The Boy Who Never Grew Up

The Twentieth of September Two Thousand and Eleven. Tuesday.

When you give a Mother's love,

Milk and Warmth are not enough,

Guard your daughter, watch your son,

If you would not have them gone.

Hide your child from fairy eyes,

Let but mortals hear their cries, 

Cross no pixie, harm no sprite,

Or lose your loved one to the night.

Beate Zweibel (1822-1879)

Trans. Thomas Sachs

This is the tale of the boy who never grew up.

Across a magic skyline and under a field of stars.

A city of souls sheltered within brick and stone.

A time of penny posts and songs of Empire.

A time of iron horses, dreadnoughts of steel.

Of young children's dreams of the future.

She didn't speak, fairies very rarely do, yet William Robinson understood every word that wasn't said.

My  name is Julia, she had told him. If the clockwork miracles of the ages to come hold no wonder for you, then I offer an alternative. Attend me now and learn of a realm worthy of your wishes and your imagination.

And William sat at the foot of his bed casting hour and minute hand shadows by candle and fairy light. He weighed stories of floating continents beyond the clouds against tales of exploration and exploitation abroad. He compared the riding of unicorns and coltpixies to the static, dust-gathering bulk of the great steamship models his father had harboured about this bedroom. His engineer father. His engineering father. His engineering fate.

William made a decision.

He asked how he might join this other, better and brighter world.

There was a spray of glittering dust, its volume many times greater than that of the diminutive fairy from whom it issued, which engulfed the young boy.

Close your eyes and think happy thoughts, Julia replied.

Then, there were two airborne figures, swooping and spiralling around the room like mating butterflies. A momentary whoop of delight was silenced by the lateness of the hour. The aerobatic display continued, quietly now, Julia leading young Master Robinson is a series of  instructional manoeuvres to improve his speed and mobility. These finished with a spectacular figure-of-eight loop.

Now you are ready, announced Julia, come with me to The Land Beyond Beyond and take your rightful place amoung us, O child of man.

Julia wheeled and spun with typical fairy indirectness, then darted out of the window. William followed eagerly.

It took a matter of seconds for the ant colony to swarm over the compass-rose corpse etched upon the pavement.

The skin dissolved and ran quicksilver-like off Julia's shiny black body, revealing the canister embedded into the exo-skeleton at ther uppper right leg. Stencilled upon it weren't words, fairies very rarely use them, yet these symbols were perfectly readable. They said: "FORMIC HALLUCINOGEN"

Julia consulted her itinerary. Mary-Elizabeth Hilton, 24 Bilbury Avenue, then on, out of London altogether.

It would be morning before the colony stripped the meat down to the bone.

This is the tale of the boy who never grew up.

More soonliest.