alekhine. He shrugged.

“We killed him, of course.”

The World of Chess

When I was young I was pretty good at chess. I was the captain of the school team and a couple of very kind teachers took me to tournaments and to play for their club against adults across the county. It was a world almost entirely made up of men and mostly old men at that. Club matches were silent affairs in rooms resembling classrooms,  plastic chairs and dominated by the eerie sound of chess clocks ticking away asynchronously. The old men dressed badly, sometimes sucked boiled sweets to put you off and we spoke little other than to ask each other’s names and ranking at the beginning of the match for our little chess notebooks where we recorded our moves for future analysis.

It was a tense and geeky world of stumbling social interaction during the breaks, populated by nervous, stammering personalities whose natural awkwardness was only aggravated by the mental tension of conducting silent battles of life and death across a board with 64 squares and a little clock indicating how long you had until your flag would fall.

Chess players were almost necessarily eccentric. I recall one strong player at our club with greasy hair, dematitus and a old flannel suit; he worked in the post office during the day where he wouldn’t acknowledge that you’d ever met before but would become loud and flamboyant in the evenings at the club, crying out Schach! when he placed you in check.

Or there was the brilliant QC lawyer who walked into the tuckshop of our school where a tournament was being held and treated the ladies working behind the counter to a booming rendition of Flintstones! We’re the Flintstones! The year before he had been gently escorted out after miaowing like a cat for 20 minutes by the coffee machine.

It clearly wasn’t cool to be a chess player but there was something wonderful about being in the company of all these people who shared a love for the game of chess. It was like life condensed onto a board – life with rules, definable strategies and yet no way to be sure of winning. We were in the presence of a mystery, an enigma that might never be solved. I read books that asked rhetorically whether chess was an art or a science and the play of the grandmasters was described as elegant or dashing.

The Perfect Move

Kasparov, the greatest player of all time

I had a chess program on my computer but I could beat it a good part of the time and I never imagined it would become a serious threat to the greats. There were more possibilities in the first 3 moves of a game of chess than atoms in the universe, I was told. Or something like that. And as there were millions more processes happening in the human brain that in the universe, it seemed like the perfect match.

I wonder if Kasparov once thought so, too.

In 1997, Kasparov lost a match against the IBM Deep Blue chess machine and though Kasparov alleged that IBM had cheated, it was clear that even if it had not already arrived, the day would eventually come when humans could no longer compete with machines.

I’d like to say that’s why I gave up chess. Really, of course it was because I wanted to expand my social horizons from the world of late evenings with badly-dressed old men slurping tea and making chess quips. I had also started smoking marijuana and though I gave it up after a couple of years, my sharpness on the board had been blurred for life.

But I also intuited, long before the invention of smart phones, that as big as the possibilities were, eventually a computer would be devised that would know beyond any doubt what was the best move to make in any situation. Just picture it: 2025, you’re sat across a chess board from some idiot who’s playing Angry Birds 5 on his Iphone 16, you’re sweating through the complications of a Queen’s pawn attack, while he just consults his Chess For Dummies app every few minutes.

And that – unless chess inexplicably starts attracting lots of nubile females in the 20′s to start playing – is why I’ll never go back to the game.

Perfect for a long winter evening with cups of hot chocolate…

And you can download the chapters to listen on your mps player here

Sometimes it’s a simple case of user-bias. Try this: write down some of the things that you believe about life, love, the world, even the people you know. Now look at the list and ask yourself honestly if you want those things to be true. It might be as simple as needing to believe that your father was a good man or as emotionally complex as wanting to believe that the world will end soon (your own life suddenly becomes dramatically more simple) but if there’s a strong correlation then you might want to do a bit of rethinking.

That people want to believe the things they believe in is because temperament and background have a lot to do with what we perceive and understand. Self-interest plays a role, naturally – most British colonists of the 19^th century believed that they were following a ‘noble obligation’ to bring civilisation to the world even as they robbed it blind. Certainly few of them believed they were thieves and setting up continents for decades of dictatorship and civil war afterwards.

But natural temperament also plays a role. Hang out with hippies for a summer and observe how quickly they tend to accept the healing benefits of the newest quack therapy (Rainbow Drop Therapy, anyone? It removes the toxins stored in the spinal chord…). They don’t arrive at a belief in a new healing technique by laboriously poring over field studies or even a wikipedia page on the recognized benefits of essential oils. Rather it sounds cool and groovy and as cool and groovy people it fits their temperament and outlook to believe in it.

Filter Bubbles

His opinions are written all over him

Even if a person considers themselves to be open-minded (and who doesn’t?), reading the news every day and discussing topics with other thoughtful souls, they’re still liable to become victims of a filter bubble. Consider newspapers, the most traditional means of getting information – do you tend to agree with the articles in the paper you read? Or do you buy a paper that presents political opinions that vastly differ with your own?

Journalism is all about giving a slant to the actual information both in which facts are reported and the subtle weight they’re given and only a fool would think they’re totally immune to the bias. The newspapers themselves know this and make a business out of writing articles that will appeal to their readers. Their commitment to telling the truth necessarily plays second place to… selling papers!

