So once upon a time came a skipping girl child dressed not in the red riding hood but in a dark cloaked riding hood (black or grey maybe … but why split hairs … the colour is not integral to this fairy tale) … having run far and long from the snatches of the evil witch of Hansel and Gretel’s cottage having discovered that her mother did indeed want to eat her young … out of breath she’d wandered through the Land of Oz and Alice’s Wonderland … and once again found herself in another godforsaken fairy tale favorite … a forest. At a quick glance, the wolves and whirling dervishes that inhabited these woods with the bluebirds, doves, owls and hares … did not notice the slight hesitation between skips, the flushed cheeks that spoke not of exhaustion but of growing panic. Panic born of fear that she did not have the strength, physical and of will to fend off another wolf another grizzly another Ogre disguised as a sheep …
And so she skipped to the hums and notes of Bon Jovi … comfort music if nothing else … anthems of the young and torn and brave and new …
Night fell and she could feel their breath on her cheeks, her skin crawled at the visceral knowledge of how close they lay in wait … bated bad breaths waiting for her pace to slow or better yet for her to trip … she could hear their muscles clenching and unclenching as they sat there poised to pounce …
She searched high and low for a safe place a soft place where she could lay her weary head and rest her tired limbs … a place to sit and wait for the sun to rise … a place to wait for the warmth of its rays to chase away the chill from this desperate dark and dangerous place.
She skipped and hummed and skipped and hummed into the wee hours of the morning before she came upon a clearing … bathed in silver … protected by the silver shimmer of the moon … within that circle of silver shimmer lay a fawn with eyes as big as saucers …
When the girl child saw the fawn seemingly protected within the clearing she assumed presumed that here she could rest … protected as the fawn was … surely.
The fawn spoke and welcomed the girl child, nuzzled her hand and tickled as he licked salt from her skin … oh you’re adorable the girl child thought … and look at you dance and prance … and oh my … you sing and can stand on your head! You’re so snuggly and warm and loving and … oh so gentle. And the girl child fell asleep curled up in the warmth of that fawn with eyes so wide so open so clear …
A cold soft nuzzle against her skin awakened the girl child and there he was … nose pressed up against her nose … head tilted slightly, ears a flutter, eyes pleading twinkling …
So they pranced and danced and twirled and looked at daisies and ate mulberries and drank the dew … rolled and somersaulted and cuddled within the clearing …
This is how life should be thought the girl child … full of endless wonder and love comfort and warmth … and the minutes became days, become weeks …
She could guess what the Fawn wanted by the twitch of his tale, the curve of his spine the glint of an eye … and her heart was filled with the love she felt for this friend … but …
(there’s always a but … isn’t there?) … something echoed within her … a call beyond the wild of this clearing, this forest, these woods … a knowledge that this was simply a respite an illusion within the chaos beyond the clearing … and no matter how real this was … the real world lay beyond the circle of this clearing beyond the realm of the Fawn …
She awoke that morning and approached her friend and beckoned that he follow her beyond the circle of the clearing … he backed away, shook his head, stamped his feet and if fawns can pout, pout he did …
She whined, she prodded, she pushed … she coaxed, she cajoled … but the Fawn remained impassive and grew even more stubborn … spending more time than before alone … sniffing berries and rooting through leaves … leaving the girl child alone to contemplate the fringes of the clearing where her heart longed to return …
The day soon came when the girl child knew that she must leave this sacred glade that her path lay beyond … as one among many in the chaos of life … and not in this world of dreams spun within a crack in the darkness … and anyways fawns and little girls couldn’t do much else together beyond play … I mean really …
So when the Fawn pretended to sleep … the girl child donned the cloak she had long since abandoned in the corner of the clearing and without a sound stepped beyond that thin line and made her way through the wolves, grizzlies and Ogres to her destination … unknown.
… and the Fawn ? why he’s still cavorting in his clearing … somersaulting and dancing to keep the loneliness at bay … waiting, waiting for the next visitor … maybe this one will stay for longer than a day …
… both prisoners in their own way …
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