Faeries Don'T Have To Work - LAZARUS (most read books .txt) 📗

streak of green. As she nears, I see Rambo hauling his tiny behind in the opposite direction. I guess he’s not up to being scolded…or bitten. I don’t blame him.
She tells us that the creature pursued her until it became exhausted. At that moment, she swung around his massive body and took a large bite off its tail. “The idiot then proceeded to try to snap at me and in doing so bit his own tail even harder than me. What a moron! That was fun…the best I’ve had in a long time.”
“Thanks, Mel, but you did not have to risk your own life like that.” I tell her.
“But I did save your sorry white butt, didn’t I? And…speaking of which…”
I look down, and quickly don my boxer shorts. There’s giggling from all the tiny folks, as I blush crimson.
“And…I like worms,” says Wanda from up above me. Laughter then breaks out even harder, as Mel lands on my shoulder to comfort me.
Wordie is off to find her escaped loved one…’Fearless Freddie’.
Back near the tent, as I ‘m about to have my ham sandwich and coffee, Mel is sitting on a log, watching me. “Want a bite?” I ask her.
“No thanks Cal, but that workout in the lake did make me hungry.” As she says this, faster than the blink of an eye, she reaches behind her and comes up holding a large black juicy cricket. In no time she has the head bitten off, the wing and casing removed, and she is happily munching on what was rest of it. Using one of its back legs as a tooth pick, she smiled and patted her tummy. “Boy that was yummy! Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Yuck, you just devoured a cricket.” I say as I make a face.
“Oh…and you humans don’t eat food like…let’s say…sushi, steak tartar, raw oysters, snails, shrimp, octopus, and ova that come out of a fowl’s behind? Should I go on? Some of you eat worm pies also.”
I was expecting to hear Wanda chime up, but she must also be off somewhere foraging for her own breakfast.
“Ok…I get your point. Who am I to judge…maybe if I tried cricket, I would like it. But not right now.”
“What would you like to do today? We could go for another swim later.”
“No, maybe tomorrow. What about that thing in the water?”
“He won’t bother us any more. Knows best to stay clear.”
I tell her that I will try my luck at fishing…it should be safer in a rubber raft, than in the water. “Are there any fish in this lake?’
“All kinds…and I can help you locate them…ok?”
Later that morning, along with my tiny flesh and blood fish finder, I head out to the lake.
By early afternoon, I’m frying a nice large wide-mouth bass. The aroma is wonderful, and the taste is even better. I’ve caught enough to feed our small band. Although most prefer to eat the fish raw, some do like my cooking. Wordie and Freddie are sitting on a branch above us, sharing the cheeks of that bass, and nuzzling each other every so often. I find that so cute. Mel is watching them, looking a tad envious…at least that’s what I think. She flies over to me and sits on my shoulder and puts her tiny face against my neck and sighs.
For the rest of the afternoon I explore this Eden-like place, taking many photos. I wonder if any of the pictures of these faeries will transfer onto my hard drive at home, or will they be missing.
As the sun is dipping below the trees, we sit there, the smoke of our fire ascending high above us…it’s so serene. There are still no sounds from the insects, although frogs and night birds sing their melodies, praising the Creator for their existence and this local habitat.
“Mel…how old are you? You don’t look much more than twenty.”
“I don’t know…never did and never bothered to find out. Is it important?” She asks.
“Most likely not. But it’s the human way…we divide everything up into sections, such as time, land, the world, our possessions…and sadly, our lives also. Do you know approximately?”
“Well, let me think. The first time I ventured into a large city, I remember that instead of cars, folks were being pulled about in carriages. Does that give you a hint?”
“Good lord! You must be over one hundred! Wow! Now I feel so young.”
“We are educated too. Not some back woods critters…wait, we are back wood critters…but we read and love to learn.” She chuckles.
I was beginning to like my Mel…’Mel the Mischievous’ more and more every minute.