Filter bubbles are perhaps even more pronounced in the age of the internet. Whereas you might be expected to search more widely among sources of media and thus obtain a more balanced perspective, the problem is that search has become personalised. Google and co monitor your searches and your interests and present different search results depending on what their algorithms determine to be of most interest to you. Once again the smart money is on telling you want you want to hear rather than what you might need to know.

Independent Knowledge

Humble beginnings

In a world of bias, influence and self-interested subjectivity it’s no surprise that science holds such appeal for so many. Under rigorous, objective laboratory test conditions scientists can transcend their own personal beliefs and inclinations to arrive at independent knowledge, a grasp of the facts that stand alone and can be confirmed by others regardless of their social background or temperament.

Granted, it’s easy to create enough smoke that the general public won’t know the difference between genuine scientific investigations and sponsored research to protect vested interests – witness the general spirit of skepticism towards man-made climate though not a single serious scientific paper has managed to refute the overwhelming evidence – but at least for those who understand what constitutes actual science there’s general consensus on most topics of importance. Whether it bothers you to think that we’re descended from monkeys or not, the scientific evidence is accepted by almost everyone who has a basic grasp on how evolution works.

And yet science itself focuses only on what it can measure. It builds all its assumptions on the basis that anything demonstrated to be real can be repeated under identical conditions. It doesn’t exclude anything fun like telepathy, remote healing or fortune telling but the basic premise is that if it can’t be shown to be true reliably and regularly then there’s no reason to believe in it.

From the brilliant xkcd.com

But what if there are things that are true that can’t be measured? What if there are things that can be felt, understood or achieved that can’t be repeated on demand? What if, in short, there are other factors we simply haven’t considered? Could it be that science itself is inside a loop of it’s own basic premises?

There’s the old story of the man found scrambling around on his knees under a street lamp. A friend comes up and asks him what he’s doing.

“I lost the keys to my house!” he explains.

“Where do you think you dropped them?”

“About 500 metres up the road.”

“So why are you looking here?”

“Well, there’s light here…”

This February we’re meeting up in the Sahara Desert in Morocco on the Road Junky Retreat to reflect, make music around the fire and tell travel stories around the camp fire.  30 travelers will walk out into the dunes for 6 days of yoga and dance workshops, meditate at sunset and sing under the full moon. And it’s going to be even better than last year’s retreat.

There’s nowhere quite like the Sahara. As you look out on the sand dunes, the driest place imaginable, you’re reminded of an ocean frozen in time. The dunes ripple out in all directions like static waves although tiny particles of sand whip along the crest in the breeze in the timeless calligraphy of the desert. Every creature that moves – from a mouse to a beetle to a fox – leaves its track until the relentless desert winds remove all trace of life once again.

The dunes come into their own at sunrise and sunset, their long shadows coursing across the desert and changing the colour of the sands in a magical landscape with no evidence that humans ever lived on the planet. Then as we’ll be there at full moon, the entire visual show is repeated at night in lunar blue until you get the impression there’s a cosmic artist up there painting the desert in melancholy brush strokes.

In the Sahara the winds are the only company and silence can be found in just a few minutes walk – a silence so absolute that you can hear the blood rushing through your veins as you open up to inner spaces you just couldn’t reach meditating at home.

See who’s going on Facebook or check out the main site www.roadjunkyretreat.com

Tunis - where it all began for the Arab Spring

What does it take for us to risk our lives in defence of what we value?

We’ve seen protesters in the street across the Arab world in 2011, risking beatings, torture and death to challenge brutal regimes. At what point does someone decide to leave their house and stand up for what they believe in despite the consequences?

Or take the movement in Mexico rising up against the kidnappers that have made life a misery for so many - documented here by Mark Vicente. Imagine the courage needed to not pay the ransom for your kidnapped children because you know that you would be financing several more abductions as a result.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IvndycgZbc

In the landmark novel Catch 22, the protagonist Yossarian insists that he doesn’t want to fly any more missions, that he’s risked his life enough.

“From now on I’m thinking only of me.”

Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: “But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way.”

“Then,” said Yossarian, “I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?”

If no one protests, nothing will ever change. But the first ones to do so stand a high chance of getting a bullet in the head. Yet most people want change and realise that if enough people were to demand it, it might just happen. It needs only a critical mass of people in support of a movement to make it easier to join than to stay at home.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74AxCqOTvg

I always felt vaguely foolish on the protests I went on as a teenager in England, shouting at slogans against student loans, tax breaks for the royal family, the news laws removing the right to silence. It was exciting, sure, to be among so many people holding placards, like being part of a river flowing in one direction. I was just never sure which direction and I couldn’t be sure if what we were doing made the slightest bit of difference.

I don’t know if the people occupying plazas in Madrid or the financial district in New York and St Paul’s Cathedral  in London will effect any kind of change. I can’t think of any instance of a revolution in a democracy and the capitalist economy is such a fundamental part of the way the world goes round it’s hard to see any of the 1% giving up their vested interests.

But maybe that’s not even the point.

Indignados in Madrid

Talking with indignados here in Spain, one of the most striking things to come out of the peaceful assemblies in the public squares here was the sense of community people felt. Drawn out of the cozy boundaries of their private lives, people of all walks of life began to meet, talk and share. They learned that, whatever their social class or background, they had much more in common than anyone had previously thought.

And we can all take courage from that.