Stories for kids and other smarty pants

One day Michael and Jessie were walking on their regular way to school, when, all of a sudden, Michael decided to speak his mind.

Jessie, it doesn’t seem to me like this street is haunted. Don’t you think?

You know, I think you’re right! Let’s haunt it then!

Great! Let’s!

So they dropped all plans of going to school, like any one of us might, and proceeded to haunt the street. They randomly followed passers from a close distance, murmuring such usual things like: I’m hungry for fresh pointy noses! or Your socks lie when they say they don’t know where they are taking you!. The most popular by far was: Why did you leave me in the war, Russel, why? Women in particular seemed to be quite perplexed by this general haunting and quite a few of them wanted to know more about Russel. Jessie then proceeded to give them Russel’s phone number. He was the neighbor’s friendly basset hound, the loneliest pet in the neighborhood. He could use a few new friends.

All went well until disaster struck! Michael was shadowing a tall, skinny boy, who was wearing jean shorts and leather boots in the middle of the summer, and a hot summer at that.

Foiled by my own brother! he said. Eliminating me was not enough, you had to destroy my time machine!

But your time machine didn’t work, you blockhead! I had to rebuild it all by myself! And now that it’s almost ready you’re not going to stop me!

Then Jessie came in to save the day.

I will fly my magical curb to your tree tent and destroy your time machine if you lay one hand on my second cousin’s girlfriend’s brother’s roommate!

Ha! I have hidden my time machine somewhere you will never, ever find it!

Where?!

I don’t know! I forgot! So you will never, ever find it!

Fine! Michael started again. Jeremiah Beatrice Cosmo the Second please come next to me so that we may sprinkle teleport dust on us without making a mess!

Surely! Jessie said and skipped from the curb to the fence in a flash.

Now hit this man with your flashlight!

Jessie grabbed tore a chestnut leaf and swooshed it towards the stranger.

He is of the Meteor Clan! she said.

I see. Want to haunt the street with us, then?

Sure! My name is Sam. What’s yours?

I’m Michael, this is Jessie. Russel’s a dog.

Cool. So what now?

Let’s go over to my place. I have a plan!

The boat sailed and there were no rocks that it did not hit and no trees that it did not scratch and no dust that it didn’t raise. But it sailed. It floated across the stone as if repelled by the mountain itself, it hovered like a speck in sunlight and it dripped to the top of the mountain swinging and crashing but steadily moving ahead.

And on the deck there was Arthur, seasick and lonely and tired from the crashing and murmuring of the trees that cursed at him for ripping and tearing the branches that no mortal had even laid eyes on. And he was torn for being despised and ill willed by all that he encountered and he wondered how this had come to be.

But there was a voice that stayed with him and murmured through the noise. A voice like a memory, like his mothers voice sounded in his mind. Only thinner and sandier. Like the dry bed of a river that rests under sight, like any absence that stands as proof of something or other.

It was because of the voice that he tied himself to the mast. Where he was seasick no more. Where he saw in all clarity that he was indeed climbing up the mountain in a ship. A ship made of wood and nails, that he had built with his own hands. A ship that had a spell on it no stronger than a roof. A ship that stood as the roof of the tallest, proudest mountain in the land, like a raggedy hat on a rich man, that would not come off by hand or scissors or wind. Like the most obvious of signs of what should be.

So when the boat reached the top of the mountain, and tripped across the ledge of the tip and fell like a child on a bumpy country road, the water it raised shot to the sky and rained on Arthur’s village and his house and friend Phidias who then knew he was safe.

Then the water fell and fell and filled every crack and gap and ditch and when they were all full, the ocean started pouring from the tip of the mountain, where it had stayed hidden, and washed everything in its path to the shore. The shore where it stopped with the village on top of a wave and its surrounding army of forests on a horde of others. There the village thrived.

And Arthur, after having conquered the ego of the mountain that had succumbed before him, became a ship captain, on land. A wayfarer. He traveled the world with Phidias and told stories of his boat. And many were built and heights conquered. Because of one man, who had followed his voice.

But I want to leave, Phidias. I have to get on the other side of this mountain. Arthur said pounding his fist into the table.

That you must. But you do not have to leave. You have to realize that your place is indeed here, as it always was, what separates who you are now from who you want to be is not a matter of place. It is what you do, not where you do it and you want to do something impossible and traveling isn’t it. You are not going on a journey, you’re going to war. You see that, don’t you? You just don’t know what to call it.

But these are just words, Phidias. Will you put your protection charm on my boat? That is all I have to know.

We are friends, are we not?

We are.

