Once upon a time,
there was a fairy who fell in love with a human. The other fairies
told her she was crazy. After all, how could it work? He was so much
bigger than her. She ignored the others and continued to pine for
him, watching him from the tree where the fairies lived every time he
came to the park. He would always sit on the same bench, reading
whatever book he had brought with him. She would sit there in the
tree, thinking he was so handsome and wishing she was the same size
as him. Finally, one day, she got up the courage to leave the safety
of the tree and fly over to him. When she flew down in front of him
and onto the page of his book, he was astonished! He had never seen a
fairy before. They always kept themselves hidden so well.
She tried to tell
him how she felt about him, but he just gave a her a confused look
and leaned down, cocking his head so his ear faced her. She repeated
what she said, but he still didn't understand. He tried saying
something to her. His voice boomed like an explosion and she had to
cover her ears. He covered his mouth and started speaking lower, but
she couldn't understand him either. Everything he said just sounded
like gibberish. Quickly, she realized they were speaking different
languages. At first, she hung her head because she couldn't tell him
what she was feeling. However, he took her in the palm of her hand
and stood up. He pointed to her, then to himself, then down the road
where he walked to the park everyday. She understood that he wanted
to take her home. She nodded. She flew next to him as he walked down
the road, leading her back to his house.
He showed her to his
study where he looked through all of his books, trying to find some
information on the language she spoke. But he found nothing.
Eventually, it got very late and both the man and the fairy got very
tired. He made a bed for her out of tissues and a matchbox and went
to bed. The next day, he came back and tried to find ways to
communicate with the fairy. But he couldn't dedicate all his to her.
He had classes to teach and had to leave for most of the day. The
fairy mostly sat around, feeling lonely or flying around house until
he came back.
One day, after weeks
of working together, they came up with a way to communicate with a
simple written language. It was difficult for the fairy. He whittled
down a pencil small enough for her to use, but it was still heavy and
she had to drag it across the white sheets of paper he gave her so
she could write big enough for him to read her messages. But now,
after all this time, she could finally tell him how she felt. That
night she barely slept, trying to come up with the best way to say
it. She knew that this language they worked out was far too simple to
write any elaborate love letters. So, in the end she simply wrote, “I
love you.” across the page and folded it up.
The next day, her
heart was pounding as she heard him enter the study. But before she
had a chance to give him the note she wrote, he gave her a note of
his own. It explained that his sister had asked to him to watch her
son until tomorrow. The boy was known for making trouble and he
wanted her to stay hidden in the study to make sure he didn't hurt
her. The fairy was a little disappointed but after thinking about it,
she realized just how long she had been waiting to confess her love
to him. One more day wouldn't be too long to wait. She sat the note
aside and entertained her self by flying around the study. During the
middle of the day, the door opened and a little boy came in. The
fairy was frighted and hid behind an inkwell on the desk, but the man
quickly came in and pulled the boy out. She overheard the man say
something to boy in an angry tone.
Latter that night,
as she was sleeping in her matchbox she was awoken by the door
opening. It was the little boy again. He turned on the lights and
started looking around the study. She knew she couldn't move,
otherwise the boy might see her. So she stayed as still as possible,
hiding under her tissue blanket. She heard the boy opening drawers in
the desk and rustling through the contents. When the sounds stopped
she thought the boy had lost interest. She was wrong. Her tissue
blanket was lifted off of her and the boy picked her up with his
fingers, bringing her up to his face to examine her. She tried to fly
away but he had her pinched too tightly. So tight that she was afraid
she would be crushed. The boy examined this thing he had found, and
found that its struggling was amusing. He believed it must be some
kind of insect.
The boy grabbed the
folded note she wrote to the man that was laying on the desk. He
moved it to the center of the desk and set her down on it, holding
her there with her finger. He reached in one of the open drawers and
grabbed a pin. He took the pin and drove it through the fairy's hand.
She screamed loudly and tried to pull her hand away but she'd been
stuck the desk. The boy heard her quiet and high pitched crying and
started giggling. This was just like those pinned bugs his teacher
had on display at school. He pulled out three more pins and stuck her
other hands and both her feet so she was spread eagle. She struggled
and cried and prayed that the man would come in and save her. But he
didn't come, and the child's giggling grew louder and started to hurt
her ears. The boy then grabbed her butterfly like wings and started
tugging on them. Eventually her wings separated from her back. The
boy set them aside, while the blood from her back soaked into the
note. Finally, the boy took the inkwell and dumped it on the fairy.
She started coughing and spitting as it got in her mouth, she was
blinded as it got in her eyes and she felt it leak into her wounds
making them hurt even worse. Suddenly the boy heard a loud car horn
outside and immediately dashed out of the study, slamming the door
behind him. The fairy laid in a puddle of ink and blood. She tried to
hang on, hoping that if she could just make it through the night, the
man might be able to save her. But soon she felt herself slipping
away. She was getting dizzy from blood loss. Before she gave in to
oblivion, her last hope was that the man would still see the note and
would know what she never had the chance to tell him.
The next morning,
the man's sister came by to pick up her son. After they left the man
rushed to his study and opened the door. He noticed the light was on
and he was certain it was off the other day. His heart sank. He
immediately went over to the desk and saw what was left of the poor
fairy. He yelled and poked her, hoping in vain that she was still
alive but he got no reaction. The man dropped to his knees, buried
his face in his hands and wept. After he composed himself he got up
and, with tears still running down his face, gently removed the pins
from the fairy's hands and feet. He picked her up and carefully put
her back in her matchbox bed and laid her torn off wings over her. He
put the cover back on the matchbox. He picked up the paper that the
fairy was pinned on and opened it. He could see that she had written
something on it, but it was too stained with blood and ink to read.
He folded up the paper and put it in the matchbox with the fairy.
The man took the
matchbox into his backyard and dug a small hole. He placed the
matchbox in the hole and filled it back up. He carved cross out of a
piece of wood to mark where he buried her. Then he said a prayer for
the fairy before he left. Eventually, the wind, the rain and the sun
rotted the cross away. But not a single blade of grass ever grew
again in that tiny plot of dirt.
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