Chapter Three

The adventure of Tina and Carmine


That evening I learned more about the delightful lives of these woodland creatures. Mel told me how she and others manage to enter a city without anybody being suspicious as to who they really are. Mel trusted me enough to relate that they would transform themselves into humans and simply walk into town, and try to blend in, keeping away from areas that may pose a risk.
She tells me, “Tina the Tomboy and her male friend Carmine went to Seattle out of curiosity around the mid sixties. They met some friendly hippies and decided to stick around with them for a couple of months, which ended up much longer…more like five years.
From Seattle, the group bummed a ride down to San Francisco, where the action was.
With the little money they had, and what they were able to obtain from begging and busking, they bought ‘groovy’ clothes such as bell-bottom hip hugging jeans, beads and flowery shirts. Carmine proudly sported a loose sleeved paisley patterned shirt.
Tina wore a rainbow colored, very wide dress, with sandals, that laced right up to her knees. Carmine also followed the latest fashion and walked about wearing authentic, east Indian, J.C. boots. (Leather sandals…for all you un-hip folks.)
Carmine let his blond hair grow down past his shoulders, keeping it in place with a colorful head band, brandishing a proud peace sign logo.
They got familiar with the fast-growing hippie culture; such things as Head shops, psychedelic posters, black lights, and music for the body and soul. And…transcendental meditation.
Above all, let’s not forget the mind altering drugs such as marijuana, hash and LSD…thanks to Timothy Leary.
This was the new revolution…peace, free love, draft card burning, and basically…hell to war…especially the one in Viet Nam.
Soon protests were organized and Tina and her boyfriend got caught up in that movement in no time flat.
In January 1967 between twenty and thirty thousand youths convened at the Golden Gate Park for a ‘Human Be-In’… a place not far from the famous Haight Ashbury neighborhood. Their wish originally was to be in attendance at the mass peace rally that was held at the capital at the foot of the Washington Monument, which occurred approximately eight months earlier. Ten thousand gathered there in front of the White House, for a somewhat noisy but peaceful protest.
For the next two years after that, most of Tina and Carmine’s life was lived in a blue haze.
Then, in August of 1969, those two hitched a ride to Upper New York State, where many hippies and week-end hippies were heading. It was at a place now simply known as Woodstock. Over thirty bands were to perform for about twenty thousand, but that three day love-in grew closer to half a million strong. There was love in the air, and many of today’s population were conceived there.
Tina and Carmine said that it was ‘far out’ and ‘heavy’…those are their very own words.
After that mind blowing three days, their small group headed into town. The locals were not friendly at all…called them all sorts of names, and told them to leave.
Just outside of that place the small group of eight set up camp and were just relaxing and singing around the fire, when two ‘pigs’, as they called policemen back then, came to investigate. Paranoia is no stranger to dope heads high on hash. So, sensing trouble the group split up and ran in all different directions.
Tina and Carmine fled into a nearby wooded patch, being pursued by one of the law officers. Panicking, and not seeing a way out, they changed back into their true forms and flew out of there at a high speed…straight back to this place…never setting foot back into civilizations again. That policeman had a lot of trouble explaining why he found only two set of clothes, but not their occupants that night. Today that rookie cop, by the name of Ryan Boswell, is enjoying his retirement near the Mediterranean, on the coast of France. Even now, he’s still scratching his head, not understanding how two grown people could simply vanish into thin air, leaving all their clothes behind.
Tina and Carmine are still with us today. They wear similar clothes to what they did back in the late sixties. I’ll have to introduce you to them tomorrow…they haven’t changed a bit.”

Now she is sitting cross legged on a nearby log, mesmerized by the flickering fire. There is something about a crackling fire that allows a person to simply forget everything else for that moment. All worldly cares vanish and melt into those flames.
It is getting late, and although the moon is nowhere to be seen, the stars are putting on a magnificent display, along with the appearance of the occasional shooting star as a bonus.
Mel flitters into the tent and starts to drag my jacket a little closer to where my pillow is.
“You don’t mind, do you, Cal?” She asks.
I see her struggling with her heavy burden and I lend a hand. “Why the shift? I thought you slept well enough where you were last night.”
“Yes I did, but I only wish to be a little closer. That’s all.”
After readjusting her bedding…my jacket, I ask her, “So…from what you have told me earlier, can all of you morph into humans? I know you’ve done it, from what you told me about that time when you saw the horse and buggies. Is it easy to do?”
“Not hard…takes some concentration. I’ve done it maybe about a dozen times…never needed to do so more often than that.” She says this as she bids me ‘goodnight’ and curls up in her newly located ‘bed’.
I watch her for awhile. In no time she is purring, fast asleep, and looking so peaceful.
I lie there recapping all of yesterday and today’s events, still finding it hard to believe.
Sleep overcomes me soon enough, but not before I feel something like a butterfly’s wing brush my cheek.


Chapter Four

The dream


I’m running on a pure white sandy strand. The sky above me is azure blue, with nary a cloud in sight. The sun is energizing my skin as I effortlessly dash along that beach…my feet barely touch the ground, and I hardly break a sweat. The air is pure and salty here next to the emerald green waves of the ocean.
As I speed along, I detect an invisible presence moving…keeping up next to me…shadowing my every step.
I reach out my hand towards it, and my fingers tingle, as I hear a buzzing …like a faint electric crackling sound. There is also a shimmering…not unlike when you see heat rising from a hot surface…like what you see emanating off the hood of a car, in the