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.
