The Fall of Endless Land

Anna and Simon had been close friends ever since they had reached the tender age of four. They were like a pair of beautiful little birds, always flying around in the same cage, always watching out for each other, often sitting together on a branch and chattering in turns, always creating beautiful songs with their voices or by the way they glided through the open air of the enclosing prison. If you saw Anna and Simon together, sitting under a tree, staring intently at the ground you would know what friendship was.

Their games were magic; they were Gods creating a little world for themselves and for the creatures that had been waiting for such a world. There was a squirrel called Spunky who would always steal nuts from Ferome the finch and Anna would tell Simon to make Spunky return the nuts and Simon would do as she told and their perfect little world would remain perfect. Sometimes, however, they would face greater problems. There was a time when Rasputin, king of rats, decided to organize an army to take over the Land of Light, which had traditionally been controlled by the finches. The finches were loved by everyone. They would make sure that everyone got a fair share of the grain that appeared magically every evening on the Land of Light. They distributed the grain wisely and all the animals were happy. The finches, because they were so honest, were especially liked by Anna and therefore also by Simon. On the day of the invasion Simon himself lead the finches in battle and it was only after a grueling six days of battle that peace was restored and the rats were banished to live beneath the ground in the Land of Dark. One thing was sure though- the animals knew that no other Gods or Goddesses could have ruled wiser than Anna and Simon.

When they were able to find time for themselves, away from the busy lives they lead as protectors and rulers of all Endless Land, they would sit at the swings behind Anna’s house and talk. Sometimes they would just sit quietly for hours and have more fun than anyone ever could.

The swings looked beautiful. Just behind the swings was Fairytale Forest, which turned into Fearsome Forest as soon as the rays of the sun disappeared from the lively and fresh tree tops of the forest. The forests were not part of Endless Land. Anna refused to include them in the kingdom and Simon constantly told her stories of the forests and the beauty and the mystery the trees hid within their whispering leaves.

The stories scared Anna and excited her. They enticed her and made her shiver whenever she remembered them as her mother tucked her into bed each night. Simon told her of the beyets who lived there and played there. The beyets, said Simon, were little elf-like creatures who spent their time gathering different foods from the forest and organizing small tea parties for all the other fantastic creatures that lived there. Just before sunset, the beyets would go to a glade and all the little creatures would sit and eat toadstool honey with hyacinth pancakes or fairy dust muffins or sometimes even little lertberries, which resembled strawberries but were far more tender and delicious. They would always drink the sweet nectar of fairy lemon schniffles in little glasses made from flowers and play games of unimaginable delight. But they had to be sure they finished their parties before the rays of the sun disappeared from the lively and fresh tree tops of the forest; that was when the maneets came out from their caves and ravaged Fearsome Forest, taking back to their burrows what they wished to take. The maneets were feared by everyone, even the beyet king Thimfinni. They were small but immensely powerful and more cruel than powerful. The maneets scared Anna and she would tell Simon to not tell her about them but would always want to know more; a little child yearning for danger and excitement that her love seemed to thrive in. Simon told her of his encounters with the maneets and beyets and every time she heard these stories she would fear for Simon’s life and love him more and these stories made her more adamant about not including the forests in their beautiful kingdom.

It was just this sort of story that Simon was telling Anna as they sat on the swings and talked. They had been together since morning and the summer day seemed to keep dusk far from them.

Simon asked Anna, “Do you want to go to the forest now and watch the beyets prepare for the parties?”

“No.”

There was a silence around them as Simon felt the same pain he felt every time he asked her this. They kept swinging on the swings.

“Would you miss me if, one day, I went there alone?”

And as these words escaped his mouth Anna looked back at him with a face of disapproval and glowing eyes that held all her love for him within them and the glow was lost as the swing beside her swung empty and she could not, for a minute, understand what happened.