November's Tale is very tall. Do you believe in fairies?
There are fairies living at the bottom of my garden. ‘Whaat?’, say you. ‘You must be seeing things. There are no such things as fairies.’
Right. I hear what you’re saying. Fairies can’t be there because you have never seen them. But I see them. I can see them right now. Mad, you say. I must be mad. Maybe. I can neither confirm nor deny madness. Nor do I want to. You’ll just have to take my word. I see fairies so fairies they are. I’ve don’t my research, you know. And I’ve watched them for days. This is no frivolous fancy.
You say there must be a logical explanation. Okay. Go on. Butterflies? I know a butterfly when I see it and these are no butterflies. I saw them last night, glowing in the dark and butterflies don’t glow.
Fireflies. Fireflies glow in the dark. True, but there are no fireflies in this neck of the woods. None at all, never.
So, I don’t believe that fireflies could suddenly appear but I do believe that fairies have? Fair question. I’ll think about that for a minute… No. What I see right now are not fireflies. It is daytime and they are still fluttering about near the back wall. They hover and dance and seem to be having a very good time. I envy them their freedom, their joy at being weightless. They are so pretty. I feel happy to see them. They lift my spirits.
Ridiculous, you say. I’m being ridiculous. Perhaps I am being ridiculous, but I choose to believe what I believe. I’m not harming anyone, am I?
Myself? I’m harming myself? How so? I don’t think you need to believe in my fairies if you don’t want to. I just want to be left to enjoy them. To follow their antics as they go from flower to flower.
Ah, they’re bees. That’s what you think? Bees, gathering pollen and so forth. Maybe you’re right. There’s one way to find out, you say? Go and look. Go to the bottom of the garden and prove one way or another that the fairies are real… or not.
No. I won’t. I won’t do that. I’d frighten them away. One way or another, they’d be gone. I like having fairies living at the bottom of the garden. I have made my choice to believe in them. They do no harm so let them be.
They’re harming my sanity, you say? You think I should be locked up, you cry. My beliefs are an insult, a slap in your face? I must be stopped. I must be changed. I must be isolated before I contaminate others.
Why so? I choose to believe in a world where logic is not master, where magic can exist, where imagination can triumph. I choose to trust that everything cannot be reduced to a formula, where dry explanations do not suck the joy from everything. I know that belief is a choice, not like knowledge which is factual. I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I know why and I know how, more or less. I believe its rising and setting will come to an end one day but not today. Today, my beliefs are less fundamental. Today, I believe in fairies.
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