Day one among the fairies, and my guide, Thumbelina, says I'm hopeless. Ok. Her name is not really Thumbelina and she already hates hearing me call her that because the fairies have some kind of cultural guilt issue about the original Thumbelina. They shouldn't have misplaced her that way -- no matter what size she was. So, my guide is about the size of a human thumb -- most of the time, anyway -- so I'm going to keep calling her that. Her real name is way too hard to pronounce, and I could never get a firm fix on the spelling, since fairy script is nothing but swishes and dandelion fluff. Put a few silent French letters together with the worst of German and Irish quirks, and you'll get my guide's name. As far as I could sound it out using my English alphabet, it was Ferschpluchentisly. See? It's much easier to call her Thumbelina.
What about The Zoom, you ask? Usually zoom is a verb. When fairies do it, though, it becomes a noun. Among humans we have a parade. We have a ticker tape parade when we're really excited about something. We have Mardi Gras when we're excited about nothing, but need a party. We have a party when we need a reason to get together and eat cake. We humans are as hard to figure out as fairies, come to think of it. The Zoom for the fairies is a yearly Mardi Gras with ticker tape parade. No cake, though. Too bad for them.
So, fact number one (which you'll learn last, but I may mention it later this month, if it becomes important) is that a fairy can choose her own size. Thumb size is pretty convenient because she can still fly, but isn't in so much danger of being eaten by small birds or bats.
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| Does this look like a pigs snout? Or is that just me? I thought Thumbelina was just being selfish making me take the left side (lower) knot hole. turns out that it's really the more comfortable one. Orbs are wonderful inventions. I wish I had one at home in my apartment. |
It's part celebration, and part calibration. Making sure all fairies are able to master all pertinent sizes is a big deal, apparently.
So, up comes the sun, and the fairies in a grove all gather at a water source. Shrinking down to gnat size -- and this is actually checked against a volunteer gnat -- they sing the song of the day beginning.
Anyone else in the blogosphere have an incredible shrinking experience this week? No? Let me tell you, it's a trip. Consider that a human brain usually has to fit inside a roomy skull about the size of a volleyball. Shrinking it down, you feel like every little neuron has to slide, crunch, curl up, and make room around the others in ways your brain has never thought possible. You can still think like a human, because that's what you are. But all of a sudden, your memories are squeezed together in goofy ways, and jumbled up with everything you learned in school, so all of a sudden fishing reminds you of Atilla the Hun. We're adaptable, though. Things more or less settle down when you arrive at gnat size and hold there.
"The Morning Song of Dewy Delight," when sung by a few dozen gnat-sized fairies, leaves one giggling up her enchanted sleeve, trying not to offend her hosts. All I can really tell you is I need to perfect my skills at holding my facial muscles still. Thumbelina gave me all kind of strange looks. After the song was done, she asked, "Are you alright, Sabrina?" I mumbled a lame excuse. What could I say, though? A mosquito was itching my nose? If I had seen a mosquito at that moment it would have looked like a pickup truck -- relatively speaking about sizes.
The first leg of The Zoom took us down to the water level, hovering, surveying, dodging the evaporating water specks most humans only get to see with special cameras. This part only lasted a few minutes. Once the oldest fairies were satisfied with everyone's skills, they announced the next phase.
Bumblebee size is easier to manage. Going up is more comfortable down, when your brain cells get to slide into a more relaxed position.
This is where The Zoom starts to live up to its name. Single file formations. Dagger-shaped formations. Spheres. Cones. Cubes. All of these were major drills of the bumblebee leg. I wasn't required to participate -- only to keep up. My tiny little wing muscles got the workout of their life. Ok. Well, who am I kidding? Any workout would be the workout of my life at this point, since I was just granted my wing muscles on a temporary basis and I had never really used them. We explored every inch of the grove (about a half square mile) from ground level to tree top level, and took about half the morning on it. The song of this leg was "Because I Build a Bustling Business Doesn't Mean I Bumble Better." I had no idea fairies enjoyed comedy country songs, but there I had proof. When the day started, I expected to hear all kinds of frolicsy, winsome, and earthy tunes. I got a ballad of bee exasperations, instead. From the style I could tell this song was written some time after human country music got electric guitars. Who knew the fairies had that kind of human influences at work? Well, now I do. And you do too.
Third leg was sparrow size -- devoted to acrobatics above the tree tops. Songs got even stupider, but then, so did I. I can't even remember them any more.
Fourth leg was eagle size -- we did some diving into the water at this point, and also high altitude speed races. Stupid songs sung very loudly.
By the fifth leg (albatross) I was wondering if the fairies knew any serious songs.
Formations got looser and giggling got louder.
We worked through Cesna, to dragon, to Boeing (fairies use what analogies they need, and apparently airplanes filled a few gaps in their size chart.) Eventually, everyone was so giddy I could hardly understand the point of the maneuvers.
At levels beyond jumbo jets, the fairies just compare themselves to different asteroids -- although they rarely actually travel out to the asteroid belt. Most humans haven't seen all the oceans, but we at least know their names. Fairies have a bigger geography to keep track of. So, even though a fairy could fly to an asteroid, and they learn all the names of the major asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, they don't usually visit. They can travel more widely than us, yet they still prefer living in a pretty tiny area.
Drunk on flight was the only way I could describe the end of the day. My brain expanded so much I think it was the size of a dirigible, but that wasn't until we were in the ionosphere. At that point, there were so many gigantic fairies floating in the twilight part of space, it reminded me of the ray tank at Sea World. Lots of drifting and swirling. Smiling. Giggling. I wanted to ask someone whether we'd be showing up on radar, but in our loopy condition, they wouldn't have answered in words I could understand -- and I probably wouldn't have remembered the answer longer than a minute.
The Zoom is a world-wide event. Nearly every fairy on Earth participates, I hear. At the last ray of the sun, as it peeked over the side of the earth, clusters of fairies sunk through the atmosphere, shrinking as they went -- not in levels this time. Just a gradual shrinking as the altitude became lower. Enormous wings that had been fixed in place while the fairies were gigantic loosened up the smaller they got. Then, when winds again began to flow around us, the work began again. Zipping this way and that, the fairies oriented themselves toward their home groves, and tried to remember all the air current maps they should have reviewed before The Zoom, but didn't. Fairies are procrastinators, just like anyone. They rely on old information, and dumb luck. I followed Thumbelina. My schooling included things like Driver's Ed. Not air currents.
I know you're all thinking my brain must be permanently damaged from lack of oxygen beyond the ionosphere. I guess not. I do remember the point where everything was the size and shape I am most used to -- it felt like I had stepped into a pair of comfortable shoes, but the feeling didn't last. Pretty soon, I was midget sized, then baby sized, then within a few minutes, back down to thumb sized. Or what I call Fun Size because Thumbelina and her friends remind me of miniature candy bars. We made it back to the knot hole where Thumbelina's guest room was waiting for me. Back to the orb to keep dry and warm.
Now, back at my comfie little left knot hole, I have to say I don't look forward to the kind of hang over fairies get after a party like that. More tomorrow if I'm not unconscious.