Then how could I say no? I will come see the boat tomorrow. Go sleep. Go dream. Go prepare for your war.

So Arthur went and sat himself down on the floor, by his bed, and as he tapped the wool rug with his fingers, he saw the sharp cliffs of the mountain before him, like a set of giant teeth.

But I cannot be alone, he thought. I cannot be alone because there is this certainty inside me that I will see the other side of the mountain, as I live and breathe. There is something which I cannot hear, see or smell that is with me and that will take me there alive. So I know.

He went to sleep on the floor, with an arm under his head and another covering the tabby cat that had come to be scratched and petted and cared for by its master. And he dreamt that he walked across an entire ocean in his ski boots. Without so much as one of his shoelaces getting wet. And he wondered in his dream about the temperature of the water and if he were to fall in, would his boots drag him down. But he did not and as the sun crept up through his window and into his eyes,  he reached a golden beach and as his eyelids parted the sand turned into the specks of dust that danced around in a ray of light, scattered about by the cat that was trying to claw its way out of his grasp. Then there was a knocking on the door and the deep voice of Phidias.

Arthur! Bring your old sword outside. We will need it. Phidias called. So it was as if the charm was already set and the preparations done. The only thing left to do was to push the boat off the pillars. And cross the mountain.

I am building a boat, Arthur slowly said. I will sail it across this mountain. Until I am on the other side of it and here no more.

Nonsense, the stranger said. Crazy old man! he muttered as he wandered away on the winding streets of the village.

Arthur spoke in a soft, crooked voice that always seemed to ponder every word. He had been a good father and an even better grandfather with the experience and now, after all his granddaughters and grandsons and nephews and nieces had left to live different lives, elsewhere, he had, surprisingly rediscovered his own. He got up one morning with a taste of wood and salt in his mouth, a taste that had been long known and put away, even intently, by his memory. A father has no time for trifles like boat sailing. He goes out and he provides the best that there is for his family and only when that family is no more, he is allowed to hope that he can do so for himself. It is only the way of things. The one and only.

That morning his life came back to him uncalled for and unattended, maybe out of simple, unexplainable luck that he didn’t even particularly deserve. But it is the test of that moment that separates the men who choose to live again, an endeavor perhaps known to be difficult by all our readers, from those who merely brush away the opportunity as thoughts of… crazy old men.

So Arthur, kind, good ol’ Arthur, bought planks, nails, hammers and a wood plane and started work on his life’s work. A boat. For crossing a mountain.

The mountain that sheltered Arthur’s village was one of the last to appear on the surface of the world. A young, sturdy, healthy mountain it was, with a pride to match. The storms it took itself to bear were gruesome. Winds that hurled rocks into the air, only to see them blown to dust at the touch of lightning, and avalanches that covered entire forests were matters of the ordinary. But the village had been saved, either out of sympathy or some other form of warmheartedness  that the mountain displayed or, yet again, out of sheer coincidence.

Arthur’s boat had to be strong enough to make it through this gauntlet, with him alive and days left to spare. So he worked on his boat. Day and night. And one evening, at sunset, he wiped his forehead and let down his hammer and saw that the woodwork was almost done. It was time for him to see the only man that could decide if he had any chance, at all, to survive.

Is my voice too faint, Harry?

It is as it always is. As I always see it. Mayfly… tell me this. Can you see the way I imagine you?

No, Harry. I am an invisible doe. I cannot see what I am because I am something that cannot be seen.

But what if I imagine you? Are you not visible then?

You imagine a doe, Harry. But I’ve never seen myself. So how could I know if it is me or it isn’t?

I suppose you are right. But Mayfly…

If what you imagine is not invisible…  how could it be me?

It is indeed, so. It always seems that you are right when you speak, Mayfly. But I have to ask again… have you seen my image of you? Ever?

I have not looked.

How so?

I feel, Harry.

It is precisely why I am asking, Mayfly.

But I do not want to feel, Harry.

Why?

Because I would feel better or lesser.

And you fear it?

Yes.

Is there no way that what I imagine would just make you glowingly happy?

You imagine me glowing, don’t you Harry?

I do.

You imagine me white and transparent and frail and kind.

Yes.

But I am invisible, Harry. It is what I am. Why do you imagine that I am what I am not?

Because I want to see you, Mayfly. I want it with all my might. And might I have in this forest. That I do. But you do not want me to see you.

No.

Indeed you do not.

I do not.

Why?

I do not wish to… feel, Harry.

But why? I feel, what harm is there in feeling? I feel when I see you, dream of you and imagine you in every corner of this forest, all the time, everywhere because all that is not there reminds me of you.

