Better stop reading this - someone's trying to contact you on facebook!

This is for me the best of the stories we’ve published so far on the web comic, Wandering Viola – Nadine really found the mood for this eerie social media planet and the conductor is as sinister as I had imagined him to be.

I found myself turning out story after story for readers anaethetized by the daily barrage of email, their attention falling away by the end of the second paragraph to a gleaming Facebook update. I knew it was time to make my storytelling visual but, unable to even draw stickmen, I needed help.

Then I found Nadine.

'Each tree, each fish, each sunset has a story to tell'

We met on a forum and I discovered her favourite creation: Viola, a girl with blazing red hair who was usually drawn with her eyes closed beside an Arabic haiku. I found myself intrigued and bewitched by this enigmatic character and I intuited that the only way to unravel the mystery would be to write stories for her.

I knew from the start that Viola was a traveller. I imagined her wandering from planet to planet, finding strange reflections of humanity in the inhabitants of each one. Sometimes funny, sometimes strange, each world would be a piece in the puzzle that might never form a complete picture.

Nadine and I asked ourselves why Viola was travelling and at first we thought she might be a blind princess, lost in space. Nadine herself comes from Lebanon and she told me that growing up in such a conflicted country, there were many things to which she had simply learned to close her eyes. But now she had left Lebanon and was curious to see all she could. So it was we suddenly understood that Viola must come from a world where everyone kept their eyes closed; we saw them sat under trees with their gaze fastened within in search of Inner Truth. Perhaps, we mused, Viola had committed the crime of opening her eyes and had been banished as a result.

Thus Wandering Viola was born.

As a writer it’s a common experience for me to feel the wonder of a story that seems to already exist before I set pen to paper. But to discover the thread of a tale together with someone else was entirely new to me. Then to see the stories come alive under Nadine’s pen was another kind of magic altogether. Nadine and I still haven’t met in person but through Wandering Viola I’ve already shared more with her than with many of my oldest friends.

a comic about social media!

The genre of an innocent traveller visiting strange other worlds is an old one. Just think of Arabian Nights, Gulliver’s Travels or The Little Prince. It’s a vehicle that allows us an expression ranging from the satirical to the mystical. Take, for example, our most recent comic, With Strings Attached, which takes an ironic look at the age of digital communication; arriving on a rather desolate planet, Viola meets a sinister man who is absorbed in communicating with distant friends by pulling on multiple strings. Encouraged to try it out, she complains that it’s boring, to which he replies:

“Talking to one person normally is! Try more strings!”

I knew Viola was a traveller because I’ve been on the road 18 years now – all my adult life. I’ve seen and experienced countless amazing things but almost always alone. I’m no longer so keen to roam the roads of this planet but through this comic I’m finding another way to wander. And the great thing is that Nadine comes with me.

‘For my part I wanted only to be a humble shepherd,’ he declared. ‘but who can deny it is is the will of the people that I rule them?’

When journalists ventured to point out that as he had been the only candidate allowed to stand for election the result was hardly surprising, Simon Simonov gave one of his trademark beaming smiles, had the critics executed and their heads stuck on spikes outside the presidential palace.

‘Again, I ask, who can deny is the will of the people that I rule them?’

This time everyone agreed.

Not only could Simon Simonov not tolerate any opposition in the present but the existence of previous rulers troubled him, too, so he smashed their statues, tore down their portraits and burned all of the history books as well.

‘The fate of Simonistan,’ – thus he had renamed the country – ‘begins in the present moment” The present – do you see? It is my gift to you!’

One day a wise man left his mountain cave where he had been meditating for 50 years and walked down into the city. He walked barefoot through the streets past beggars who crouched beneath giant gold statues of Simon Simonov in various smiling poses, past overcrowded jails where prisoners took turns to breathe fresh air at the window, and walked straight into the palace and demanded an interview with the president.

Simonov was carried in on an ivory chair held aloft by 8 men and, wiping gravy off his moustache with a silken sleeve, he looked down upon his guest and asked:

‘Wise old man of the mountains! What have you come to teach me?’

‘How can the head live when the body starves?’ the old man told him sternly, ‘Your people are hungry and miserable. They fear you but would you not rather have their love?’

‘And what must I do to win their love?’

‘Look only inside yourself.’

After Simonov had the old man executed and his head stuck up on a spike, he retired to his presidential bedchamber to meditate upon the advice he had been given. At length, he rose and walked into the marble bathroom and regarded himself in the mirror, contemplating at his bloodshot eyes, his fat nose and twirling moustache until he broke down and cried. How could he not have seen it before? Looking deep inside himself he saw that he was indeed lovely! What should he care what any others thought or said about him? He loved himself and that was enough!

From that day on, he made six of his servants carry a full-length mirror around in front of him at all time so that wherever he might turn he would always see his own charming features smiling back at him. He found that he always agreed with himself and whenever he made a joke his reflection was the first to laugh. Of course, it wasn’t a perfect solution – on occasion a servant would be too slow with their hands or trip over and he’d have to have them executed and send for someone with quicker hands and feet.

Nature, too, seemed to be against him. One afternoon, while talking to himself in the presidential gardens, the weather turned stormy and though he and his bearers hurried towards the palace they were not in time to prevent a powerful hail storm smashing his beloved mirror into a thousand pieces.

