Dream Fairy in Dreams

I don’t know how old I am, but age is irrelevant to me. It seems that people take their age so seriously. They take many things seriously, but that makes it fun to play with them.

At least it was fun.

My partner and I had spent our lives together, always a team, and forever intimately connected. For our whole existence we’ve been together. But now our relationship has changed in some way. I’ve become… different than I was before. Opal can sense it. I can feel it, too.

As far as I can remember, the change began when a very strange human became aware of me.

Opal and I were having a merry time teasing an old toymaker. It was night, and we mostly do our most daring pranks at night. We were bold enough to venture deep into a human place- the town was almost devoid of living natural things-and very unfamiliar to us. Opal and I, we were partners but also friendly and playful adversaries. There has never been a time that we did not dare one another to frivolous pursuit of risky venture.

Everything was as it had always been. We were carefree, exuberant, merry and mischievous. Our ever present mirth was had at the expense of the poor humans who, unbeknownst to them, were the constant source of our entertainment and subject of many pranks. Our world is a little different than the one humans live in. We can see them plain as we see anything else, but humans rarely can see us. They tend to believe that we don’t exist, or that our pranks are simply the result of rain, wind, and bad luck- much to our amusement! It seems that no matter how we show ourselves, only a token few respond in kind. These are mostly very small children and hermits.

The toymaker was no exception. He was a daft fellow and very intent on his mission; catching and destroying whatever had gotten into his shop! He was so intent that indeed he was doing a thorough job of mangling and breaking nearly everything in the shop. It was great fun! We lilted from perch to perch, sometimes climbing spindly shelving and sometimes hanging from kites in the ceilings. He followed our movements like a pig searching out roots; plowing through everything.

Sometimes humans will look right at us, and it is a thrill of fear and excitement- did he see us or not? Did he just acknowledge our existence, something so obvious to us? But our dear humans are so painfully oblivious that, even if they do catch a sight of us, they invariably blink and shake the image right out of their poor heads. Hehe! How silly!

But it was now early morning; evidence of the sun was beginning to show on the horizon. I said so to Opal, who agreed it was high time to leave this weird, unnatural place to the poor dear humans. We alighted at the windowsill and pushed the glass out to make our exit. That was when the oddness began. Something felt immediately off. I pushed through outside and Opal stayed- she was the less bold of the two of us.

From the window I came to land in the alley behind the toy shop. It was very dark there, and things had a bad cast. I wasn’t sure why until I saw the human. He was clearly mad.

He glanced over when the window opened, he was still looking at it in a predatory sort of way that made me glad Opal was still inside. But then the human’s eye flickered in a way I haven’t seen before, except perhaps in a rabid wolf once. He glanced from the window, followed the path I had taken, and looked right at the place I stood. It seemed that we looked at each other. Again there was the familiar chill and excitement of discovery-but-not-really-discovery. Except this time it wasn’t.

A change came over his features, one of recognition and something else- that dark sense of desire and greed that was so prevalent in humans. It was then that I realized he was looking at me. The fear that came over me then was so deep and sudden; I had never felt anything like it before. The man tilted his head, staring. His eyes moved over me, and his gaze felt like a dirty soiled rag soaked in filth.

He opened his mouth and a rasping, throaty voice issued. “Well, you are a pretty thing,” his eyes flickered again, and then again. It almost seemed as if they glowed with a dark light.

I backed away from him, and he advanced. His greed intensified; the yearning for something unnamable was palpable. My breath came quick and ragged. He could see me and I was vulnerable; there was nowhere to go. I could not quickly get away. There are times that we can fly, or glide, or spring lightly from place to place with exceptional grace. But this place was devoid of anything familiar, and there was precious little energy to use here, where no natural life was found.

Worse yet, this human was mad with an unknowable dark secret that was quickly consuming him. And now his attention was riveted on me. Away! Away! I was desperately searching for a way out, there was nothing. I backed, and drew my only weapon- a small knife.

He advanced. It was inevitable that he would catch up- a human is far larger than we are, their strides carry them a far greater distance. We are but the size of children to them. I held the knife out. There was not a thing I could do and my body was shaking, fear paralyzing me, barely breathing now. He didn’t raise his hands but he was close. His eyes threatened me to my core. He desired to destroy me, I could see that. He desired to destroy everything that I was.

He was barely arms reach away. The knife was the only thing between us. Still he walked forward, to my horror, walking into the knife blade! Still I backed away, but held the knife, now against the pressure of his chest, as high as I could reach. No! The knife was sharp and it cut easily, the force of my outstretched arms pushed half the blade into his chest. Shocked, it seemed that all my strength left me entirely. His wound was mine, draining me, and all the while he smiled insanely at me. His glowing eyes flashed dark knowing and an insatiable thirst, like a wolf that could feed forever and never be full. One of his arms lifted toward me and I turned to run away. Nowhere to go. But it was a dead alley.

Dread. Helpless. I turned back around and he was standing so close, pulling my blade out of his chest. A rivulet of blood poured from the wound. He was still grinning at me, that insane smile that wanted something- it wanted what was me- the very essence of what I was. That moment seemed to last forever. What am I? I wondered. What makes me different and unique from others? This was a question that I had never asked before. Instinctively, I knew I was different from Opal, and from humans. But then, I wondered in what ways, and what it was like to be human. Could it be that humans experienced a dearth of the joy that I had abundantly, and took for granted as my right? Could this human be driven mad by the sight of a creature as joyful and exuberant as I, when he was searching and never finding any of his own? Could he, in his madness, wish to take it for his own?

It was then that a bit of strength came to me. I knew that if I had a chance I could get away. He gave it to me, making a step too large to drive me back into the alley, and I sprang to the other side. It was a short lived escape, because he snatched out and caught my trailing hair. It was that moment I knew I was done. I wondered, in an instant, what would happen to me. Would I die, or become a toy to be tortured and deformed? I was then, not disinclined to my fate. I would have died if that was to be my end.

Then I was falling forward with momentum. Instinct and my wings caught my fall and set me running again. I ran, terrified again. Blood rushed through my ears, breath tore out of my throat. It was only later that I wondered how I had gotten free. I realized that he must have cut that piece of my hair with my knife.

As I am, changed, Opal keeps her distance. I have never existed in a world that we did not understand one another. But she does not understand me now. I am alone, sad, and brooding. After all, that man did take what he wanted. I am me, no longer.

Last updated June 10, 2019