Chip Howland
howland@skypoint.com
Many years ago, in a land far-off and forgotten, a young boy set out from his tiny village to seek his fortune. The places he knew slipped quickly away behind him, for he was fleet of foot, although his vertical was nothing to write home about. Many days passed and the boy found himself alone in a dark wood, lost and weary from hunger, despite his formidable Cub Scout training. He leaned heavily against the trunk of a nearby tree and cradled his head between his hands, cleverly dislocating his thumb in the process. "Fie on this," said the boy. "This is in no way yummy." The woodland creatures chittered at him in agreement.
And then, just as he was about to give up hope, the boy heard a fluttering sigh, like a symphony of spring, and he felt the cool touch of a spirit wind, bearing upon its back the fragile scent of beauty. The boy opened his eyes wide and looked about, astounded. He found himself in a grove of aspen trees, as tall as twenty men and straighter than Cupid's arrow. Their leaves flickered secretly beneath the invisible arc of the sky, weaving a deep green canopy of shadows, shot through by a single beam of sunlight. The boy's eyes swept down the fiery shaft of light to the forest floor, where it splashed and leaped and exploded into brilliance around the motionless form of a sleeping faerie princess.
The bottom dropped out of the boy's heart and his breath vanished like a half-remembered dream at dawn. He crept across the clearing, to gaze upon the strange perfection of the spell-bound daughter of elven kings. As he kneeled before her, the voiceless whisper of true love sounded in his veins, urging him to break the enchantment. So he bowed his head and kissed her lips and the faerie princess turned into a chemical engineer. "Uh oh," thought the boy. But as it turned out, the faerie princess knew all about dishin' the rock, frogging the line and pulling out the 'J'. Moreover, she had game.
After the rejoicing and whatnot, the faerie princess thanked the boy solemnly and took his hand in hers. Only two minutes into their first date and already she liked the cut of his jib. They stared for a moment that might have been forever into one another's eyes, and then the boy unhooked the silver ring from the lobe of his ear and slipped it on her finger. This is what he said:
With this ring upon thy hand, I pledge
my troth to thee,
In health and sickness, light and dark, throughout
eternity.
Though mountain turn to valley and river
turn to hill,
Though stars no longer burn at night, I will
love thee still.
My heart will beat with your heart, every
living breath
And when it beats no longer, I will love
thee after death.
The faerie princess was silent for a moment, for his words had touched her deeply. Then she reached up and plucked a ringlet of hair from her head and bound it around the boy's finger. And these are the words she spoke:
I give to thee this lock of hair, a
charm of luck and life,
And offer thee my hand and heart forever
as thy wife.
None may cast asunder what Fate has here
aligned,
Two made one by mortal means as Heaven has
designed.
Not a bond of days or years, or calculable
length,
Its premise is eternal, for with time it
grows in strength.
And the boy said nothing, for he too was touched. They stood quietly together, holding hands and feeling the fierce heat of emotion beating beneath their skin. The forest stood by in silence.
"And now," said the faerie princess, "we will live happily together as the Faerie Queen and her Prince Consort, and all of the scattered subjects of the kingdom of Thompson Farms will address you fondly as 'L'il Snarkles'."
"Um...hang on," said the boy, but before he could protest further, the faerie princess sealed his lips with a kiss so vast and complicated that it passed beyond the limits of passion and unwound the boundaries of the universe, so that for one brief moment, flesh became spirit and two souls became one.
Please join me in a moment of silence as the bride and groom demonstrate that kiss.
Chip Howland
howland@skypoint.com