On a Whim...

One day, with mind and bed yet to be made, Nell went for a walk o’er dale and glen.1

You all know Nell, do you not?2

If not, I’ll tell you of this red-haired maiden, and of the day she walked to a new, old place.3

But you all know Nell, do you not?,..so I shall tell you of her day…4

A day in light, not glaring, sunny white, but cheery, bright, springtime green, fresh and mightily whimsical. A misty, gentle rain had fallen through the night…a storm only to the hearts of open flowers, and microscopic life…yes, and to their scents…which were tossed about o’er dale and glen for miles, or feet at least…5

And…speaking of feet…you all know Nell’s cute little pups and wonder, as I do, at their ability to carry her so quickly along…as if she were floating.6

On this…throught this, sweetened morn…this barely cool, refreshing break of day…with the spilled and free, the dancing perfume of flowers balloooooning around, intoxicating each the other, you and me…creating more and more potent draughts of air for all who breathed…on this…through this luscious morning…our Nell pranced.7

You all know how Nell prances, with her kind and gentle hands touching more air than any strolling human!…her soft yet sinewy arms swimming through the mist, swinging to a smile above her bouncing, blondish-rouge ponytail, pointing her tiny toes and nose in directions to be, and taken.8

Why…glimpsing her…from the side, a mile away, or more; you’d think you’d seen the levitated, jumping-jacking, tack of some fantastic, exorcising exercise guru!…and closer up you’d think she skipped!…but closer still you’d know it’s Nell. You all know Nell, and how she prances!9

People peering through their windows…far, far, away…see a twinkling rainbow dot on green…skimming the ridge. They wonder, deep inside, how this, obviously human, glimmering spot on the meadow could move so fast, but they almost never know they’re wondering such things, and they never say, even in their mind and to themselves, “I think I’ll go for a walk.” but they do. And they walk to intercept her course…and…almost never consciously, but always, they look down to see her tracks in the dew, and the grass springing up from her footfall. The bounding child inside of each, then truly wonders at her marvelous stride…and they feel generally good, though know not why. At that point, they look up, breathe in the day, and see Nell’s back a ridge or two or four away……..She’s stopped!10

Listen to yourself breathe. Who breathes loudest. Why?11

Why…when Nell walks…she breathes very loud…like a giant! She breathes and makes woofing sounds…on purpose! If you walk beside her; though, she talks like a wizard with a pupil…with the eye of education…knowing and open! She speaks upon a vast array of topics, for she listens intently!12

Listen to yourself breathe. Who breathes loudest. Why?13

Why has Nell stopped? We truly wonder this!..all of us on this ridge and those!..and in the valleys in between!..we who have walked, head down, to intercept her course…we who have listened to ourselves breathe…and heard others!14

Litening and looking around we see each other, standing on each of Nell’s footprints, in a perfectly straight line, from the gate of her quaint, rock house to this place, where I stand, four miles off. I stand where she changed course, and walked on another line, four miles on…and noone stands between us, between where Nell and I have stopped.15

But why has Nell stopped? Why has Nell stopped at MY house? And how could I have passed and not seen her? How bizzare! And what must she think of me!..not even to say “Hello, maiden Nell. What a lovely outfit you have chosen. You are surely fit for this beautiful day!” and now, she has reached my house and stopped, with nobody home but my carpet!16

I look back, towards her garden gate…over the heads of a thousand admirers. Then, as if on cue and to measure, all in the line turn to face the same direction, 90 degrees off Nell’s first course. We stretch out our arms, reach with flat hands, and barely touch the tip of our neighbor’s longest finger(s).17

“It’s a spectacular stride!” we feel, or think. I say. “What a spectacular stride!”18

the power of Nell travels back and forth between us, electrifying the moist spring air. This electricity crackles and shakes us…unconscious!19

So…only Nell could see the dancing cloud, the amoeba of birdlike humans, entranced, enriched, enlightened and flying, enabled en masse to soar though air to their respective open doors, enchased throughout the countryside, bright and shiny on this day, left in the wake of Nell to wake again, that’s twice, to this enchanting morn of play…20