Weeping bitterly, Simonov allowed himself to be carried back to the presidential bed chamber and he remained there for 40 days and nights, reflecting upon the tragedy until at last he rose and announced that he would speak to the people. A crowd of tens of thousands awaited him in Simonov Square, wildly cheering his name when he took the stage – it was that or go to jail, after all. The president waved down the cheers with a modest hand and declared:

‘Enough! Enough! My people, I have been, let us admit it, a fool. I thought that all I had to do was see the beauty inside myself and that would be sufficient. Well, I have learned an important lesson: the time has come to see the beauty in you, too – from this day on we will see the beauty of Simon Simonov in everyone!’

The crowd clapped nervously, wondering what this might mean and they didn’t have to wait long to find out. The next day the police arrived at each house in the city and made everyone inside walk through a cardboard cut out image of the president. All of those who were too tall or too wide to squeeze through the shape were loaded onto ships which were sailed out to sea and then sunk by the air force.

The remaining population were ordered to change their appearance to resemble Simon Simonov and roadblocks were set up to make inspections when citizens passed. So everyone rubbed salt in their eyes to make them red and sore, stuffed cotton wool into their nostrils to make their noses fatter and the men grew moustaches long enough to twirl around their little finger – the women and children had to glue on hair from horse’s tails.

Every male citizen was obliged to change his name to Simon Simonov and the women to Simona Simonov; the net effect of which was that people gave up on using the post office, which had already been in considerable confusion now that every address in the city was called Simonov Street, Simonov Road or Simonov Square.

And yet the president was still unsatisfied. He decided to change the names of the days of the week, too: Monday became Simonov, Tuesday was Simonov Simonov, Wednesday Simonov Simonov Simovov and so on. A 50 Simonov fine was issued for anyone who made a mistake.

Simon Simonov could now see his face wherever he looked and hear his name hundreds of times a day and yet he felt a growing jealousy for all the other words in the langauge Irritating little words like ‘and’ or ‘but’ or ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ – in fact, it seemed there was no end to the ways the language conspired to make people talk about anything except himself. Calling in master linguists from around the world, the president retired to his palace with them for several months until, on the anniversary of his rule, he emerged to greet an enormous red-eyed, fat-nosed, moustachioed crowd and he boomed:

‘Simonov Simonov Simonov! Simonov – Simonov, Simonov Simonov! Simonov!’ And so on for over an hour. It was later explained to the crowd that, mirroring the tonal system found in Asiatic languages, the sound Simonov could be said with 6 different tones and so any 5 combinations of the word could represent up to 50,000 possible meanings! In fact, from that moment on, they were told, it would be an offence punishable by death to utter any word other than Simonov.

A book written by the Simon Simonov himself was issued to every house in the city and conttained all of the practical, political and spiritual wisdom the leader had acquired in his lifetime. But as the only word contained within was simonov, few claimed to understand it. In fact, the new language was so difficult to learn that speaking soon became a thing of the past and people went about their business in silence beneath the ubiquitous gold statues of Simon Simonov in his various smiling poses.

With no voice to distinguish them, and each trying to look as much like the president as possible in order to avoid arrest, people began to forget who each other was. Husbands returned home at night to the wrong houses, mothers picked up the wrong children from school and people went off to work in the wrong jobs – a bus driver one day, a dentist the next.

Simon Simonov’s dream had come true; he had achieved perfection and thus brought about his own end. Returning from the bathroom one afternoon he found a fat-nosed man with a twirling moustache sat on the presidential throne in his place!

‘Simonov! Simonov!’ he cried indignantly. But his double simply looked down upon him with bloodshot eyes and roared:

‘Simonov Simonov Simonov Simonov!’ and 4 guards stepped up to drag the protesting president out into the garden where they cut off his head and stuck it on a spike outside the palace.

The next day the people of the city gathered to hear the president speak and waves of confusion and relief spread through the crowd as they saw him tear off his moustache and, speaking in the old language, declare a new start for everyone. Shouts of celebration echoed through the square as they pulled the cotton out of their noses and threw their moustaches in the air, cheering wildly the name of their new president, Alex Alexander and the Republic of Alexanderstan…

She banished from her home all knives, scissors and needles so that nothing might ever cut him, obliging the cooks to prepare only the vegetables they could crush with a wooden spoon. She removed all the shelves in the house so that nothing might ever drop on him, locked the staircases and removed the legs from the beds so that he might never fall out of one. She placed nets around the garden in summer so that no stinging insects could enter and she ordered the gardeners to remove all the thorns from the roses that grew there.

She dismissed all the female servants so that Leonard might never know the pain of love and desire, and she fired the male servants the moment they reached 30 years of age so that Leonard might never have to see them grow old, decay and die; she herself wore a veil to hide her wrinkles and put henna in her hair to remove all traces of grey.

She banned all books from the house, knowing full well what havoc any stimulus to the imagination could wreak, and allowed only musical scores in the piano room with uplifting, major keys. When bad weather came in she mixed poppy husks in with Leonard’s morning milk to make him sleepy and inclined to stay indoors to play games with the servants – who were under strict instructions to always let him win.

