Chapter 2
Into the Woods or Around?
The Prince and Philip, the wise bird, stepped or hopped into the green meadow. The Prince looked around but his tower was nowhere to be seen. The trail before them appeared to lead into a dark woods.
“The dark woods is common trope,” squeaked Philip. “Try to think of something original, Prince. Dante got out of his dark woods fairly quickly, as I seem to remember.”
“You’ve read Dante? How could you read a book, let alone an epic tale like that? Besides, I’m not the one writing this tale which we seem to be well caught up in.”
“Magic,” replied Philip, as the two set off for the dark woods. The trail, however, had a mind of its own and swung to the left instead of leading through the woods.
“Hey Prince, I don’t like the feel of the path going left here. Widdershins!”
“Widdershins?”
“Yeah, Widdershins, going left. I don’t think Dante ever goes to the left in either Hell or Purgatory. Left is going wrong, out of the right way!”
“Okay, Mr. Wise Bird, what should we do here then? We can stay on the path or forge our own way through the woods or see if there is a path that soon goes right. Why don’t you scout ahead and see what greets us if we go either left or right! After all, you are our air power or eyes in the sky,” he chuckled. “I’ll go straight to the edge of the woods where there is shade. Okay?”
Philip nodded his shiny black head, hopped into the air, wings open, and flew above the trail that led to the left. A dark shadow followed on the ground under him. The Prince continued toward the woods, sat down under a tall leafy tree at the edge. The author of this fairytale, seeing that the Prince was hungry quickly looped a knapsack filled with tasty ham, cheese and lettuce sandwiches, over his left shoulder so that it fit on his right hip. He hung a canteen of water on his belt. The Prince, being no dummy, noticed the change immediately, looked around, but since he, of course, saw no one, muttered “more magic?” to himself, opened the knapsack, extracted a sandwich and started to eat.
Meanwhile the author and all around pleasant fellow had lost track of the bird. Fortunately at that point Philip fluttered to the ground beside the Prince. “Hey,” he said, “where did you get the food? But never mind that; could I have some, please?” The good Prince, to his credit, broke the second sandwich in half and put it on the ground in front of the bird. “Thanks,” mumbled Philip, with his beak full of bread, cheese and ham. Once he had swallowed his portion, he asked again: “Now, where did this stuff come from? We didn’t have anything to carry when we stepped through the mirror; now we have food, and I see, water, or something liquid anyway. Right? More magic, or is somebody messing with us?”
“I don’t know. It’s sort of like the mirror. One second it’s a mirror, the next it’s a door. One second no supplies. Where would we have found them? The Tower had no kitchen? The next second I have a full knapsack with good food. And our existence is kind of magical, as well, now that I think about it. Suddenly we wake up, so to speak, and become aware of our, existence, our identity, of ourselves in a universe with a long and extensive history. That in itself is pretty spooky. And here I am talking to a talking bird, no disrespect intended.”
“None taken, Prince.” If the bird had been able, he would have rolled his eyes there. Since he couldn’t do the eye thing, he looked away from the Prince, spied a piece of bread on the ground, picked it up with his yellow beak and swallowed it.
“Anyway,” said the Prince, “What did you discover about our choices?”
“Well,” Philip said, “If we take the large trail to the left, it goes to end of the woods and turns toward what I would call “the slough of despond,” an abyss of desperation, swampy water and alligators.”
“Is that another literary reference, the slough of despond, Philip? It certainly sounds like one.”
“Hmm! You have found me out. Yes. Pilgrim’s Progress! Marvelous story, though I don’t think anyone reads allegories nowadays. Anyway, to the right there is a very narrow path that leads around the woods on that end, though as far as I could tell, the land beyond turns rocky and steep. We should go right. My advice, go right, young Prince.” The Prince snorted, spewing the last of his sandwich on to the ground.
“Good,” he managed to get out . “Thank you. Then that’s what we’ll do!” said the Prince, picking up the knapsack. Then he unsnapped the canteen, metal covered with some kind of fuzzy animal skin; he unscrewed the top and took several long swallows. Then he offered the bird some by pouring a little into the generous cap. Philip stuck his beak in, did whatever birds do to get water into their bellies, belched and then sighed. “Thanks, Prince,” he said as the Prince re-screwed the cap and clipped the canteen back on his belt.
“High-ho, high-ho,” sang Philip. “Might I ride on your shoulder a while as we go? Talking and hopping are very wearing on a bird like myself,” he said. The Prince nodded and Philip flew to the Prince’s shoulder, tucked his head under his wing and immediately fell asleep!
“For goodness sake,” muttered the Prince, but started up the path to the right, which, when it curved around the woods turned out to be east. Philip swayed back and forth somewhat precariously as the Prince walked on in search of his lovely Princess in the land of Ardor.
Image: the cosmos: stars, planets, nebulae, galaxies, dark matter, cosmic dust.