The drizzling cloud of us shrank down to me…21

… I’m now AWAKE, upon the stoop of my home, invigorated…dazzled, inclined upon my gate. I imagine the other’s similar fate, as meadow birds call out their names, at peaceful rates. I nearly sleep, so nearly wake remembering Nell…as my carpet flies off, over my head, and I yell!22

“WAIT!”23

It was Nell, I think, upon my carpet and traveling about in A magical way. No doubt greeting the rug and not I, inviting IT out to spend the day. “Oh. Woe is me.” I say, but rest…and imagine the trip they take…24

MY! Oh, my! What a wonderfully wondrous time they will have! What mysteriously miraculous matters they will be witness to!25

Why…I am sad, not at all !!! for my carpet shall return with a new pattern !!! magically mirroring their marvelously mystical day !!! I can barely wait to see my new resplendent rug!!!26

My carpet will tell a story…100 stories…from a thousand lands…dancing vermillion sagas, Chinese red, atonal tales. My carpet will recount legends told…soaking them up in the cool night air outside of nomads’ glowing tents…she’ll hear moles that crawl beneath the sands…golden moles, from golden lands…My intricately woven friend will drift among the tallest, wettest trees on earth and see an unknown, suspended world, with one million stories of how each of twelve million lives touch mine…half a world away. Ten thousand miles, or light years, my lovely friends will travel, and tell of…27

In a bubble of air they’ll drift all through the sea. Gently, Nell will return to oceans blue the bright fish fallen to her lap from passing schools…and scratch the belly of the whale, she will, and laugh at stories that they tell…and tug their flying tails. Those stories she’ll tell me and I’ll tell you, you’ll see…and don’t forget that ants will tell her stories, too, for she listens so very intently. But you know that’s true, for you all know Nell and how she listens.28

Colonies of ants will share their secrets of how to be…tres, tres petite…and Nell will learn, for she listens with her peaceful ear and shrinks…so small she fits inside your thoughts and rests on every word to wake enlightened…and, in this formicid case, she wakes the size of ants, to ants, so that they barely see her as she tours their galleries…on my micrificent carpet!29

What lovely patterns she’ll imbibe .!. and bring to my home .!. to come alive .!. bright, delicious fungal colors…splashed on earthy, antennal touched tones, ringing…circling…embracing brilliant native dyes from trees, roots, rocks, flowers, fruits…flushes of blushing color, weaving wisely evolved parables…intertwined to form the glorious yarns of a day with Nell:30

Nell and the Muddy, Dancing Midge Larvae of the Marsh31

Nell and the Speciation of the Bokhara Slime Mold32

Nell and the Clacking sand of the Ghost Crab’s Moonlight Skittering33

Nell and the Conundrumous Seabirds…34

Chapter 135

Across the beach, the gentle, rolling waves hiss and spin more sand upon a damp, transient pavement, home of the sanderling, classified with the albatross, with whom Nell circled the globe, meeting pitteral and shearwater…bouncing on turbulent air above the crashing waves of open seas. She saw penguins few can name…36

But I shall see them every day and know them well, and the tiny islands upon which they breed…I’ll learn it all from the weave of my lovely carpet.37

The fragrance…of desert, sea, grassland and forest shall well up in my wake. The metallic tang of all of the earth’s rain splashed crusts will come to my mind’s tongue. The electric aroma of every species of storm will take up residence within my parlor. All I need is to look down, for beneath my feet…all the world’s rhythms shall beat…all legends of humyns shall meet…all creatures shall grasp the inanimate and live forever in my room…all, as soon as Nell returns…and as soon as I’m awake…38

And I wake…to see my old carpet…draped across the fence…looking just the same.39

Though dazed, I am not sad, for Nell has come to see me, and inspired lovely dreams, a fraction of which I have recounted, in a haphazard manner.40