And so Leonard grew up in a dream of sunny days, silk and rose water, where though the distant sound of approaching thunder might at times threaten the fragile bubble of innocence in which he lived, his mother would simply put cotton wool in his ears and chocolate in his mouth.

Leonard’s inevitable awakening happened at the age of 12 when just before dawn one morning he opened his eyes to the sounds of a scraping at his window. Propping himself up on one elbow and rubbing the dust from his eyes he saw a bird feebly struggle on the ledge outside. Imagining it was some kind of new game devised for his amusement, Leonard tried to pull the window open but then remembered his mother always kept it locked. Pricking his ears he could hear no one yet stirring in the house and so, trembling with excitement, he put on his silk bathrobe and velvet slippers and made his way to where the butler was snoring across the doorway of his room. Removing the key from the servant’s pocket, he quietly opened the door and slipped through the narrowest of gaps into the hallway of the house. Lifting the heavy latch of the front door, he crept outside into the garden and felt a delicious thrill as he found himself alone for the very first time in his life.

He hurried over to the window ledge intending to scoop the bird up in his hands but it took fright and desperately fluttered a few metres up onto the top of the garden wall. The wall was high and smooth with no footholds but Leonard had grown faster than his mother had anticipated and, by stacking up a couple of flower pots, he was able to make a running jump and scramble up on top to look out on a world he had never known.

What he saw almost caused him to fall off.

In the fields peasants were already working and their clothes were dirty and torn. Some had thin, grey hair and their faces were screwed up from exposure to the sun and the wind. Some were scarred and others walked with a limp and gave groans of discomfort when they bent their aching joints to pull out weeds from the earth. Along a broken old road came a rickety cart pulled by a donkey whose ribs pushed against its mangy skin as it struggled with all its might to pull a heavy load. The driver lashed the beast with his whip and Leonard felt the sting as though it had landed on his own shoulders. The putrid stink of rotten fruit floated up and shocked his nostrils, which until that point had only ever know sweet aromas. Then he sampled the unknown taste of salt as his first ever tears ran down his cheeks. Leonard briefly wondered whether he might be melting like the snow that sometime fell in the winter.

A flutter of feathers near to him brought his attention back to the dying bird that had led him up here. It no longer had the strength to resist as Leonard gathered it in his hands and he felt its heartbeat grow weaker by the second. A storm of anger and sadness erupted within him as he understood the depth of his mother’s grotesque deception, exemplified in the suffering of this tiny creature. He felt its bitter struggle for life as if it were his own until he could no longer say where his hands ended and the body of the bird began. They breathed the same air, loved the same life, their hearts beating in unison.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lsuchick142/ Nanny Snowflake

Then something quite exceptional happened. A wave of compassion burst open in Leonard’s heart and coursed through the veins of his arms and into the body of the bird which slowly lifted its head, gave a chirp and flew up onto his shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Leonard gave a last glance of disgust back at the sanctuary of his childhood and then leaped down onto the ground, quite certain that he would never return.

Discovering a world of aging, sickness and decay, wherever Leonard went he brought life. He extended his hands to the old and ill, healing and rejuvenating all those he met, He brought back youth to people, animals, even trees. He would perhaps even have extended his hands to the dying sun each evening had he not been afraid to extinguish the light of the stars that were born afresh each night.

Legend of Leonard spread through the land, of a boy with a bird on his shoulder who held the fountain of youth in his hands. He walked from village to village, sleeping in fields and barns, awaking to find a queue of the old and needy in front of him in the mornings. Reaching out his hands he removed the signs of stress and toil from faces, restored strength to old men and beauty in women who had not been looked upon with desire for decades. He regrew teeth in empty old gums, made hair sprout again on shiny scalps; joints became flexible again under his touch and scars simply vanished.

I suppose Leonard’s gift would eventually have been his downfall. Some rich merchant or prince would have made him their own private miracle-worker to give them eternal life. But before his fame could reach the cities, tragedy struck. The bird which had traveled with him since he had left his walled garden behind was flying above Leonard one afternoon, catching insects while he healed all-comers below, when a hawk suddenly swooped down from a great height. The bird fell to the ground, bleeding freely from the predator’s claws. Leonard would have hurried over to heal it but an old woman insisted that he make her young again first so that she might see what her grandchildren would grow up to be. By the time Leonard reached his only friend in the world, it was dead. He extended his hands to the tiny, limp body but the river of life within refused to flow. He closed his eyes and concentrated all his attention but the creature in his hands remained as lifeless as a lump of clay. Collapsing in grief, Leonard learned that while he had the power to restore youth and heal, he had no dominion over death.

When he finally rose he looked upon the world with new eyes. What a fool he had been. What arrogance to think that he could make a difference. The tide of death swept across the land every day and carried away souls both old and young – how could one man hold back the ocean? Death was surely the destiny of all things. He supposed even the sun would burn out and die for good one day. It was only a question of time.

