This wretched world

As far as I remember we met for the first time, and he already, somehow, knew what he wanted. He introduced himself and then he jumped right to the core. You didn’t realise how slim were the chances of such a thing, did you? Your plan was foreseen, “brainwashing” others comes with a price. I am writing to you to remind you about our deal. Infiniteness. Sold for soul, remember? I took YOUR WORD.

“So, when did it happen?”

“When happened what?”

“Your conversion. I need to know.”

“I think it must have happened somewhere between Christmas and New Years Eve... Say, twenty ninth of December.”

“Which year?”

“Good question. I think somewhere in the nineties… Say, nineteen ninety five.”

“If I don’t remember correctly, just put all the blame on me once you’re asked.” I said quite nonchalantly, as I knew very well that the Oracle was not to be bothered with any such silliness without consequence.

What blame, you say? Well, the success in this whole endeavour whose existence I’m about to reveal to you lies in good understanding of the problem. What problem, you say? The dwarfs’ complex, inferiority complex, so to speak. It is something they don’t teach you at school, tolerance-of-sorts. To be counted among the FAIR FEW you must pass the test. To pass the test you must know your Initiator’s date of conversion. This is a prerequisite. It is not easy, I reckon. Taking into consideration that I know of only two that came back from it, myself included, it has to be nearly impossible. What about the rest, I hear you asking? Well, God knows. I won’t say anything like “to hell with them” cause I don’t like bad business, and I don’t mean any harm. Words have power in this wretched world, don’t you know?

Once I murmured to myself, what a cunning of a bastard that must be who took for a ride my poor old granny and took her well-deserved money and left her with nothing for the promise of new tea making kit, and the next day everyone knew he was truly a bastard as his father abandoned him when he was merely a child and never married his mother. Where we live this is always considered to be a shameful matter. As I don’t even sympathise with this young fellow, I think some more surprises were under way to shake his life in foundations, but somebody worse than me intention-wise thought of him probably even more unfavourably because he died in a car accident the following month. What can I say now? Is it but a trifle to me that this sport died? No, certainly not. I just think there is something about this lack of luck on his part. Would he not do anything so despicable to my granny, I think nobody would dwell on his past misfortune of being born into such and such broken family, or put another way, the family that never was. Nobody would have a reason to call him a bastard to begin with. And to utter a seeming libel out loud in this, I repeat, wretched world where our powers to summon bad forces upon some people that resort to crimes of like manner as tricking the elderly rises awareness of the fact. The fact that words have true power. I am almost sure that he was wandering around the neighbourhood deep in his thoughts of what he might do then when his origin-secret was out and somebody ran him over because of my “spell.” But let this history be a reminder of what may happen when you say something out in the open. For now, let’s cut to the chase.

I have mentioned some endeavour, haven’t I? My name’s Peter and I shall try to teach you fly. Not in a literal sense, dummy. I will teach you though how to fly with your imagination towards the stars. You’re probably awaiting something of substance. So am I. As dwarfish creatures we know it very well that high standards do not necessarily mean high stature. But sometimes you get bored of possibilities. You came here for an advice, or the advice. I don’t know whether you’re ready to hear the truth about our deal. These are some grand words, indeed, but they’re here to serve some purpose. Without them I wouldn’t be able to say anything. Why? Because I am the keyholder of the words that lead to the true understanding. What is there to understand? Everything. That question which you don’t ask yourself every single day. Where have all the fairies gone?

The Bigfooted Humans try to diminish our importance by erasing us from the history, by smashing us with their big feet whenever they see us (which seldom happens in recent years as we adopted some measures for safety reasons). If you want to become one of us, you have to let go of all your unhealthy affection for those of your kind. Let go of your want to stay in your limited highness. Once you do so, there is hope for you to be accepted among the FAIR FEW.

I accept your offering. I don’t know much about time travel but he is done. I might have given away the wrong date. The Oracle will obliterate him from The Book of Life.

“By the way, how do you prepare yourself for this encounter?”

“With the Oracle?”

I waited till the silence became unbearable, and then, weighing my words carefully, watching his reaction, added:

“You don’t.”

“What do you mean, you don’t?”

“There is nothing to know. Once you knock at the very Door of Perception, you realise that. Be cool. Take it easy. Just remember about the date.”

How, you say, could I be so blatant to sold your brother in such a lowish fashion? I could be his Initiator, but I take no responsibility for your foolishness. What? Did you think I will waste such an opportunity of getting the best of a psychic Bigfooted Human? There are not too many of you out there, I must say, so… I couldn’t resist.

And here we are now. You and I. Making an eternal swap. You know, you will be in no position to take revenge for your brother? What will you do then: for eternity, here on Earth, without your only brother for the promised infiniteness? I am asking just of curiosity, cause I don’t really care. Maybe I am a vicious creature. But I am humane as well. I will let you choose. Live with me, your new master, or… let your imagination fly you to the highest heights of pain for the rest of your miserable bigfooted life.