Good Morning, Friends!
This week is an extra week, so here is another of Emily Hattinkson's adventures.
Here is her first one, but you don't really need to read the first one to read the second one. Also,
here is a link to a picture of Emery's Cross.
Emily, our dear bus-rider, had been
riding the bus for many months now. She was accustomed to the new
people, and did not miss the old people. Throughout her many bus
rides, Emily saw many different days, with many different suns. She
liked to keep track of the different days she was fortunate enough to
perceive.
One type of day was when, as Emily
liked to say, “The sun wakes up.” On this day, Emily paid her
fare, and, luckily, got two chairs to herself. Emily pushed her
sweatshirt sleeves up and swung her backpack onto the chair next to
her. The traffic was flowing smoothly, and Emily could hear the
roaring of the noise the bus makes when it is not aware it is making
noise, noise too loud to talk to the person next to you. To Emily, it
felt as if the noise was trapped inside her ears, echoing and trying
to find a way out. Finally, it grew less and less, until it finally
subsided.
Just then, the bus came into view of
the city. The stretching sun danced over the lady across from Emily's
white, pristine, jacket, resting a moment on Charles the Accountant's
sleeping face, before running to reflect on the window, then
disappearing like the evanescent dew.
Another day, which Emily only
experienced once, she christened the “Magical Day.” The sunlight
that day was very much like the sunlight when the sun wakes up, but
much richer, and tinged with the rose-gold color few are blessed
enough to see. The sun danced even more grandly and wildly than it
ever had before, and as they entered the city, the sun's rays colored
the buildings the colors fairies paint in a child's dream, a color
none can describe, and one would only remember in the back of one's
mind, the part whispering: “Remember when. . . Remember when. . .”
In the city, a man was locking a
garage, still bathed in the beautiful rays of the sun, and people
were beginning to stir, to come out of their sleepy night and enter
the glorious day. Each person was a small part of a giant mechanism,
like each tiny gear that makes a clock run, or each ant in an
anthill, working to keep the hill running. And, as Emily said, there
was a magic there none can describe, and very few will have the
opportunity to witness.
This last day, this day, Emily
entitled: “Fairies' Day,” for this day was full of the good
neighbors' fog. The fog covered the top half of the buildings, and so
densely that one could not even see the hint of an outline. After
Emily had been dropped off at her bus stop, she breathed in a deep
breath of the crisp, cold, air, full of the heaviness only fog can
bring. As she walked to school, it was difficult to see just across
the street, that was how thickly the fog had descended. Emily knew
the fairies were planning mischief, maybe to punish someone for a bad
gift, or forgetting the wee folk last Saint Patrick's Day, or maybe,
as her uncle had told her once, they were helping someone along to
find their place.
If Emily closed her eyes, she could
just imagine the fairies twisting the fog, and then, Emily would open
her eyes, and be in a field, or maybe under a tree of Emery's Cross.
Or, maybe the wispy tendrils of the mist would slowly, quietly, wrap
around her, and bring her to a far-off land. Whatever the case, the
Fairies' Day held adventure for some charmed soul.
These days and many others graced
Emily's time riding the bus. For, adventure can always be found if
one has enough courage.
Spruce Nogard
*Post written on 3/28/17