Do you know that you are not visible in my world, Harry?

You have told me. So I do.

Then would you not think it is the same?

But you do not feel, Mayfly. So how could it?

Am I your morning, Harry?

You are. You are so.

Say my name.

Mayfly.

Go to sleep now, Harry. Please. We will meet. You will see.

Mayfly.

Yes.

You are. Now. You are here, now.

I am.

And you are a doe, Mayfly!

I am a visible doe, Harry.

You are. You are a visible, doe. You are…

Can we be friends now, Harry?

But we already are friends, Mayfly.

But can I be like one of your other friends now?

As well.

Are you happy, Harry?

I am so happy, Mayfly, that I feel I’m falling into the sky and I can’t stop it or bear it or think of what to say.

Am I still your morning, Harry?

You are.

But am I not just a doe now?

But I am just a wolf.

And will you not hurt me now?

No. You are my morning.

And I feel everything. As before. As I always did.

And you are transparent. And I will care for you. You are my morning. We are here. Mayfly.

Harry… what do we do now?

We watch, Mayfly.

Do you think we could see the sunset, Harry?

We are seeing the sunset, Mayfly.

Are we?

We are. The red in the sky. Do you not see it?

I have never seen a sunset, Harry.

How so?

Most of the time I only see invisible things. There have been no invisible sunsets.

But how will we see one, then?

You will imagine it as you see it, just like it is. And the one in your imagination will be invisible. So I will see it.

Very well, Mayfly. But… do you see everything I imagine?

I don’t know. Sometimes. When I want to. But I have to say, I don’t much want to. I am a doe, Harry. I am scared of what you might imagine.

But I can think of wonderful things, Mayfly. Things I think you’d be proud of. But not just, it’s true.

Friends are said to be for ignoring flaws and correcting them. Are they not?

I have to say I don’t know. But it doesn’t sound to me like that’d be too far off from the truth.

Well, then… I ignore that you are a wolf. But I hope to correct it. And I do try to. You’re quite gentle around me. I should hope that it is not the only case.

I suppose it’s not. But in truth, I do not know. There is nothing very much alike the times when I speak to an invisible doe. It’s strangely unnatural. So much so some might call it beautiful. Humans, perhaps.

And what shall we call it, Harry?

Luck, Mayfly. Or I don’t know what, else. Do you see the bright blue lake I am imagining now?

I do. And the trees and beach and even the three horses. There is someone riding them, isn’t it? But not all of them, just one the others seem to be following. What is that creature, Harry?

That is a human, Mayfly. You’ve never seen an invisible human, I take it?

I have not. I am an invisible doe. I live in an invisible forest. Where would I find a human there, Harry? Even an invisible one?

Maybe if the forest were close to an invisible village.

Then I suppose it is not.

Humans are an interesting thing, Mayfly. Sometimes they sound just like you. They’ve seen many extraordinary things. But not many of them are really a part of our world. And by our I don’t know who precisely I mean. Now that I’ve said it, it came upon me that my visible world should be smaller, really, than your invisible one. So though I may part this world with wolves and deer and visible does and humans there is no reason why I should see this world as more present than any other, even if it may seem so to me most of the time. More than any other so because it scares me. And until you there was no other world to think of. Is there anything invisible in your world, Mayfly, that is truly invisible? That is, something that you cannot see?

I cannot see what is visible, Harry.

So we are the opposite of one another in a way, you suppose?

I don’t know, Harry. And I don’t speak of things that I know nothing of.

Do you see that the horses seem happy to be led by the human, Mayfly?

I do. And there is some good in that, I think. There is something good in moving together as one, isn’t there?

It always seems that you are telling the truth, when you speak, Mayfly. So you speak. So it seems.

I am a doe, she said.

But you are a voice, Mayfly. You are a voice and I no longer know what to believe or if I should believe anything at all.

I am am invisible doe. But you can hear my voice and know that I am.

And what then?

Then we could be friends.

Aren’t we friends already, Mayfly?

I suppose we are. How long has it been now, Harry?

I don’t know. Some years. I stopped counting.

And I am still a voice, you say.

But of course you are, Mayfly.

But you dream of me, don’t you?

Well how does that change anything?

Don’t you see me in your dreams?

I do.

So I am not just a voice, then.

You are not. You are a doe.

I am a doe. An invisible doe.

I’m afraid I’ll discover you don’t exist. That you’re all really just inside me.

But how would that make a difference, Harry?

I don’t know. I suppose it wouldn’t. Do you want to see the world, Mayfly?

I do.

With me?

With you.

So why don’t we leave. Why don’t we leave now?

