Story 12
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New Fairy Tales |
12. Pixiekins
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© George McGinn |
Little Alfonso Pixiekins was a happy child although he was somewhat frightened by the hideous looking monsters which writhed around in the blackened waters of the Sea of Doom which his house overlooked from high up on top of the cliff. In spite of his fear, he enjoyed watching the monsters scramble for the leftover food which he threw over the cliff edge after mealtimes. His parents had warned him not to work the creatures up into a frenzy in case they crawled out of the water. However, Pixiekins was aware that whilst they were grizzly looking, the monsters had never once harmed his family. In any event, his parents had put in place adequate defence mechanisms to ensure these vile monsters could never get near the house.
With the passing of many years, Pixiekins' parents began to slow down until eventually they withdrew to their bedroom upstairs. Their ageing bones could no longer carry them and so Pixiekins, who was still a young man, had to take care of all their needs. Fortunately, he had been taught from an early age to farm the surrounding lands so that the family could be self-sufficient. Pixiekins also had an aptitude for cooking the foods he grew and harvested. He loved to experiment in the kitchen with natural animal-free ingredients to produce interesting textures and flavours which made meal times a most enjoyable ocassion for the whole family. So potent were the aromas wafting far and wide from his kitchen that they attracted the attention of the sea monsters whose gigantic nostrils flared with excitement from above the murky waters in which they swam.
Pixiekins had little time for recreational pastimes for he had many chores to carry out especially in supporting his parents. But in between his duties, he would retire to a small conservatory situated halfway up the stairs - not too far from his parents so that he could still keep one eye on them, but not too close so that he could relax. There he sat back in a comfortably padded armchair and read through the books which his parents had brought with them from their previous life in The Doldrums - a servile city within the Kingdom of Pixies - from which the family were forced to flee following their persecution many years earlier (see prequel below). He also had a range of books that he and his parents had found in the attic of the old house in which they now lived - fiction, mathematics, history, science, art, medicine, geography, astronomy etc. Pixiekins had a brain like a sponge absorbing all the information he could read. Occasionally, he would put his book down and stare out the window casting his eyes wide across the blackened ocean. Sometimes, he sensed a reassuring presence beyond the horizon as if someone or something was beckoning him. He looked back up the stairs and thought of his parents who were in the twilight of their years. He was still a young man. Who would keep him company when they were gone? He would be all alone and there was no possibility of returning to the Kingdom of Pixies where he would not be safe.
Turning back to the window, a dim glint of green in the sea caught Pixiekins' attention. Was it the eye of a monster, he thought to himself? He reached into the draw of the cabinet next to his chair and pulled out a small dusty retractable brass telescope which he put to his eye. There drifting in the current of the sea close to the shoreline, he spied a green bottle.
Grabbing a large tarnished brass key from the draw of the cabinet next to his chair, Pixiekins hurried down the stairs and out the front door. Many years previously when he was an infant, his parents had installed a fortified gate to prevent him from straying down the crumbly steps carved out of the side of the cliff. The steps which led to the beach were only used during low tide when the monsters were at a reasonably safe distance in the receded waters of the Sea of Doom. With the coast clear, his parents would gather up the nutritional beached seaweed which they made into soups and stews. Pixiekins placed the key in the gate and walked down the long flight of steps. Even from high up, he could clearly see the dim glint of the green bottle in the waters which had not fully waned. He was consumed with a compelling sense that he must not risk losing it.
On reaching the beach below, Pixiekins was mindful of the monsters which lurked out of sight under the sea. He tentatively walked across the shingles, but stopped just shy of the shallow waters in which the bottle floated. Pixiekins had a deep rooted fear of water and could go no further. He extended his arm out as far as he could and plucked the bottle from the waters. He wiped it clean using his hankerchief. Although the bottle was semi-opaque from weathering, he could see inside a scroll with a wax seal. He also saw in the corner of his eye a long slithering limb emerge from the waters. Pixiekins dropped the bottle back in the water as the sticky wet limb clutched on to his arm. He managed to free himself before quickly retreating onto dry land from where he ran up the steps as fast as his legs would allow.
In the relative safety of his home, he sat down in his chair halfway up the stairs. He thought about the bottle. He knew instinctively that the scroll inside was connected with the presence he sometimes felt when looking out the large conservatory window. He later retired to bed disheartened that the bottle will surely by now have been reclaimed by the tide and lost forever.
That night, the mother of all storms descended upon the Sea of Doom. The waves crashed relentlessly against the side of the chalky cliffs and the sea swelled so high, that Pixiekins feared his house on top of the cliff would be washed away. He hid under his blanket and to the sound of the rain lashing against the windows, drifted off into a stupor and eventually fell fast asleep.