I’m joyous, for she came to my house, and all the air she touched passed through my blood and warms my back, like Nell’s soothing hands. I rise to survey the down…41

But NO! They’re Nell’s very hands…spinning me around!!!42

“I let you sleep…for you gurgled as a baby…flapped as a bard and crawled on yoour belly like a reptile, Jacob! What a fine dream you must have had…but you spoke my name and cried!?” she said…43

I spoke her name, and cried.44

“For I love you Nell, and missed you on the dale as I rushed by!”45

“And I was thinking that you were the quick fox! And who was rushin’! And who loves who?!”46

Then she hugged me as just she could.47

I brought you a gift, but you were gone…then appeared…and fell to sleep! Now come with me and eat the supper I’ve prepared.”48

Down into the glen we walked, to a blossom strewn glade. Upon a stout white cloth Nell sat, near me set on the blades of cool grass. We feasted, alfresco condito, on fresh crayfish pie, and fruit from every land, or so it seemed to me. My head was dancing. It was such a delicious day that we ate our bread plates.49

“This is a precious gift, Nell…this lovely meal with you beside me.”50

Nell stood and laughed, pulling me up and close to her face.51

“That was only part! I sat upon your true gift!” she said, and bent over to roll up the carpet.52

I took that home…marvelling at its pure whiteness.53

So, Nell had brought me a new rug…made with a thousand dyes…and having a definite magic…as she explained…54

“It’s funny…but until I added the final thread…every color did the carpet show…glimmering hues to stir the imagination. There must be some phenomenal enucleation, for this spontaneous chromatic fusion, but I cannot elucidate upon the physics of this strange event.”55

She attempted a less exponible explication, but ended up telling of the loving hours spent studying patterns of rugs from every country, especially those with animals in their design. Nell expressed regret that the lovely border she had weaved, with arthopods of every biome linking limbs, had disappeared. And gone were four whales from the corners with wild cats on their sides…and patterns of arachnids forming greek keys and lines…and on and on. The marvels I had missed. Nell had changed the design four…fourteen…nineteen…ninety times!…stacking one design upon the other…using, finally, the finest silk.56

She had such stories to tell! I asked Nell to marry me so I could hear the end, and to shut her up for a few seconds so that I could kiss her under the seasoned, life renewing sky. We would soon make home…57

I’m not the listener, compared to Nell. I could think of nothing now, but the picnic in the glad and Nell’s lovely rump which swished before me. It was all I could do to resist lifting her bright skirt…there upon the dale, but waited ‘till we reached our home. And when I lifted here skirt and saw the flare of life between, she giggled and snatched the hem herself, placing it in her sweet mouth and mewing through the cloth. She bent at the waist, touching the back of her knees with graceful hands and slid her fingers up, caressing her taught hamstrings, and further up…kneading her exquisite and comely buttocks. I, being the suave laddy that I am, howled and placed the rolled carpet against my throbbing member, running and thrusting it into each of our four walls.58

I flipped our carpet down upon the floor. A thread come loose, spiraling up in growing circles, entrancing us with its beauty as it met a thick beam of evening light. The air seemed to change. The room was suddenly more living, more alive! And the carpet was now sporting all the colors of Nell and I’s spring picnic glade! I tried to pluck a dew-spangled petal from a red rose on the border, but it was in the weave! I tried to catch, in my cupped hand, a metallic green Cicindelid as it traversed a pattern of sandy earth in the center of the rug, but it passed under my palm without a tickle, save to my brain…59

And now, every time some holometabolous insect child takes bites of our carpet: new stories are told, new fragrances…of desert, sea, grassland and forest erupt and the metallic tang of all of the earth’s rain splashed crusts comes to our mind’s tongue. The electric aroma of every species of storm has taken up residence within our parlor. 60

All we need do is look down, for beneath our feet…all of the world’s rhythms beat…all legends of humyns do meet…all creatures grasp the inanimate…and live to dare…in the room that Nell calls home…and in the stories that we share…61

Go!!!