Yes! Let’s leave, now. Where, where are we going, Harry?

To New Zealand, Mayfly.

Wonderful! I love sheep! But will you eat me if I travel with you, Harry?

I most certainly will not, Mayfly.

But it is in your nature, is it not? To hunt for does?

Is that why you won’t see me, Mayfly?

I do not see anyone, Harry. Not even myself. It is hard to say why that happens. I try to be but even though I try I am not visible. I am an invisible doe, you see. I have come to terms with that. I cannot change it, I have to live it like it is. I am, in a way, just a voice. Only I am not.

But how do you know that you are a doe if you’ve never seen what you are?

I don’t think anybody sees what they are. They feel what they are. Don’t you feel like a wolf, Harry?

At times. Others I just feel like a leaf or a twig or just a mud patch. I think we are many things, Mayfly. Some of them we barely ever see or feel. But that doesn’t make them any less real.

Precisely. So New Zealand, you say. But will you hunt for sheep whilst you’re there with me, Harry?

I might have to, Mayfly. I have to feed.

And what will I feed on?

Invisible grass, I suppose?

Silly wolf. I thought you were going to say that, Harry. And you are right. I feed on invisible grass. Gentle, isn’t it?

Quite. I have to go to sleep now, Mayfly. We leave to New Zealand in three days time. We will speak about it in our dreams.

Good night, Harry. Thank you for keeping me company.

There’s nothing else I’d rather do. Or… perhaps… maybe see you.

As the melody flooded each and every grain of space, the mountain started to vibrate with the sound. Cliffs renounced their stillness and trembled as if frozen to the bone. With thundering crashes, enormous shards of rock tumbled down the lifeless walls and smashed into the dark canyons that laid untouched for ages. The entire mountain seemed to be falling apart bit by bit. Out of the clouds surrounding its peak giant spear shaped boulders continued to rain down on the plateaus below.

The old man stood watching, with the gnarled staff in his right hand barely touching the lower leaves of an oak. As the blades brushed past the coarse, dry wood, thin threads of white light rose from its veins and crept up the thin branch to the almost rotten trunk that barely held life enough to save its own leaves till fall. The tree was dying. But the light slowly tiptoed through every crack, like a pure and shallow river that ran upwards and where it touched the bark and the crumbled vessels the cells of the wood seemed to heal and come together and the whole of the body of the tree was sluggishly coming into being, new and alive once more.

He didn’t even care to notice what good he was doing, as he modestly stood staring at the ravished mountain, the old man. The song of the forest grew louder and louder until the tremor of the world around turned into a quaint but powerful earthquake that made the ground with the desolate mountain and the village of trees above it shake and shiver and pulsate with anguish. And every thing appeared to be preparing for an imminent end while barely a hair off his white head had moved in the midst of all the rattling of the world at the time.

And with the simple, resounding crack of a whip licking sandstone in an empty field, just before everything was ready to collapse into nonexistence, the mountain split in two and a mile-thick stream of clear water shot up to the sky, eager and hungry to escape the bowels of the earth that had been keeping it from fulfilling its hopes and dreams for so long. And where it reached the sky it pierced the veil of clouds and millions of rays and reflections fell with it back to the ground as the first inhabitants of a new era. But no one could have foreseen that the thirst of the song would quench as the rain of water and light fell on the earth and that the music would start to quiet down with the quake. Yet it did.

The old man raised a hand to his forehead. The shadow of the staff cast a dark stripe on his old, grey clothes. He turned around and as slowly as he had arrived, he paced back towards the line of the horizon, while every leaf of grass remained untouched behind him.

The melody changed with the passing of each day and night with a natural capriciousness that was not in need of taming or understanding. It grew with the forest, from it and around it, as if it were the sound of living itself.

It seemed to be constantly adding instruments. At first there was just the harp. Then came the flute, right before the first violin. And following that violin came countless others, in numerous voices and tones, like different species of birds singing together. An orchestra was coming into being with the grace and discretion of the morning breeze.

The depth of the song heightened and all the noise and clutter was pealed from it as it learned the ways of being above ground. But through the ages, no one had still listened to it or cared for it or understood it in a way not sewn into the fabric of nature. Until that faithful day when a speck appeared on the horizon, soon to become a line, then two, and then a vaguely outlined silhouette. Of a man. In old age.

He slowly threaded towards the forest and it seemed it would take him an eternity to arrive from the end of the horizon to the tall village of green roofs and grey bark. His back was slightly hunched but his steps were firm and in his right hand he carried a tall wooden staff, engraved with leaves and birds and flames. And for a moment, when the light of the sun fell upon the contour of a flame, the wind stopped and the light froze and ripples erupted all around him. Their waves hit the village walls and the forest elders, shaking their arms and leaves and knees, agreed to know that the visitor had their life and death in his hands.

