A get up time story

 

This is a little dreamy fairy story. Like a bedtime story, but for waking up.

This is... A get up time story

There once was a cabinet of childhood curiosity.

It sat where it was:

Silently, by itself, on wooden floorboards in a room.

A room ordinarily far too large for just a cabinet.

All the dust that there was ever in that room had fallen onto it.

The Wunderkammer was taller and heavier than most children.

Fragile, handmade glass let small children see what was inside:

Shape worn cloth

Shoe-dolls

Peg people

Dog-eared books

Tin-wheeled cars

Porcelain instruments

Bone houses

Half-perished mythical figurines

Well played game pieces

A taxidermy songbird with a key in its back

All warped by the uneven pond-like green glass.

A girl was overcome with curiosity at the sight of the songbird.

Carefully, she cracked a creaking cabinet door open.

She let the weight of her hand press into the feathers.

The bird was not in good condition.

Mottled, brittle feathers poked at odd angles and she could feel bones,

or perhaps brutal edged metal skeleton of an automaton.

It's eyes were black as onyx chained round a lady's clavicle

Mouldering beak yet remained as keen as a soldier's blade.

It's feet were still as steady as a church tower.

Now cradling this strange bird round it's weak wings, 

she gently began to wind the iron key in it's back.

With each stiff crank

She felt a single heartbeat reply in her palm.

"be-doom"

After 13 turns of the key, the key would turn no more times.

Running to a window of the room (which now seemed even larger)

the girl slid the sash and case window wide and released this

clockwork healed wonder into the outside.

Shaking off its mange.

Shaking off the dullness that had afflicted it for so long.

Shaking off the stagnation of a weary past

It blustered out into the vastness.

As it flew shedding its tattered mousswab shroud, she watched it, 

her arm held above her, her hand in a frozen reach of worship.

And as it flapped its wings

The bird's feathers took on new colours.

Orange of amber ingots, unique, each one

Richness of a cedar warmed in a new sun.

Russet of wise oak kings.

Crimson of a raging night fire in ancient Crete.

Shades of the charred left by defeat.

The songbird flew through a forest,

shedding it's beautiful plumage as it flew from one branch to another.

The trees fell in love with the songbird.

But songbirds do not stay.

After a moment, it flew away.

The trees, were sad, but grateful for having felt this way.

They changed the colour of their emerald leaves

to match the bird's feathers left behind

to remind themselves of a love once had of another kind.

This is why leaves change colour in autumn.

With no more feathers, the songbird could no more fly than if it were a stone.

So it fell into a field and transformed into a fire wolf.

It stretched its lithe spine.

It stretched its long, slender limbs.

It stretched it's mouth open and touched its killer teeth with a soft tongue.

Sleek and sly and nimble,

So agile it could balance on a maid's thimble.

Fur the colour of the moon above and those below who think themselves

a symbol.

The fire wolf ran through a field of grass towards a graveyard.

It swished it's brush tail between the stems as it weaved

like an assassin through a crowd of innocents.

The grass of the field fell in love with the sensation of its tail.

But fire wolves don't stand still.

In the moment when it senses its in for a kill.

The grass was sad but understood that is the wolfs' will.

They swayed at the memory of the wolf's grey hair

Like ballerinas in a trance of a love of such deep care.

This is why grass moves in pulsed waves.

The fire wolf, in all it's grandeur walked through the graveyard

The kill still on its warm breath.

The graves fell in love with this mistress of death.

This big, bad, omen, they could not resist.

But after death, life moves on.

Pleasure is never without a grief fully gone.

The graveyard was sad but knew one day the wolf would return.

The gravestones bowed and curtsied in respect

Of a love they could not always come to except.

This is why gravestones look bent over and askew in old cemeteries.

The fire wolf needed to clean itself of sin

So it ran to the sea and dived right in.

The nocturnal fur washed away and it transformed into a fish.

The most exotic fish the sea ever saw.

The exotic fish flashed its treasure jewel scales.

It flashed its sunken boat sail tail.

It flashed its backbone coral spikes.

The exotic fish swam the seven seas, churning up the waters.

The seas all agreed this fish should be kept and loved.

But exotic fish aren't meant to be caught

It swims because freedom is hard fought.

The seas were sad but they knew they could not.

So they followed as far each of them could travel

For a love so exotic they could only marvel.

This is why the seas move in tides.

The fish loved the sky and remembered when it could fly.

It was sad but this was a love it could not deny.

It changed it's shimmering fins as into sparkling wings,

and leapt out the sea, and its scales left its body

And its skeleton left its body

And its body left its essence.

And it transformed into atomic droplets.

The atomic droplets skipped on clouds like skimming stones

The clouds fell in love with this neon dance.

Clouds and droplets from water are a perfect match.

But droplets do not last.

They shine, fall and disappear so fast.

The clouds were sad they would never feel love the same

The pain made the clouds tear into punishing rain.

They beg the sun to remind them of it again.

This is why there are rainbows.

The girl looks out the window of the empty room,

(which now seemed very small)

aside from the Cabinet.

The sky is near cave blue.

Hears a far off "be-doom"

This is why rain follows thunder so soon.

She knows there is a heart beating for me and you.