Elf Person Adventure

The little elf, a sparkling evergreen tinged eared, huge black and sparkling evergreen-eyed, small button-lined jacketed and black-as-ever buckled booted, had just missed his train. He couldn’t believe it! His lucky compass showed three leaves past six leaves.                      

“He told me I was going to make it!”         

 Gritting his teeth, the elf huffed but then looked all around himself. People walked behind and in front of him to and fro in this colossal train station. This elf had heard of such places, but no train or tracks had sparked so in the books of Fantasy or roared such. At least not since he was a little boy all covered up in those quilts, a wee little thing snuggling up in his bed while his mother—

“Besides, I just want an adventure. I mean, what is one without a little independence and freedom?”

His brother had studied people and their ways, homes and every human thing out there his mother described in those fantasy books, but the little elf needed to just take a look around—         

“Excuse me. Are you looking for something?”

The little elf twirled around, fire blazing in his heart. It better not be Crisp Chicken. The elf balled his fists, backing and then looking way up.

 The woman crinkled her forehead. “You sure? You look lost, sir!”

“Um…” The white-faced elf sucked in his mouth and bolted. He ran until he found a place his mother called a door (the books she read were picture books). He dashed into the place, but it was so bright, and a person talking into a black thing and was dressed in light blue—

The elf hurried out of there.

What’s going on? Crisp Chicken told me about the train early this morning. And I followed his exact instructions. This happens again, I’m letting any person help me! Geez. What does it take? Now I’m lost, and forgotten.              

Shaking his head and turning around (his shoulders slumped and a frown on his face), the elf trudged back to his own world. With so many people around him, he tried dashing in between their legs and hurtle over their feet, but he got kicked, hit or smacked. Having failed, the elf ran away.

A hiding place will do! Then I’ll show Crisp Chicken. He’ll be sorry.  

 He finally found a tall round thing with a circle in the middle. Once he hopped inside it, he immediately plugged his nose.

“Ugh! So this is what they call trash!”

The elf immediately clambered out of the place, too disgusted to take the banana peel and cause Crisp Chicken to fall splat on his back, where he could look up at this elf for once. Instead of always looking down—and being proud of it.  The elf found another place (just a corner) he could call privacy.

Breathing heavily, he waited for everyone to pound and shuffle and hurry their way past him before talking  to himself. “Crisp Chicken—”

Suddenly, heat scalded the back of his neck.  Good thing his silky black wispy hair was usually stuck up in all different ways, because the elf who blocked his face with his hands as he turned around had wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. He took off his coat.  And his jaw dropped when he came to face to face with train tracks…of fire!   

Fiery train tracks!

The elf leaned over, and saw the whole rest of the tracks on fire. But they weren’t on fire, because they were made of fire. Literally fiery! The little elf laughed to himself.  And then followed this track all the way down to the wall of the tunnel. Suddenly, something flew through it.

A train on fire!                           

The elf rubbed his eyes and then blinked. Then he smirked, pulling a smug look. “Too bad Chicken’s not here to see this blaze of glory—

“Whoa!”

 For a train wasn’t just on fire; it was made of fire. Just like those tracks. Phew! It was a good thing the woman didn’t take him somewhere, because the elf would miss this train.  It seemed it would never end. It was like this train had a million windows.  

The elf waited for it to stop.  He counted five pieces of grass. Then ten pieces of grass went by. Then…twenty.  The elf cocked his head. “What kind of train make me wait?”

“Excuse me, sir. Are you lost?”

The elf jerked his head up.  “No—”

 Then he widened his eyes in amazement. The person before him stood well above him, in all black and silver fire on their coat and pants. The pants were a little like bellbottoms, but they weren’t quite. The person had long thin hair like that of the elf’s own hair except for tinges of fiery red.  The elf shook himself to get back to reality.  He looked back at the train—it kept going.  

The elf returned to this guy or girl whoever it was. Person.  Inhaling a deep confident breath, he said, “Where is the—”

“Doesn’t matter.  Come with me!”

“Okay…” The elf took its inviting hand.  The elf and this person were in the train—the fiery train, remember—and the elf just stared out the window. It didn’t feel so fast.

But it was, the person said.   

The elf crinkled his forehead.

And thought of leaving. He wanted to know more about the humans, not this weird thing called a train!

“Let me out!”

“He doesn’t care about you—”

 “Scarlet Fever—”

 “He’s just lying to everyone.”

The elf gasped. “What?” He cried, leaping off the seat. “How dare—”  

“He’s constantly duping everyone. That is, he’s stealing from, lying to and deceiving everyone. Please—!”  The person patted the seat beside it. “Come on. Sit with me!” It grinned warmly.

 “Elves change, Scarlet Fever. It’s just the way it is.”

The person wasn’t helping. The elf needed to give Crisp Chicken a piece of his mind! He searched and then slammed his fists on one of the doors of the train car. “Get me out of here!”

