![]() An Urban Faerie TailA Story by Tristyn![]() Faeries may not be what we expect them to be, but they are real, and they are among us.![]() Once upon a time... Well, maybe I should give you a bit of background on us first. If you’d rather not hear it, skip to the next part for the story.
How do I describe faeries to humans? It’s like trying
to describe the beauty of a waterfall to a blind and deaf person. We don’t have
the means to explain it, and you don’t have the means to understand. But I
shall do my best. In that regard, I may be the best ‘person’ for the job. I am
the most human-like of the elders. This makes our metaphor more like; trying to
explain the beauty of a waterfall to a blind and deaf person " through Braille.
Our stories are not by any means rare. There is a
reason they are called fairy tales. And the fairies at the bottom of the
garden? That was us. But we are so much more than that.
We were born from the same primordial soup as you, but
we developed differently. We became insubstantial, surviving on ‘cgaba’ alone. The
‘cg’ is pronounced like your letter ‘h’ with a sort of growl in the middle,
making it sound like ‘hkha-ba’. Cgaba is a simplified version of the word we
use to describe that which we ‘feed’ on. I suppose the closest approximation I
can come to is the spiritual energy of all living creatures. That which drives
you to believe in something bigger than yourselves, to strive for growth, and
betterment, and something more than just existence. But let me clarify " when
we feed, there is no depletion in your cgaba. It is a sharing of energy " you
give us energy and form, and we give you hope and ambition.
As humankind developed, moving towards today’s
society, we grew with you, leaving behind the simple, uncomplicated energy
given off by primitive creatures. We gave form to that which you believed in.
We became your spirits, your gods, even your demons. But as you grew, so too,
did the chance for evil, the potential for violence.
We survived " most of us " by developing strict rules.
Any faerie who committed acts of violence against another was immediately
sentenced to ‘hacgé’ " the afterlife. It is not death, for we do not die, but
it is an end of existence. Those who are weary of their lives may voluntarily
go to hacgé. It is rather like a large hollow in time and space where we meld with
those around us, losing ourselves to create new life. We expand our species
using this method " we grow from small pulses of energy to large beings as we
feed.
But the time came when the hacgé was not enough to rid
us of violence. We are not an inherently violent people, but it comes upon us
when we feed on too much human violence. The elders gathered " those of us who
had seen history itself unfold before us, like the red carpet being rolled out
for visiting royalty " to discuss what was happening. Finally, we decided "
after much careful debate " to create a world for ourselves " separate, yet united.
We called together the faeries who were most human " the most creative,
intelligent, and forward-thinking among us " to design and create our new
world. We drew on the stories your kind had so kindly created for us, and we
built a world within a world.
In essence, we created a world that, like us, existed
because of your ability to imagine. And like us, it grows even now, with TV,
the internet, electronic games, phones, and all the other gadgets that
supposedly wither the human imagination. True, it is a poor sort of food
compared to that of our ancestors, but there is so much more of it. Every human
on the planet has imagined something different at one point in their life. From
playing with fairies in the back yard, to having imaginary friends, to
imagining what you’d do if you won the lottery, to wishing the weekend would
come faster.
However " there are very few people who can see us,
and it’s even rarer to be sighted, because you can’t see into our world, and
most of us have no need to come out. Most of the time, it’s children who see
us, because their views are not yet rigid, and they can see that we are there.
But no human can ever see our true form. Your mind will only see what it wants
to see, and as such, we are fettered by your perspective, forced into the
shapes your mind creates.
Even children usually see us as human " like the
stereotypical fairy with a human body the size of a hand and wings. Or we are
ascribed human characteristics and personalities. Most of the stories you’ve
heard about something out-of-the-ordinary happening " that was us, just popping
in to say hi.
But that’s quite enough of our history now " you’ll be
wanting to move on to the faerie’s tail now. So, on with the story!
_______________________________________ Once upon a time... I’m waiting for the train,
like usual. I’m looking around, which is not usual. I’ve normally got my nose
buried in a book, hoping for the train to hurry up because it’s cold. But today
I finished my book on the first section of my journey home. As my eyes scan
across the wall opposite me, I catch a dart of movement. It comes from the
brick opening that I always thought was there so if someone falls on the tracks
they can duck in there and not get run over by the train. I stare at the
doorway, thinking that maybe I imagined it. My mind goes wild with all the
possibilities, and I decide to play pretend instead of zoning out. I imagine
that there’s a creature in there, and it’s going to come out and play with me.
