Just A Couple of Questions For Himself One Day..

 

            “I’m feeling very privileged to be here with you, Elder Brother,” I said.
            I was sitting up on Ralph’s big cedar log, which is up the path from the Home Clearing just a hop and a skip. It was too high for me to get up there by myself, so he had to lift me and put me there! For a second I remembered times when I had been small, a child. It was like that, feeling cared for.
            I looked around myself in utter delight. It was like visiting some loved place from childhood thought forever gone. It was perfect! Every Douglas Fir was perfect! Every sound was exactly right, bird calls, wind sighing, river rustling in the distance. It even smelled wonderfully woodsy.
            “You don’t need to be formal with me, Lady,” said Ralph. “You’ll embarrass me, if you do. You wrote the stories!”
            “Ah, it’s more like I sort of remembered them, and recorded them, Ralph,” I said. “I don’t feel like I originated any of your history. Maybe you could call me a witness.”
            He laughed. I think he laughs when he finds life to be beyond his comprehension and yet piquantly delicious. He looked exactly as I remembered him. He was fully 9ft tall and powerfully built of course. His belly looked just a little middle aged. His color is what is usually called sable. It’s a very dark brown color. His hair is fine and soft and about 6 inches long over most of his body. His skin under the hair is deeply tanned in color, he has a few wrinkles on his face, and white streaks in his beard on both sides. His eyes are dark brown. His nose is broad, but fully human in form.
            He did one of those patented backwards heroic leaps up onto the big log.
            “I’m all ears,” he said, looking kindly and very still. Nobody is as still as an Elder, if he intends to be still. It’s no wonder they get labeled stumps all the time.
            “I’m still trying to work some things out in my mind,” I said. “I didn’t want to put words in your mouth without checking a few things out with you.”
            “If you think so,” he said.
            “By the way, how is your beautiful and gracious Ramona? Twigg nearing grown, and then Cherry! How wealthy you are, Ralph!”
            “As you say! Truthfully they are as you say, and I am wealthy!” said Ralph seriously.
            I didn’t have paper, recorder, or anything of the sort with me, just me and my memory.
            “I have a dumb question first. Salt. When you ate raw meat did you salt it?” said I.
            “Short answer. No. But all creatures want salt. So we would have, if we could have gotten it.”
            “I just wondered,” I said. “Because it seems like some sort of line is crossed when you begin cooking and salting meat. Of course, getting salt is one of Earth’s old stories too.”
            “That’s what I  hear. We mostly get it from Thaga. I don’t know who she gets it from! She has her ways!” said Ralph.
            “That’s about what I thought,” I said.
            “Of course,” he said. “We probably think a lot of the same stuff!”
            “Next. Dogman. Werewolf. What say you? Is this a real thing? Where did they come from?”
            “I don’t like them,” said Ralph. His brow clouded for a moment, then his smile returned.
            “Evermore!” echoed through the trees. Maeve landed with a thunk on Ralph’s shoulder. “I don’t like them either.”
            “Nobody likes them, Maeve,” said Ralph. “That must not be the point. They’re like a bad dream that got a little bit too solid. Well, actually, way too solid.
            “Of course, we don’t have them here. I wouldn’t allow it,” he added.

            "Except for Maurice! He was special. He had the ability to learn, unlike the rest of them, and he became aware of the effects of his own actions. The boy was definitely unique!" grinned Ralph, thinking of his old friend.
            “It’s like this. Every character in a story or in the world is a manifestation of thought. Somebody, or a bunch of somebodies, are having bad thoughts shaped like a big ugly dog thing,” said Ralph. “I wonder sometimes if these thoughts are like an infection, passed from parent to child, and person to person until they solidify and become literally dangerous?
            “Well, as I said, I wouldn’t allow them to exist around here,” said Ralph. “You know what though, Lady? I don’t think anybody must allow them to exist anywhere!”
            “Right, Boss,” said Maeve. “Who you let in, is a choice,” she added, enigmatically.
            “OK. That makes sense to me. Deny Dogman entry,” I noted, fully intending to stand against the mutt.
            From my seat next to Ralph, I could see down the path all the way to the fire circle. As I watched, I saw Ramona moving around making a fire, serenely, and Cherry helping a little, carrying a few sticks of wood as she drifted along by her mother’s elbow.
            I saw that the white wolf pup, Blue, waited and watched quietly, as they went about their work.
            Most likely, Twigg and the Puma Bros. were out hunting, or fishing, or some such.
            It was all perfect! There was nothing to add, or to take away.
            “There’s another thing a lot of us wonder about, Ralph,” I said.
            “What’s that?” he asked agreeably.
            “Brother, it’s those orbs. Lights. In the woods, and in the sky, and moving, or not. Many colors. What are they. Do they anything to do with your people?”
            “Oh! Yeah. Let me think for a minute. I need to say this right. It will be partly right, but not absolute.
            “As you know, we have a couple of nifty ways of getting from place to place. There are the good old dependable portals. That’s the old way. Sometimes I just wrinkle distance. I can’t make that make sense. It sounds like a dream talking, and we know how much sense dreams make. Didn’t you call them the Gardens of Synesthesia once? Yeah, you did! I heard you!
            “Sometimes I sing my way along. This is a good trick but must be done right!” he said.
            “Part of what orbs do is deal with size differentials. Like, if I had to travel to a time/world where things were 5% of what they are in size here, some adjustments would need to be made.
            “They’re kind of like a subway. But also, sometimes when you see an orb, it’s just a visitor from Out There on some business here.” Then he winked at me.
            “Is that good enough,” he asked.
            “Yes, Elder Brother. That’s good enough. I probably wouldn’t understand the physics even if you said the words to me. I get the flavor of it,” said I.
            “Alright, Scribe, since you insist on speaking formally, would you care to dine with my family and I tonight?” said Ralph.
            I gazed at him sitting there. I was thinking of what to say to him.
            Finally, I said, “I’m not sure even the orbs could help me there. I think I will leave you all my blessings and like, leave. Will you help me down off of here, Ralphie?”
            He had a brief fit of the giggles. Maeve flew off toward the fire because her footing had gotten wiggly.
            “I don’t even need to do that, Scribe. Close your eyes. When you open them again, you will be back in Milltown looking at your screen, working away on your keyboard!” he said. 
            And you know what? He was correct! But then, Ralph is always right! When the king’s in his castle, all’s right with the world.

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