“No —”

The elf fell to the floor, folded in half from laughter. “He’s going to understand that bullying me is not the answer!” He roared, slamming his fist on the carpeted floor.

“Be careful how you treat others, Scarlet. It may come back to haunt you.”

“Yeah—well, he’s treated me like dirt. Which is a knuckle sandwich!”

“How are you going to do that if we’re way up here?”

The elf stared downwards.  “Where are we?”

“Yep!” The person’s hair flew in the wind as they soared—

“On a dragon!”

“But—”

“Look around you, Scarlet. Stop being so frustrated and disappointed, and do what you came here for.”

The lip-biting elf studied  what the person said were cars, people, airplanes, forests, a lake, bridge, trucks, fish, fishermen, boats, kayaks, rowers, rowboats, streets, roads, stores and bikes with their bikers directing them as they pleased. The elf stayed quiet the whole time, letting the person, obviously smiling the way its voice rang out almost in a song the way it said things in joy and gladness, tell him the whole world around him.

“Okay!”

The wind suffocated him now.

“Let’s go back!” The person hollered.

The dragon returned to a train, and the elf banged his head to some what the person said was music. Then he tried some candy.

“I’m a magician!”

The elf looked up at the person, smiled respectfully, and then spit it out.

“Sorry.” He whispered. “I don’t—”

“Want human food. Here—how about we play some cards.”

“I thought you said you were a magician. Did you come up with this train? Do you own the dragon?”

“No.  But I visit it from time to time. Besides, you can’t just expect things to magically go your way—”

“Maybe we could transform Crisp Chicken into a Real Chicken—in my stomach!”    

The person just pulled cards out of its pocket. When the elf excused himself to the bathroom, the person made a whole course dinner for the elf, complete with sizzling steak, creamy mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and warm bread.

“I’m going to whip up something magical—something he’ll replace his vengeance with!” Coming out of the bathroom, the grinning elf kept his nose up in the air as the mouth-watering smells of the anticipatory food lured him. The person welcomed him over, and he sat delightedly. He sat down, rubbing his hands in anticipation. Almost drooling over it.

“It’s for us?”

“For you!”   

“Oh.”

The elf asked whether the person would eat anything. It said it wasn’t hungry—it’d rather let its hair fly back in the wind. The elf shrugged, and started gorging himself on the potatoes, dipping his whole hands into the stuff. The bread was too hard to break apart, so the elf just shoved it in his mouth.  Then he downed the steak faster than, he felt, the train was going. Once he had scarfed his dinner, he looked around for the person. Then he ran up and down, a cold sweat breaking out.

“Where is it? Why can’t I—?” He gagged. “I’m going to…” He dashed to the bathroom and threw up. Silence. And then—  

No answer.

He balled his fists, ready to protest. “Hey!” He yelled to an empty train car. “What’s going on? I get sent to the human world by a jerk, then I get betrayed by some human person, and now I’m left to myself!”  The last word came out in a shriek.  Whenever the elf shrieked at Crisp Chicken, his voice got roast red, but he didn’t care.  “If you’re doing this, Crisp Chicken, be ready for this train to become a dragon. It’ll roast you!”

Still nothing.

The elf kicked at a door, and then sat. What a fool. “Person, Human—”

“Yeah?”

The person had returned somehow.  

“Could you take me throughout that place you called a forest and city below us?”

“Yeah—if you’re done eating—”

 The elf nodded vigorously.

“Yes…sir!”

The person laughed in excitement.  The person wasn’t really that interesting—a wide smile there, eyebrows raised at times or fuzzy sock-shoes dashed about, ready to go anywhere—but at least it  was with the elf.    

They traveled the city, eating hotdogs and Cheetos and all human food the elf absolutely thought was earth-shatteringly disgusting. He twisted his face into a knot of disgust when the person asked whether he’d like a hotdog—     

“No!”

“Why do you hate human food?”

“Crisp Chicken would always tease me with the stupid food. Act like it was delicious. I always wanted some, but that dinner…”   

“But you ate the dinner.”

“I did, because I would starve, drooling at the sight of him eating such so-called delicacies—”

“But don’t harm yourself. You could’ve eaten a gorgeous meal for an elf!” The person wiggled its eyebrows. “And, we could’ve played cards before ascending the dragon.”

“How? I couldn’t just—” The elf thought. “Wait—you gave me that food?”

“Yep. But you threw it up—”

“Because it was disgusting—”

“If you actually relax, you’d have tasted it, K?!”  

The elf rolled his eyes. The person got right in his way and bent down. “Look, you’re too irritating. I’m going to go away now, on my dragon. Okay?”

The elf panicked. “You don’t understand—”

“I thought you said you were better than Crisp Chicken—”

“You know what? Forget it. I’ll forget it like my stomach has forgotten its nausea—”

  “We have more of the city to see! Come on.”

The elf pursed his lips, but he let the person take him, desiring some of that fun lovingness. The elf asked about the person’s consistently happy persona, but  it just quipped  that its worries had vanished long time ago, which inspired it to become a magician. .