And then I actually see something. A little white nose peeks
out of the doorway, and a small winged unicorn trots out, following the
ledge made by the square gutter running along the length of the platform. It’s
exactly as I’d imagined, but somehow, it’s not quite right. It’s as if it
should be something else. So it changes, morphing first into a squirrel, then a
cat, then into a small creature, about the size of my hand, creeping along the
ledge. It’s got a long bushy tail, as long as its body, and it has
dappled brown fur that somehow manages to mingle every shade of brown under the
sun. Well... all the nice ones anyway. It’s gorgeous, but it’s too small to see
properly, so it grows a bit more for me, until it’s as long as my forearm. It
has the most intelligent chocolate brown eyes, and I can see the hint of
mischief as it looks at me.
All of a sudden, it darts
forward and makes a mad leap straight up into the air, catching itself on one
of the bulgy bits in the wall, swinging itself up. It’s heading right for the
top, but the bank of concrete doesn’t leave it any place to grip, so it dashes
over to the side, jumping from the bumps in the wall to the pipes hanging out
and finally onto the patch of grass growing on the side of the wall right where
it juts out. The creature then scurries up the brick, and runs to sit on the
top of the concrete, right over the section it couldn’t climb before. It grins
at me... as much as an animal can grin, and then leaps over the edge towards
the tracks, finally catching itself on the last bulge.
I smile to myself, and
look around furtively to see if anyone else has noticed. They haven’t. They’re
all too busy looking for the train and waiting impatiently. I can hear the
train coming in, and I look back to the creature. It’s already on the move,
almost back to the doorway. It hops in, and right before the train pulls in,
leans out and pulls a silly face at me. I almost burst out into laughter, but
since no-one else can see him, I’d look kinda foolish.
I’m still thinking about
him as the train pulls away. I look up, and he’s running along the one of the
train tracks beside us. He moves like molten metal, muscles bunching under his
fur. He makes it look easy, but he’s running pretty fast to keep up with the
train. He’s on the furthest track, but as we approach the next station, he
leaps across between the tracks, coming closer. He leaps onto the outside of
the train, but can’t keep a grip, so he back flips onto the other tracks again
and runs ahead. When the train stops, he’s halfway up a pole grinning at me. He
darts in before anyone can step on him, and shimmies up the grip to perch on
the top.
He waits until everyone’s
on, then starts moving. He swirls down around the pole, then leaps for the top
of the door and runs across to the other side. He leaps around the carriage,
performing marvellous acts of daring, flipping his body around like crazy,
balancing and catching himself with his beautiful tail. We stop at the next
station, and there’s a tree on the platform, which he promptly climbs, sitting
and looking for all the world like he belongs there. The doors start to close
and he runs back, flicking his tail out of the way at the last moment, before
running to the top of the hand rail to look back at me. I look away, pretending
nonchalance, and he squeals, trying to keep my attention. He runs to the top of
the steps and grins at me again.
Through the rest of the
trip, we play look and catch. I look away, he tries to catch my attention.
Although it’s not needed " even when I’m not looking at him, I know exactly
where he is and what he’s doing. When it’s time to get off the train, he pops
out and swirls around the roof supports, then leaps of and darts ahead of me as
I walk up the stairs. There are a lot of people, so he runs along the
banisters, then finally clings sideways to the walls. As we go down the stairs
on the other side, he gives up and attaches himself to the roof, following just
ahead of me, keeping me in his peripherals the whole way.
He clambers across the
walls, leaping to the top of the vending machines, until finally, we’re out of
the station and there’s no more people around. He runs on the ground for a
while, but it seems to bore him, so he leaps and swings from the trees, then
walks across the top of the bushes. We play look and catch again on the walk
home, until we reach the bridge over the train tracks, and I tell him he should
go home to his mother.
Already I can see that
it’s getting harder to concentrate on him. My mind is starting to drift, and
he’s losing substance as I struggle with
the wind. He leaps down onto the wires that run above the tracks, but it’s too
far for him to jump straight down, so he hops back up to the bridge and runs to
the side, where he waves at me before leaping down the bushy embankment to the tracks.
I follow him with my mind
on the way home, so that he can show his mum the body the nice human gave him
for a while. In my mind’s eye, I can see him dash along the tracks, moving so
fast that he seems to be nothing more than a blur of light. He’s home, and I
can hear him calling as he dashes in the doorway.
I can see his mother take
shape before me, and while it makes sense to one part of my brain, I know that
this isn’t quite right for either of them. They have no concept of gender, or
motherhood. As it starts to get vague, I pull away, bidding them farewell. They
wave, and are gone, and I’m left to think of them as I walk up the rest of the
hill. It lightens my heart a little more with each step, each thought.
Today I met a faerie, and
his tail. © 2014 TristynAuthor's Note
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2 Reviews Added on May 13, 2014 Last Updated on May 13, 2014 Author![]() TristynSydney, NSW, AustraliaAboutI am an avid reader, and from the age of two, when I first started to read, I have been checking out of reality to take on all sorts of new adventures. I have been dabbling in writing for years, an.. more..Writing
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