He could smell the still alarm he had started in the dew of the morning and he knew from the rattling of the leaves that the forest held council. He proceeded to advance with measured steps and if anyone were there to look behind him, they might have seen that the soles of his feet left no footprints on the grass, for the blades were, where he threaded, as if never touched.

As he drew nearer, the rattling faded and the village of trees remained completely still, waiting in a state of intermediate presence. The spirits of the forest were there, but silent and watching and waiting to find some sign of his intentions, that he seemed to not care to supply. He made his way to the foothills of the mountain, in between the rocky slope and the village and when he nearly touched the roots of the first tree, he turned his back to the forest and stared at the dark tip of the mountain.

He raised both his hands above his head, with his staff in his right and in an instant he delivered a blow that echoed throughout the forest. The sound leapt through the trees, eating away at the silence from every hollow and crack and the mountain quivered with the strength of the stroke and it seemed like the world itself was shaking. So the leaves began to rustle.

Their rustling grew times and times again stronger than the sound of the blow and under the arched rooftop of the forest it climbed and as the sun rose over the edge of the trees and shone through it, it turned into the loudest melody the forest had ever played. It erupted through the roof and pushed through the trees and swept everything in its path, heading towards the place where the mountain had been hit.

Once upon a time, there was a village of trees at the foothills of a tall, grey mountain. It never rained on the mountain and nothing ever grew upon it. It was merely made of dry, cold rock. Animals tried to climb it once in a while but where quickly driven away by thirst. It was said that the mountain was hollow and through it ran a thick stream of the purest water you can imagine. That this water kept the entire world at its foothills alive, made for rain and snow and rivers and oceans and even the icebergs of Antarctica. But there was no proof or recollection or any knowledge, in any form, to make believable that such a thing were possible.
The trees had settled in the village many generations before, with the great forest migration that ended the dark ages. Their forefathers had lived on the mountain when it was green and boasting with life from every crease and crevasse. But one day the sky darkened above it and the sun, for no apparent reason, simply changed its course to avoid it and never shone its rays upon its tip again. It would always go around, to the left or to the right, as would the moon, and the crest of the mountain stayed dark and all the stirring and sounding on it slowly died away as the ground became as barren as the sky and the animals started to move away.
One day, at the council of the forest elders, it was decided that every tree was to uproot itself and together they would walk until they found a new land to call home. They dragged their roots across the stony paths so slowly that no move was ever visible to mortal eyes, but yet they walked ceaselessly, for eras and eras, until the gentle, thin, mossy bark of their feet touched upon green grass again for the first time.
So at the foothills of the mountains they settled and the procession of putting the forest in order again and bringing about the old laws and the accumulated knowledge of the journey into a new place lasted again for many human years, more than anyone would care to count.
Then, one evening as the sun was setting by the left side of the mountain, behind a hapless storm cloud that lay too far still to seem threatening to anyone in the wood, a single leaf fell from the utmost branch of a very old beech tree. On its way down, it gently nudged the driest of the twigs and with a short chip the slender little nothing snapped out of place and beat the leaf to the floor of the wood by more than a moment’s worth. It slid along several roots and glided on wet leaves, all the way down to the ground that welcomed it as the last piece in dire need of coming into place. And then the great migration was complete and the long life of the village started.

It is after this moment that the trees started making their branches into rooftops. With each passing year they knit them closer and closer together, starting from the lower, thicker ones, up until the treacherous top ones that could barely, in all honesty, hold a slim squirrel if she were to pass on by. They took their time as they usually did but more and more, from above, the forest looked like a forgotten medieval castle, with high, pointed arches and ribbed vaults. Sometimes, from the right perspective, it resembled a gothic cathedral, forgotten in the midst of nothing human, brought back from some distant era by the pure coincidences which happen when time is no longer chronological, but simultaneous.

Then, as the series of rooftops was almost done, a faint sound started to make its way through the heavy, time worn trunks on the eastern end of the village. It was as if the wind was blowing through the leaves, except the air was still. Or perhaps as if someone was playing an old, rusty harp. At first a mere alternation of faded high notes that barely managed to stay into being long enough to make an impression on anyone or anything, could be heard. But their presence grew slowly and gently and there was no more silence in between them and there were no longer sounds moving about the trees but music that vaguely vibrated with the breath of the entire forest as the sun rose one cold spring morning. That was the moment, that simple suspended instant when the sounds became music eventually changed everything.