He left the country and resolved to live like everyone else, using his talent only to find employment in the gardens of the rich who marveled at his skill in bringing the best out of their plants and trees. Leonard allowed himself to grow old and learned what punishments Nature had in store for those who dared to live out their lives. He learned what it was to ache in his bones, for his sight and hearing to fail, his mind to work more slowly and he noticed how his employers smiled at his senility when they thought he wasn’t looking. He felt Death was on his trail and that the end would not be far away now. As the leaves fell that year he guessed it might be the last autumn of his life.

Then he saw her.

She was just a peasant girl, carrying branches for her family’s fire that night but as she walked barefoot across the earth she was like a poem, a walking tribute to Youth. Her skin shone like the morning sunlight, her hips swayed like the flowers in the breeze and there was a sparkle in her eyes that reminded Leonard of water springing up from the earth. Just one more time, he said to himself.

The young girl’s family were surprised and delighted to meet the charming young man who presented himself the next day at their hut with an offer of marriage. The girl herself was quite taken with the handsome suitor who seemed so knowledgeable and widely-traveled. What’s more, he was a doctor and when he lent his services to her parents they declared they felt years younger.

She and Leonard bought the large house, famous until recently for its wonderful flowerbeds under a talented old gardener, and began to live the happiest of lives together. They raised two fine sons who, thanks to their father’s expertise, survived every childhood illness from the measles to scarlet fever. But there were, of course, other forces that Leonard could not control. War broke out and though Leonard was by now to be called up by the army, his two sons went off to fight and never returned. He and his wife were heartbroken and it seemed that the grief caused them to age faster than time alone. He allowed a year to pass and then one afternoon he walked her into the bathroom.

‘All that was can be again!’ he told her gently and turned her to face the mirror, He stood behind her and raised his hands to remove the years from her face and restore her old grey hair to the luscious black it had once been. He smiled as she gasped but then she pulled herself free of his hands and stared at him as though he was a total stranger.

‘You’re a demon!’ she stammered in revulsion. He smiled again and tried to explain but she pushed past him and ran through to the kitchen. He stood looking at his own leathery face in the mirror for a few moments. Should he have told her before? But if not for the loss of their sons he never would have needed to. He restored youth to his own body and walked through to the kitchen to convince his wife his gift was a blessing rather than a curse. He found her lying in a pool of blood with a knife buried in her chest. He placed his hands on her at once but it was already too late.

Leonard never loved again. Women loved him, of course; I could see it in their eyes: this man who seemed to belong to another world, so little did he care about this one. From time to time he would allow himself to grow a little older with one of them but then he would disappear to reinvent himself somewhere else, ten years younger.

As the centuries passed, Leonard grew more and more lonely as all the illusions began to drop away. He learned that kings and queens were as human as anyone else, that the world was not at the center of the universe and was certainly not flat. He watched as fashions came and went, wars were fought and lost, and religion slowly began to give way to reason. But so much knowledge, so much perspective, became too much of a burden to carry all by himself. The lives of others came and went so fast that he began to feel like a tree, watching gravely as each new generation arose, flourished, reproduced and then shriveled up again, returning to the dust they had come from.

He no longer felt any desire to join them however. For all the injustice and vain foolishness of humanity, Leonard kept on going due to an insatiable curiosity. As the world began to change faster and faster, he remained alive simply to see what would happen next. All he needed was someone to talk to about it.

I first met Leonard in 1836. I was a bright young student in his philosophy class as the time and I was quite under the spell of this respected professor who seemed to have an answer to everything. A devout Christian, I asked him why Adam and Eve had only eaten from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden – surely if they had eaten from the other Tree of Eternal Life then they would have had all the time in the world to learn all they wanted to know.

‘But who would want to live forever?’ he asked with a glint in his eye.

‘I, for one!’ I declared and we fell to laughing. Oh, how I wish I had never uttered those foolish words! I graduated, moved abroad and never expected to see Leonard again. It was forty years later, in the twilight of my life, that I opened the door of my house to see a young man who bore a striking resemblance to my old professor.

‘Might you be the grandson of Leonard Leben?’ I asked, not quite trusting my aging memory. The visitor smiled, took my hand and, as if in a dream, I felt the decades drop off me in moments.

Now by that time science and the Age of Reason had destroyed my faith in religion but I did find myself briefly wondering whether I had made a pact with the devil. We sat and talked all night and when Leonard departed in the morning I was convinced not only by the reality of the miracle but was filled with a new zest for life. I had the chance to do it all again! To learn from my mistakes and live life to the fullest!

Leonard continued to drop by every few years to keep me young and discuss the changing times, but I found myself looking forwards less and less to his visits. For though I witnessed the birth of new ideas, marvelous new inventions and sweeping social revolutions, in my heart I suspected that Progress was something of a smokescreen. Humanity wasn’t getting any better, after all. For all our bold new beliefs and impressive tools, it was self-interest that continued to make the world turn. The cost of living seemed to always be a price we hoped someone else would pay.

Or perhaps I just began to see the world through the lens of my own personal tragedy. Condemned to mourn all those I had loved, my heart broke too many times to ever heal again and I longed to join my wives and children in the grave. But, see, no matter where I hide myself, Leonard always finds me. I went off to wars in the hope of catching a stray bullet but the one time a piece of shrapnel lodged itself in my chest, an all-too-familiar face turned up to be my doctor in the medical tent.

