Vivian De Winter
01 | A Stranger Arrives
DURING THE PREVIOUS evening, while suspended many miles above the valley of Noot’s Hollow, Rumble and Tumble created a tremendous storm by churning the sky into layers of darkened clouds.
Luckily for those living in Wishy-Washy Town, the rain monster twins did not reside upon the ground. The pair had built their castles high above the quiet countryside. As with all siblings that quarrel, whenever they became bored or angry with each other, they misbehaved. They threw down lightning bolts, scattered rain drops and made the sound of thunder on their gigantic steel drums.
The one and only street of Wishy-Washy Town was nothing more than a wide dirt pathway. Over the years, the inhabitants had created their whimsical thoroughfare quite by accident. They had simply followed in each other’s footsteps, time and time again. A few wagon wheels marked their trails, but most of those who lived in Wishy-Washy Town moved around on their own feet, however many that might be.
On this particular morning, a bedraggled puppy hobbled and wobbled his way through the centre of this town. His head hung down so low, his little snout almost buried itself in the squishy mud covering the road.
“Hear ye! Hear ye! A stranger has arrived! Hear ye! Hear ye! You must stay inside!” A blackbird wearing a white top hat gave out the warning. His excitement almost caused him to fall from his perch upon the branch of a flowering nub-nub tree.
The puppy raised his head. “Please sir, can you help me?”
“That depends upon your current plight. I must first know if you are wrong or if you are right.”
“I am neither, for I am lost,” the puppy said as he sat down in a puddle of mud. For the first time, he looked at the houses surrounding him. Narrow, multi-levelled residences, all painted in either black, grey or white, huddled close together, almost touching.
“Lost, you cannot be, for you are here, talking to me.” The blackbird twisted his head from left to right as he stared at the puppy. “What type of beast are you? I fear you speak of something untrue.” The bird hopped from branch to branch, so far down he almost touched the ground. “Your polka-dots are not grey or black. You have many colours upon your back.”
“What’s wrong with that?” The puppy shoved his nose into the centre of the nearest daisy. He inhaled deeply, then continued speaking. “Something must be wrong with this flower. The leaves are grey. The petals are black. It doesn’t even have a smell. Is it fake? Are you trying to trick me? Where am I? Where is everyone else? Are you the only one here?”
“So many questions I cannot answer. We must go find the most graceful dancer,” the blackbird said as he swished his tail feathers back and forth.
“What about red raspberries?” the puppy asked. “Green grass? A bright blue sky? None of those things are here. I want to go back home. This was all a big mistake.”
“There are things we want and things we must. It’s all a matter of learning to trust.”
The puppy stared at the bird for a few moments. “What does all that mean?”
“It’s as plain as the white satin hat on my head. You should understand all that I have said.”
The puppy scratched his nose with one of his paws. “I want to go back home.”
“That is something we cannot do right now. I wouldn’t know when and I wouldn’t know how.”
By this point, the puppy didn’t feel sad anymore. As he became angrier, his voice became louder. “There must be someone else here who can help me. Nothing you say makes any sense at all.”
When the blackbird jumped down from the nub-nub tree, a few raindrops landed on the puppy’s nose. The bird made a strange chuckling sound, as birds usually do when they try to laugh out loud. He hopped from the grass onto the road to stand in front of the upset puppy. After blinking his eyes a few times and pecking at some stones with his beak, he turned away, saying nothing at all.
The puppy rocked his head from side to side, trying to get rid of the water which had landed on his nose. He felt a little unsteady after rocking a bit too fast and for a bit too long. He closed his eyes, waiting until the dizziness passed. A few seconds later, he watched as the bird hopped further and further away without looking back. “Does this mean you don’t want to help me?” the puppy asked, as he tried to stand up. The heavy, sticky mud covered the bottoms of his feet. Since the bird refused to answer, the puppy decided he had no other choice but to try and catch up.
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