They walked through the forest, on a trail.

“But why did you worry?”

“The train never ended. It would go back and forth as a dragon and then a train. I had somewhere to go. I had a life. I couldn’t just keep going back and forth.”

The elf looked at the person, but said nothing.

He asked about the trees—their height and weight and whether they ever opened their mouths and sang and danced—and then wondered when the clouds were going to sprout their wings and take flight. Would they befriend the dragon? The person shook its head and told the elf he had too much human dinner.

“No, no. In my world, we—we wait for the clouds to take shape. Any minute now.” The elf insisted on staring up at the clouds. Then he blinked. “I…I don’t see them shifting. Oh!” The elf giggled nastily. “That’s Crisp Chicken—”

“Yep. And that one over there is you!”

“Where?”

“Here!”

They were suddenly back on the fiery dragon. The person told the dragon to fly as high as the clouds, and it spread its wings, soaring up towards the white puffy wet things. A cloud covering his face for a second, the elf gagged and gasped as hard as he could to relieve himself of the stifling whiteness. The person just laughed out loud, tilting its head back and letting the wind blow its hair back.

This person seemed so free, the elf marveled. I…that food…

The elf asked the person whether it knew that it was allergic to human food. “Yeah, I just wanted you to taste annoyance and frustration and irritation—all in a meal.”

“So that wasn’t real food—”

“No. It was actually those traits all in edible fashion. I just wanted you to eat it all. Eat your emotions. The bad ones, actually.”

The elf stayed quiet the whole time they toured downtown. The city’s lights blinded the elf, so he begged to be on the train again. The person shrugged its shoulders, and they found themselves back on the train again. The elf yawned, but refused to sleep.

“I will not sleep until I get my hands on that crispy chicken!”

“Fine.” The person walked right up to the door closest to the elf, and opened it. “Go. He’s there, in your world. Go—roast him!”

The elf ran right into the world he’d known all his life. “Crisp Chicken! Where are you?”

“I’m right here!”

The elf twirled around, and tried boxing the similarly heighted character’s ears so hard he had a hard time hearing him so that the elf wouldn’t have a problem telling him he was going to get roasted on a spit. The elf tried clobbering him, but the other elf wouldn’t have it. “Go to the human world, freak!”

“Whatever!”

The elf stormed back, but when he got on the train again, the person wasn’t there. The elf blinked, and his heart fell. He stared at the ground. “What did I do?”

The person didn’t return to the elf. The elf found a little bed. He slammed that door shut. He never wanted to go near Crisp Chicken again. The person didn’t show up. Where was it?

The elf searched for the person, but couldn’t find it. Then the elf told the dragon to go back to being a train. Once an endless line of cars again, the train never stopped. The elf visited his own world, and almost had a heart attack.

The person had Crisp Chicken by the arm and held him above the fire, a begging, apologetic Crisp Chicken spilling out all things he’d do not to become the elf’s dinner. “Do you want to become someone’s dinner?”

“No!” the elf rolled his eyes. “But he—”

“No, elf. I want you to let me eat him, too. Once we put him in the fire, we will cook him and eat him together. But I want you to know whether I can eat elf food. Can I?”

“No.”

“Well, shouldn’t I then put him in the fire for you? Don’t you want to share a meal with me?”

“No!”

“Let me go! Let me go!”  

The elf looked nonthreateningly at the horrified and now silent Crisp Chicken who had closed his eyes and his mouth. The person dropped an inch, right as the flames flickered above his formerly flowing hair and the sparks singed the tips. “Hm?” The person threatened. “Because you will. You’ll have him all to yourself.”

“I…” the elf blinked. “No!” The elf saw the person drop Crisp Chicken softly onto the grass, and Crisp Chicken lay there until he woke up. The person snapped its fingers and told the elf to come.

“Let’s go!”

“Person—”

“Now!”

The anger grabbed the elf around the waist and yanked him in. when the person had jumped into its bed, the elf took to his own. Laying there, he said to himself: am I crispy enough?

Then he whipped right over, facing the person. If I want joy, I need to eat my own bitterness.

The next morning, he ate every crumb of human food.

“Glad I grew used to it!” He licked the hot sauce from his fingers. “Yum!”

“Yep!” The person nodded its head. “Now…let’s grab some chicken!”

The elf agreed—for once.

“Do you just want to hate Crisp forever?” Brussels challenged.

“Um…” The elf looked at the person, who also sat before the crackling fire pit. “Um…”

The elf ate human food—slowly enjoying it now. Crisp Chicken could eat all the chicken he wanted.

Too much of such hatred made the elf vomit. Something he warned Crisp.

Soon, both ate chicken. This time, it was delicious. But it wasn’t like the elf ate with Crisp Chicken. He ate alone, or with the person, laughing and joking around. But then he became lonely. Crisp Chicken said he was lonely as well.  

The elf walked over, and shared a certain story.

Crisp Chicken listened—especially to the parts where he came in. The person and the elf sitting beside him? Not so much!