Naturally, I thought about suicide. Even tried it a couple of times. But I learned there are people who can do it and people who can’t. When it came down to it, I could no more take my own life than I could eat a rock or breath underwater.

And so here I am. A prisoner of life. A hostage in time. Denied my right to die until Leonard finally lets me go.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10159247@N04/ - Rusty Russ

But though the earth had long ago become hard and infertile so that only the resilient olive and fig trees managed to thrive, Kalos was spared the poverty of the neighbouring islands by an extraordinary circumstance – the island enjoyed the most beautiful sunsets that anyone had ever seen. Thousands came from far and wide each summer just to spend a few days drinking raki and eating fish lunches, patiently waiting for the early evening hour when this isolated little village was transformed into the most beautiful place in the world.

No one was ever quite prepared for their first sunset on Kalos. They’d seen the sun go down countless times before, how different could this be? But then the sun would reach a certain angle in the sky, the length of two outstretched palms above the horizon, and the atmosphere seemed to melt; light fell on every surface like the adoring gaze of a lover, softening colours, smoothing out edges and everything glowed under the kind attention of the setting sun.

Frowns were replaced with smiles, grudges were allowed to slip away and whether people came together on the terraces of the quayside restaurants or sat alone on a rock gazing thoughtfully west, they all knew in their hearts at that moment what a beautiful world it was and how lucky they were to be alive.

In the enchanting light the chat in the cafes fell quiet as all the politics and philosophy the customers argued about suddenly seemed quite absurd. Even the village priest who wrote eloquent sermons about how the glorious sunsets were surely a proof of an all-powerful, all-knowing God – even he found himself without words when confronted with the miracle of light itself and in that moment he probably couldn’t have said just what it was that he believed.

What began as an enchantment swiftly evolved into a magic show. Slithers of bright green would streak across the sky close to the sea and a rosy haze might cast a blush around the sun that shone a yellow as soft as butter. Tufts of cloud floated in from nowhere to reflect the concert of light across the sea that always grew calm at this hour, becoming a mirror of the swirling reds, greens and blues that daubed the sky with pure emotion.

The sun would slide ever closer to the horizon and people found themselves on the edge of their chairs, watching with baited breath as the god of the hour took his farewell bow and began to slip slowly but surely over the lip of the western sky, a fanfare of colour saluting his departure. In the moment the sun vanished there was an instinctive cry of dismay and it was hard to find a dry face in sight, eyes glistening everywhere in a kind of ecstatic grief, a longing intensified by the amber radiance that arose from the sun’s death bed, a sense of loss that could hardly entertain the notion that it would return the next day.

Then, when the embers of the sunset had turned a dark, smoky red and the moon and stars tried in vain to follow such an act with their pale, ghostly light, only then would people begin to sigh and pour themselves another drink, turn towards loved ones and wonder how they could have forgotten how lucky they were to have each other.

It was said that a glimpse of the wonderful sunsets could also be seen in the eyes of the local women but few tourists ever got the chance to verify that. Kalos was a deeply conservative island and the women occupied themselves out of sight with their household chores, rarely venturing out across the village square and certainly not when boats arrived from the mainland.

Instead the women of Kalos enjoyed their freedom by walking up the mountain to gather wild figs and trade flour with the shepherds for the milk of their goats. Far from the watchful eyes of the local community, the girls’ voices could be heard singing and laughing like the streams that came tumbling down the slopes in the spring and they danced and chased one another in a way that would have been considered quite scandalous in town.

If the rumours of feminine beauty on the island were often exaggerated, no one would have denied that a little of the sunsets could be seen at least in the face of Dea, a 17 year old girl with long black hair that flooded from her head like strands of the night; her eyes were phosphorescent green and a rosy light lit up her cheeks. Her lips curled like the horizon and her skin seemed to be imbued with the soft amber light of the late afternoon.

Like many beautiful girls, Dea had no idea just how lovely she was and knew little of men other than that she was to avoid them if she wanted to maintain the honour of her family. So it was with utter shock that she skipped out of the forest one day up on the mountain with a basket full of figs and almost collided with the old painter. His face was grave and austere and his leathery hands caught her by the shoulders and he held her tight, staring at her intently with his old, grey eyes. Dea wanted to scream but no sound came out and only by squirming hard did she manage to slip free of the old man’s grasp and run down the mountain, leaving her basket behind her. The painter stood where he was, silently watching her depart.

By the time Dea had reached the old dry river bed she had recovered her calm and only lamented having lost her basket. It wouldn’t do to tell her family what had happened and so she began to construct a story about a mischievous young goat that had snatched her basket away and dashed down a mountain path too steep to follow.

But as it happened no one even noticed the missing basket as the first large ferry of the summer had arrived and the town was a-buzz with busy restaurant kitchens preparing dinners and families cleaning out their spare rooms to rent. Word of the legendary sunsets was evidently spreading and the people of Kalos looked forwards to a profitable summer.

Dea herself quickly joined in the hum of activity and her mother sent her down to the back garden to beat the dust out of the carpet and blankets intended for the guest room and this she did willingly, even though she knew it meant missing the first part of the sunset. At least no one had noticed the missing basket. Now that she thought of the encounter earlier in the day a smile came to her face – the old man had been alone for so long that he had probably been as scared as she was! He might even bring the basket back, she mused.