The next morning, Pixiekins was awakened by an intensely bright light pouring in through the window. He had never bothered drawing the curtains, because the sky outside was permanently black even during the day when brooding dark clouds filled the sky from edge to edge. But today was different. He went to the window and was bedazzled by a great ball of light hanging over the horizon. From stories passed down to him by his parents when they lived in The Doldrums in the Kingdom of Pixies many years before, he knew that what he was looking at was the disk of the sun, but had never seen it with his own eyes as he was taken from The Doldrums at a very young age and had only ever known his life here by the Sea of Doom where the sun never shone until this day. With the veil of darkness lifted and the intense light pouring over everthing, he realised just how beautiful his surroundings were. The turbulant sea was now as flat as a sheet of glass which reflected a deep blue sky no longer eclipsed by a low-hanging ceiling of angry black clouds. Once shrouded in a drab murky mist, even the pebbles on the beach sprung to life as they popped out in a myriad of pastel colours soaked in sunlight. Very quickly, the emerging sun energised the dormant seeds of a once repressed landscape. The clifftops flourished as if drapped in a fresh carpet of lush green grass and meadow flowers.
To his surprise, Pixiekins caught sight of the green bottle floating in the water close to the shoreline. In the clear weather conditions, he did not even need to use his vintage telescope. Without any hesitation, he ran out of the house and down the cliffside steps as quickly as he could. Fortunately, by the time he reached the bottom, the bottle had been left stranded on the beach following high tide. Having not had time to put his shoes on, Pixiekins walked gingerly along the pebbles which were already heating up in the morning sunlight. So beautiful was the day that he had lost his sense of fear of what lay beneath the water. As he reached down to pick up the bottle, a slithering limb shot out from below. Losing his balance on the stones, he fell backward, but the limb quickly wrapped its tail around his arm saving him from his fall.
'Get off me!' screamed Pixiekins who struggled to break free. The beast released its grip and Pixiekins fell to the ground. It then wrapped its tale once again around his arm and pulled him back up on to his feet before giving him a big friendly lick with his long tongue. The boy soon realised that the beast was friendly.
'I think you are a sea dragon by the looks of the smoke billowing from your nostrils' observed Pixiekins.
The sea dragon turned about as if to leave. In a moment of unrestrained impulsiveness, Pixiekins jumped on to the back of the creature and held on to its whiskers as the creaure headed off to the far side of the Sea of Doom. Sometime later, there in the distance, he saw the coastline of a new land coming into focus. He was overwhelmed with a sense that he was going to a place where he should be. Indeed, he saw cliffs which were just like the ones back home. It was at this point, that he suddenly thought of his parents whom he had left behind.
'Wait!' shouted Pixiekins. 'We must go back.'
But the sea dragon did not slow down and continued on its trajectory.
'What have I done?' said Pixiekins as the sea dragon exited the water on the far side of the ocean. Pixiekins let go of the creature's whiskers and slid off its watery spine. Looking around, it soon dawned on him that he was back where he started. There on the cliff top was his house. How could this be thought Pixiekins to himself when the sea dragon had travelled in a pefectly straight line. But what the boy did not realise was that the the Sea of Doom was enchanted and that no matter in which direction the creature swam, all routes would lead Pixiekins back to where he really wanted to be - home.
Pixiekins sprinted accross the shingles and began the arduous ascent up the cliffside steps which lead to his house on top. He was desparate to see his parents again. As he climbed, he felt a familiar and reassuring presence following him. He turned and there was the sea dragon with a piece of seaweed caught on his neck fins and the elusive green bottle firmly clamped in its mouth. Instinctively eager to see his parents, Pixiekins continued his long climb up. A few minutes later, he glanced over his shoulder and noticed the creature looked somehow different - almost human like. Too exhausted to question and desperate to check on his parents, he resumed his ascent until reaching the top step where he turned one more time. Standing behind was no longer the sea dragon, but a young man modestly draped in a piece of seaweed and clutching a green bottle in his hands.
'It's you!' exclaimed Pixiekins in reference to the presence he would feel when looking out the conservatory window half way up the stairs. 'You found me'.
The naked young man shook out the scroll from inside the bottle and handed it to Pixiekins who read out loud:
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To the one on the other side
I send this message in a bottle in the almost impossible hope that you will receive it one day. I do not know your name, but when I am looking out the window half way up the stairs of my house here on my side of the Sea of Doom, I feel your presence. However, you may as well be on the moon for the ocean is cursed and virtually insurpassable. Those who foolishly attempt to sail accross will risk being transformed into sea monsters which lose all memory of their human selves and remain trapped in the magnetic pull of the waters. If they are lucky enough to reach dry land on the far side, they will return to human form, but the seas are turbulant and usually swallow up their small wooden boats long before they catch sight of the shoreline. But my desire to see you is overwhelming and so I will take that risk.
