(New) The Tiniest of Things, A Merlin Story, By John Pirillo

The Tiniest of Things

Merlin

By John Pirillo

Indigo, or Merlin, whichever. Doesn't matter. He'd been called both and otherwise. And no name ever fit him as well as his own name at any given moment. He never gave away his true name, not even as a child. For to know one's name was to give them power over you, or you over them. So it just wasn't done. How he knew that? He didn't know.

Mother and Father Tree were oftentimes puzzled at the way he did things. He wasn't like the other human children they had come to know and love, but different. Very. Very. Different.

As he sat there on a toadstool examining a tiny fly washing its face, he came to the conclusion that all life, whether big or small, cared about its self disposition...even if only in such small matters as one's looks. He had also come to the conclusion that looks was as far as most creatures, including humans, ever ventured to, let alone beyond.

So it was with no small amount of effort that he began that day trying to show more interest in others than him. No one had told him to. Just a tiny voice inside his head. Some might call that a Whisperer, or Guardian Angel, or Fairy Godmother, or intuition, or whatever, he just called it the right thing to do.

"Indigo." A tiny voice called out.

He looked down from his mushroom and spotted Carrie Tiger. She wasn't a real tiger. She just had the stripes of one and long gray whiskers that spouted from either side of her nostrils, giving her a most catlike appearance. Many of the younger children about them fended her off, shied from her, kept their distance, but he thought nothing of her appearance. After all, he was Indigo, Child of Thunder, and Merlin. A child born from lightning and thunder. Who was he to judge anyone by their appearance, when he himself was just a tiny squirt in the existence of so many giants...real giants...and others of giant stature?

You see, as a child, he knew he was small, but only of body, but he also knew he had advantages as well as disadvantages from being that short. As a child he could milk the older creatures and humans with endless questions that might have bordered on insulting or a waste of time in another mouth than his, but from his, brought forth tiny smiles and nods of appreciation, somehow seeing this tiny human, wearing long robes and walking with a juniper stick as some kind of unique creature that required the most careful of attention.

He never dissuaded them from that perception. He fed it.

But this day it was another tiny thing calling upon him. Tiny thing to tiny thing. He smiled. Nice thought. He'd have to write it down in his diaries when he became a grown man.

"Yes, Carrie Tiger." He replied, hanging over the edge of the very tall mushroom he had climbed to the top of. He had no idea how he was going to climb down again, that was for a later time to figure out.

She waved. "Can I come up and play?"

He frowned. That was the most profound question he'd been asked all day. Treestump had asked him for the time of day, and he had told him. Merry Weather had blown in on a cloud of daisies and asked him where the lake was and he had told her. Jumping Juniper Tree had broken a limb and asked for a splint and he had supplied that. No problems in any of those requirements, but here he was stumped. How did he get her up the tall mushroom and beside him?

"I don't know if I can." He finally ventured.

She frowned.

"But I wanna play with you."

"I'm not playing. I'm watching a fly wash its face."

She jumped up and down, waving her arms. "I wanna see. I wanna see."

Then he got struck by a great idea. He hollered over to Father Tree who was bathing his head in a large puddle of water left from last night's rains. "Father, can you lift Carrie up to where I sit?"

He had stood up, water dripping from every branch and leaf of his head, until his eyes were watering from the downpour. "What Merlin?"

"Carrie wants to come up and sit with me."

"Oh. Her!"

Father Tree stepped forward with three great steps, and then leaned down so she could embrace the top of his lower branch. She climbed on and held to it tight as he marched to where Merlin sat. She leaped from the branch and landed beside him.

"Wheee!" She cried out, and then began to spin in circles.

He stopped her by tugging on her tail.

"Ouch!" She cried out, giving him a very stern look. "That hurt!"

"The fly hurts even more. You stepped on him!"

Her eyes went wide and she began to cry. "Oh, Indigo, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to!"

She dropped beside him and he held up the tiny crushed creature. Its back legs flopped weakly into the air, as if it wanted to right itself, but hadn't the strength.

"You must save it." She told him, having every expectancy that he would be able to.

He blew on the tiny creature and its fluttering stopped.

"Oh no!" She cried out. "It's died."

But no it hadn't. For the very next moment it flipped over onto its legs and began washing its face again, paying neither one of us any particular attention.

Carrie Tiger clapped her hands in delight.

"You did it. You did it."

"Actually." He told her. "I didn't."

"But you blew on it and it revived."

"Yes. True. But I don't know why that worked."

She gave him a stern look. "Are you telling me, Indigo, that you have no real magic?"

"No. I'm telling you that I didn't do that."

She put her furry hands on her hips and made a face. "Well someone did!" She pointed out accusingly, as if that settled the matter.

He gave it no more thought, as her attention shot away to a small caterpillar that was crawling onto the top of the mushroom. "Catie Pilar." She laughed and crawled to watch it walk.

He waited until the fly was finished with washing its face, and then said. "Fly away my little friend."

The fly inclined its head in what could not be mistaken for anything other than a bow, and buzzed off like a rocket across the mushrooms tops, soon lost to view.

Later Merlin had sat with his back against Mother Tree's bark and asked her. "Mother, why did that fly come back to life when I blew on it?"

"Did you want it to?"

"Yes. Very much so. My heart hurt like someone had shot an arrow through it."

She caressed my long hair with one of her hand branches and began singing lightly.

"A caring heart

With soft explain

Will carry love

To all domains.

So if you pain

And if you sorrow

Love will heal you

Morrow and morrow."

He didn't understand the meaning of the words that night, but after he woke up the next morning, huddled at her feet, he remembered the words. 

"Mother."

"Yes, son."

" I love you."

"And I love you." She replied.

And that is how he learned that love is stronger than magic, than spells and wondrous wands of power.