She had almost finished with the blankets and was getting ready to go and watch the sunset when she heard distant cries of alarm and anger from the quayside. She left what she was doing and hurried around the side of the house and saw her two brothers running down the path towards her, their faces flushed molten red in fury. Without saying a word, they rudely grabbed her arm and dragged her up the steps to the porch.

“What is the meaning of that?” they yelled wildly. Dea looked back at them in confusion but then followed their accusatory fingers towards the western sky where, above the horizon there floated a portrait painted with all the hues of the sunset; smoky red lips set against an amber complexion, flashing green eyes and stands of night descending as hair – it was unquestionably a portrait of Dea herself.

She rubbed her eyes, glanced at her brothers who stood trembling with anger, then once more looked back at her perfect likeness set in the sky for all to see and promptly fainted.

She awoke with cold water thrown on her face and found her mother and brothers gathered around her where she’d been sat on a wooden chair in the kitchen.

“How could you bring shame on the family like this?” her mother wailed.

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” Dea shrieked.

“How do you expect to get married after this?” her eldest brother yelled, “Who was it? The miller’s son? Did one of the shepherds follow you into the forest?”

“There’s nobody!” Dea screamed, her head swirling in what she hoped might turn out to be just a bad dream, “I didn’t meet anyone in the forest, I… the painter…”she murmured, suddenly remembering her encounter earlier in the day. “But where are you going? He didn’t do anything!” she cried at the murderous look on her brothers’ faces who exchanged a fierce glare and stormed out of the house. She would have run after them but her mother held her back and a moment later they were gone into the night.

Dea’s mother wouldn’t speak to her all evening and time dragged as she tried to absorb herself in her sewing. Eventually fatigue got the better of her and she drifted off in the chair where she sat and her needle went tumbling to the floor when her brothers marched in later that night, sacks slung over their shoulders. Without saying a word they emptied the bags and five canvasses fell to the floor. They glanced at Dea meaningfully and then went off to their beds.

Dea knelt down to pick up the canvasses that had fallen to the floor and discovered that the first four were paintings of the sunset and, for a moment, she felt she was looking through a window at the sky itself; the colours floated before her with a radiant depth and the setting sun glowed such a fierce red that she feared she might burn her fingers if she were to touch it.

The wonder she felt at the old painter’s skill turned to fear and confusion, however, when she picked up the fifth painting; there, above the placid blue sea and simmering sky, was the very scene that had scandalised the village that night; her face painted above the horizon with such detail and vibrancy that it was like looking in a mirror.

Her hands trembled and her head began to swirl as she tried to understand what was happening. How did the old man have the power to do this? And why had he chosen her? She realised just how little anyone knew about the painter and shivered as she wondered what her brothers might have done to him.

As it happened the painter wasn’t home when Dea’s brothers had puffed their way up the mountain to his house. Pushing his creaky door open, they lit a candle and it didn’t take them long to find the evidence. It was quickly apparent that the old man repainted over old canvasses to save money and that explained why he only needed to come down to the village for new supplies once or twice a year – he’d get a rude shock if he came down any time soon, they growled to themselves. To make their point they emptied the pots of paint all over the floor and snapped all the brushes into little pieces.

The painter himself had been walking high up in the hills, his eyes drinking in the moonlight falling on the distant waves, the soft, blue radiance falling like a soundless rain, making everything it touched sacred.

And yet for the first time in his life it was not enough.

He’d spent all of his 60 years here on the mountain in a lifelong love affair with light. He revered everything that light touched and saw miracles in every glint of water in the stream, longing in the dark shadows cast by the tall pines.

But now as he walked among the trees, stripes of moonlight falling on his stocky body as he went, he could only see one image in his mind: the beautiful young face of Dea. After a lifetime of painting the sunsets he felt like he had only begun to learn the meaning of colour in her bright red lips, her hypnotic green eyes. All the beauty and magic of nature seemed concentrated in her face and he no longer wanted to paint anything else.

The painter was so obsessed with the vision of Dea that he didn’t even notice the chaos her brothers had left in his house and went to bed dreaming only of her. The next day when he saw the sun was sinking low in the sky and the hour was approaching for him to create yet another stunning sunset, he picked up the end of a broken brush from the floor and tied it to the index finger of his left hand with a strand of his own hair. Then, stepping outside, he took the sky itself as his canvas and began to paint another portrait of Dea above the horizon in homage to her beauty.

To create her complexion he dipped his finger-brush into a small dish of butter, daubing her likeness with bold strokes on the sky; to get the colour right for her eyes he dipped his brush into the sun and then mixed it with a patch of blue sky until he got the green he was looking for; he pricked himself with a pin and squeezed out a drop of blood to get the colour of her lips and he painted her cascading hair by using the black of the approaching night in the eastern sky.

Satisfied with his work, the painter stood back and gazed in awe at the portrait of Dea now floating above the horizon. He fell to his knees in tribute and knew in his heart that he would never paint another sunset ever again.

*

“Do you know what they’re saying about you in the marketplace?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong!” Dea yelled back.

“Then why isn’t someone else’s sister hovering like a shameless ghost in the sky? Why did the painter choose you?”