Eric |
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'And here I am!' exclaimed Eric in his own voice. 'But not without a challenge.'
He went on to explain that, soon after setting sail, he and his boat were swallowed up by a violent whirlpool where he transformed into a sea dragon. Later, a great storm washed him up into the shallow waters of the far side of the Ocean of Doom. Although he began to regain his human thoughts, he could not escape the sea no matter how shallow. He was caught between two worlds - a monster on the outside, but human within.
'However, it was my need to see you which decided my fate' said the boy. 'I found the strength from within me to escape the waters which have been my prison for all these years and to follow you up the steps.'
For Pixiekins, the questions surrounding the mysterious circumstances in which they had met mattered not for against all odds, they had found each other.
'Come with me' said Pixiekins who took Eric by the hand and led him up the garden path towards the house where his parents were waiting.
The Moral: Love finds a way
Before Pixiekins |
(a prequel) |
Beyond the impenetrable mountain range on the edge of the unchartered extremes of Pondilly, there was a realm known as The Doldrums where the only expression permanently etched on the faces of its wretched inhabitants was one of abject misery. So isolated was this place of unhappiness, that those who lived there had never laid eyes upon anyone beyond their fortified frontiers and therefore went about their business with not a second thought for their inherently depressed state of mind. The way they were in body and mind was normal and unquestionable to them.
Until one day, there was born a child whose face was uniquely different amongst the people of The Doldrums. His name was Alfonso. Stoicism was normally engraved in the minds and imprinted on the faces of all newborns from the start of their lives. But not so with Alfonso and for reasons which will become apparent later in the story, his parents tried desperately to hide his differences, but friends and family leaked like a sieve and so news travelled fast and people would come for miles around to see him. The Doldruminians had no word in their vocabulary to describe his facial expression which particularly affected the shape of his mouth and so they applied a literal description which was- 'upturned'. Of course, what they were observing for the first time in their lives was what you and I would call a smile or a happy face. However, his smile was not his only unique feature. The tops of his ears were pointed and the lobes at the bottom were attached directly to the side of his head. Everyone else in The Doldrums had ears which were rounded at the top and big and flappy at the bottom.
The townsfolk were fascinated by Alfonso's strange but pleasing appearance which they began to imitate. Before long, this new upturned expression caught on and spread like wildfire throughout the realm. Their smiles soon developed naturally into laughs which elevated the mood even higher. Again, the people of The Doldrums had no word for laughter which they instead described rather verbosely as a 'heightened belly convulsion via the mouth'. With all the smiling and laughing, a welcome side effect was that people began to speak more freely and feel better within themselves. They realised that their lives prior to Alfonso's arrival had been somewhat oppressive and that they had worrying questions about those who governed in secrecy behind the palace walls.
News of this strange phenomenon sweeping through the land reached the royal family who ruled with an iron fist. They knew what was happening: the child known as Alfonso was a rare genetic throw-back to the pixie origins of the people of The Doldrums which was now a prision state serving those who ruled. So what had happened in the past?
Thousands of years ago, the kingdom of pixies known as Pixiedom was embroiled in a bitter civil war as the ruling class embarked on a successful campaign to differentiate itself from those of low birth whom it enslaved into hard labour. Overtime, the slaves evolved into a subspecies which the ruling class disparagingly renamed the Doldruminians. In effect, this subservient class was depixiefied - stripped of their identity and operating in a near zombielike state to serve the needs of their betters by whom they were conquered. Eversince, the royal family has ruled from behind their palace walls immersed in the trappings of power and privilege. They were and remain the pinnacle of a social higherarchy with an obsession for purity.
However, there was one exception - a secret army of middle class elites purposefully bred to blend in with the Doldruminians and deployed under Royal Protocol to search out all throw-backs for internment into the upper echelons who had been left infertile after thousands of years of inbreeding.
Alfonso's parents were fully aware of the existence of the Royal Protocol for they were part of that undercover network of elites. They were duty bound to hand over their child whom they knew they would never see again. Unable to uphold their loyalty to the crown, Alfonso's parents hurriedly loaded their horse-drawn carriage with all their worldly possessions and, under the cover of darkness, they fled with their child far from the kingdom to the edge of the Sea of Doom where their ancestors once lived many centuries before. They followed a small overgrown pathway which led to a derelict house built discreetly on to the side of a cliff overlooking a bleak and blackened ocean. They knew no one would follow them to this bleak place, because of its close proximity to a sea which was infested with foul-smelling and flesh-eating demonic monsters. In spite of these ungodly creatures, it was here that his parents knew that at least they had a chance to raise and nurture their son whom they could never give up even though he was a pixie. So proud of their son, they even nicknamed him Pixiekins.
Note: I am still writing this story. Please check back another time.
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Stories & Illustrations by George McGinn |
© George McGinn |
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