“How should I know? Ask him!”

“We’ll do better than that – we’ll show him what comes of ruining a girl’s reputation

The more she complained the more time he spent at work and he began to dread the weekends when the brooding storm of the preceding days would suddenly erupt.

‘Not in front of the children, dear!’ he would beg her, a remark that would provoke further outbursts of rage, as she would tearfully declare she wished she had listened to her mother and never married him at all.

Jonathan began to come home later and later each night, passing the evening hours under the harsh white glare of the office lights, drinking instant coffee from the machine and envying every carefree soul on the street below their freedom as he looked out of the window, checking his watch to see if his wife might be asleep yet.

One evening his eyes fixed upon a homeless man wearing an oversized coat who walked around in circles aimlessly. Now there’s freedom, Jonathan thought; no other worries than how to fill his belly each day and where to sleep each night – the poor fool doesn’t know how lucky he is!

On a sudden impulse he got two cups of thin, sickly sweet coffee from the vending machine and took the elevator down to the ground floor. Ignoring the curious look of the security guard, he walked out into the street to meet the tramp and immediately regretted not bringing his jacket with him, so crisp was the night air.

‘I can’t find it,’ the homeless man told him, ignoring the outstretched offer of a cup of coffee.

‘Find what?’ Jonathan asked.

‘My box! I’ve lost it – have you seen it anywhere?’

Jonathan’s first urge was to flee to the cosy retreat of his office and the security of his spreadsheets but he felt a charitable urge to humour the poor man.

‘There, there, I’m sure you’ll find it, this box of yours, was there anything special inside it?’ he said, this time successfully managing to set one of the cups of coffee in the homeless man’s hand. He received only a blank look in return, however, and so he smiled and asked: ‘Well, anyway, what’s your name, my good man?’

The tramp’s lips moved as if to answer but then froze and it was apparent from the sudden look of panic on his face that he no longer remembered. Trembling, he dropped the coffee on the ground, turned and ran away.

That helpless, lost expression haunted Jonathan throughout the evening and when he finally turned off his computer and made his way to the company parking lot, he wasn’t entirely surprised to find a cardboard box on the hood of his car. Shaking his head ruefully, he was about to throw it in the gutter but hesitated – there was something so good and reassuring about cardboard, after all. It had such a straightforward and useful function, qualities so rare in the complicated, modern world. So he threw the box on the back seat and drove home. Who knew but he might even meet its owner on the way?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnx62/ John X

‘And I married the strangest man who spends more time with his computer than he does with me!’

Five minutes later, Jonathan walked out of the house with his wife shouting behind him, ‘Why don’t you sleep at your office as you seem to live there!’ He heard the sound of one of the children crying, awoken by the row as he marched indignantly down to his car. Did she think that money grew on trees? For whom was he working so hard, after all?

He got in the driver’s seat and briefly considered renting a hotel room and perhaps buying some company for the night – as many of his colleagues did. But somehow he knew that no matter how bad things got he just wasn’t the kind of man to make that kind of betrayal. Finally he decided to just stretch out on the back seat and found the cardboard box there. Who would have guessed it would come in so handy? He smiled to himself as he placed his head inside to block out the light from the street lamps.

He slept longer and more sweetly than he had in months. So deeply, in fact, that he only awoke at noon the next day. He glanced at his watch in panic and drove down to the office without a shower or change of clothes. He was surprised to see no other cars in the parking lot, however, and the security guard couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face when he informed Jonathan that, it being a Saturday and all, no one else had come to work that day.

Jonathan drove slowly home, puzzled at his mistake. He bought some flowers for his wife on the way and spent an uncomfortable Saturday trying to be the model father and husband. A strained peace prevailed but even as he cooked the pasta and helped his oldest child with her homework, he could only think of one thing.

The cardboard box in the back of the car.

He began to worry someone might break in and steal it, no doubt imagining it contained something valuable. Announcing that he was just popping out to get some milk, Jonathan hurried out to where his car was parked down the road and with some relief found the box waiting for him on the back seat. He opened the door, climbed in and patted it fondly. He then felt the strong urge to put the box on his head.

Well, why not? he chuckled to himself. What harm could it do, after all? Checking that no one was coming, he picked it up and, placing it on his head, he found…instant peace. His problems, his worries were all now on the outside, far away. Inside there was only the present moment, warm and secure. It was such a good and restful place that he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t found such a simple solution before. Emerging an hour or so later, he felt strong and ready to tackle the world again but also a little self-conscious. Were those teenage boys on the corner over there laughing at him? A man sitting in a car with a box on his head probably did seem a little foolish to those who didn’t understand. He’d better find a quiet place to keep it.

Jonathan’s wife watched through the window as he walked over to the storage room at the side of the house with a cardboard box under his arm and a slightly furtive look on his face. So that’s where he’d been, she smiled to herself. The next day was their youngest son’s birthday and she was glad that as absent a father as her husband had been recently, at least he remembered the most important things.

‘What do you mean you forgot?’ Jonathan’s wife howled at him the next morning. ‘Have you any idea how important today is to him? Get out and don’t come back without a present!’

Jonathan backed apologetically out of the house and winced as the door slammed in his face. How had he ever forgotten his son’s birthday? Of course, it was useless to point out that it was Sunday and all the shops were closed. Perhaps though he might find something in the storage room that would do, maybe an old cricket bat or a pair of boxing gloves…

He found nothing but a dusty old stamp collection and a broken fishing rod that might do, however. He briefly considered giving his son the cardboard box – did not children often have more fun with the packaging that the toys? But he doubted whether his wife or his son would see it that way and besides, it was his box. The only thing in his entire life that truly did belong to him. He heard his children come awake and run outside to the front garden, their excited voices lifting in play. How had he ever forgotten his son’s birthday? Feeling an overwhelming urge to drown out the shame for just a moment, he put the box on his head.

He removed it only when the sun had long gone down and the house had fallen quiet. The moment his head emerged he felt truly ashamed of himself and threw the box into the corner of the storage room in a fit of despair. Miserably, he let himself into the house and climbed the stairs to his bedroom, not daring to look in on the children. He could tell from the sound of his wife’s breathing that she lay awake in the dark and she flinched when he tried to put his arm around her.

‘Are you having an affair?’ she whispered without turning to face him.

‘Come now, Lydia, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever-’

‘Lydia? My name is Laura!’ she screamed and buried her head in her pillow, sobbing uncontrollably.

When Jonathan returned from work the next evening he knew in his heart what he would find: the house was empty. There was a note on the table but it didn’t seem worth reading . He knew by now he was beyond the point of no return. At least now he wouldn’t have to hide it any longer. His wife had taken most of the furniture with her and so, bringing the cardboard box into the house, he set it in the middle of the living room. He got down to his knees and crawled in.

The next day (or was it two days later?) he got dressed to go to work but found he couldn’t remember where it was he worked or even what he did, exactly. He drove in increasingly unlikely circles for an hour or so and then just went home. To his box. It was the only place that made any sense any more.

He stopped washing and ate only what he found in the refrigerator that offered him less and less appealing combinations each time he opened the door. The phone rang from time to time but he couldn’t imagine who it might be or what they could possibly want from him. His first contact with the outside world for weeks came only when he eventually responded to a persistent banging at the front door and met some rather determined-looking men who informed him he had to leave the house as it now belonged to them.

He nodded and walked out of the door with the cardboard box under his arm, wearing only a pair of slippers and a dressing gown.

Once out in the street he understood what the men had really been after and grinned to himself at how neatly he had fooled them. Still, he had better not take any more chances – even now he could feel the eyes of everyone in the street staring at his box! It was surely only a matter of time before they tried to take it from him! Just let them try! He snarled viciously at an old lady who happened to glance nervously at him as she passed.

He slept with his head in the box in parks, cemeteries and the doorways of shops. He would clutch it close to him when he went to silently beg a little of yesterday’s bread from a bakery or to use the toilet in a fast food restaurant. At other times though he took to hiding it in increasingly imaginative places. But no sooner would he walk away, chuckling to himself at the ingenuity of his hiding place than he would be overcome by an attack of nerves and hurry back to retrieve it. Until eventually came the terrible afternoon when he completely forgot where he had hidden it. He roamed the town looking for his box far and wide, asking everyone he met whether they had seen it. But to no avail. Day after day his every waking moment became obsessed with the search until a fortnight later he grabbed the sleeve of a passing priest and stammered:

‘Have you…have you seen it anywhere?

‘What have you lost, my son?’

But he couldn’t remember.

And so he joined the ranks of those who came before him, the procession of lost souls who walk the streets, searching for something, they just don’t know what exactly.

I expect you’ve seen them.

In the middle of a story

Here are some of my latest stories to listen to as you’re falling asleep, on a bus or just in the mood for a bit of imaginative storytelling.

I’ll be adding more stories from time to time and eventually make them available to download.

If you like them you can help me out by spreading the word – even just clicking the facebook like button means your friends can enjoy the stories too.

And I’d love to hear what you think about the tales so please comment!
The Wishing Well by tomroadjunky

An old curse: may all your wishes be granted.

The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon

The most tragic of all love stories.

The Tale of When I Met Father Christmas – the Tramp

Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of vodka around an oil can fire?

A Night in Fairyland

It takes two to fly, apparently…

The Story of the Dragon Slayers

Your deepest secrets are the worst weapon imaginable.

The Story of Katya and the Moonlight Dancers

A girl in a village in the far north of Russia discovers a terrible secret on the lake on the other side of the hill.

The Kissing Tribe

When I was an angry young man I hit the road to leave society behind. In the hills of Pakistan I found a tribe that changed my life forever.

The Three Thieving Demons

Three demons have a contest to see who can steal what is most important to humanity.

The Inichua – the Amazonian Tribe That Believed Everything by Storiesoftomthumb

A tribe with no word in their language for ‘to lie’ was kicked out of the Colombian jungle by the 50 ear old civil war. I was there when they first arrived in the cities.

The Tale of Tails

I went walking in the desert of Egypt and found some cave paintings that suggested a new perspective on our evolution as a species.

The King of Chocolate

We are what we eat…

The Tale of Abu Hasan and the Fart – 1001 Nights

The classic tale from 1001 Nights.

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.