a letter left on E’s table

E, if you are reading this, I am gone.

I cannot say that I am dead. Dead… death is a thing that I no longer understand. If anyone can understand death. I thought I knew things, but knowing something only shows how ignorant you really are. I am gone from mortal worlds and cannot come back, like the others before me, “True and Bedlam both.”

It is a thing they say. I thought it a Small Thing. A thing they said, but I did not understand at the time. How does one take risks when they truly understand them? One doesn’t – we jump over the edge only because in our heart of hearts we know there is a heaven, an escape, a possibility of surviving on the other side. A success. A way to take a second leap to cross the abyss. We are not born to be heroes. It is only a thing of accident. A moment of choice.

And what is a name? Tom, Tommy, Thomas, Tomas, Tam, Tomkin, Tomaso. It means, “Twin.” Twins are Small Things. Little (hah!) did I know.

I know you will get this. It is a Small Thing, and the King is, well, you will see. I have been given many Small Things, and I only learn now that that is a big thing in the end. Oh, my friend, they will need you. They could not ask a wizard. A wizard is a very large thing, in many places at once. You are you, and you keep all those doors closed. It is a big thing, but it is a Small Thing if it is one door at a time.

Words. I have so many. I always did, spilling out and discarded, careless for less care or value. Do not play with words, but they love wordplay. Do not make promises, for they are unto Yoda.

A Small Thing, Yoda.

You begin to see. I am not meandering (wandering, to be lost but more exploring the path at a slower pace) but trying to remember everything I need to tell you before I cannot, anymore.

I called you my friend. Friends are not Small Things.

Do you remember the night we met? I had left Adelinda’s. She had told me the story about Jasper, the snake guardian. Her stories were small gifts, especially as I gathered them to try to find larger answers. My knowledge, after all, was a Small Thing. The Wyrm Queens, they have dwindled. Have become Small.

I had gone to the meet in hopes of doing exactly that. Go home with a little coven cutie, as I often did. You were mooning after that witch, whose name you always used in Diminuitive. (Is that an important point? You tell me.) You invited me to sit at your table, and we talked Star Wars until the Wee (again!) hours.

The girl I was with told me what it is you did. I didn’t understand it at first. Were you a doctor who tried to explain teleportation? (No, you said you were convinced by Niven.) Did you make a portal healthy? Secure doorways between the worlds? What harm in the occasional sacrifice of a lost traveller? Wasn’t that the hazard of walking the road we did? The thing that made us better than them?

You disagreed, the second time we met. I had taken your anger to be misplaced, an unsubtle envy maybe of the powers greater than yours that surrounded you. Even I could learn your trick, close a door. Closing, after all, is much easier than opening.

You continued to talk. I found myself listening.

The third time (the charm!) we spoke about the fey.

I had been reading poetry. Daft creatures, poets, you exclaimed. I pointed out that chants and spells and prayers were often poems and you laughed, saying they were not any less daft for it. I agreed, and we compared our favourites. I had my heart set on Yeats, and white birds, Minnaloushe and his changing moon. You had Silverstein, Valente, and Dr. Seuss, and I first took you as mocking me.

I told you what Little I knew. You listened, but did not seem concerned. Ruts are made from those drawn to fairylands and NeverAethers and beyonds from shadows and beneath bridges – they follow the call, or fall the fall. I spoke of rules, of boundaries, and you smiled, because, like me, you knew.

Then on the eighth time we met, you came with me to the eight corners of Monaco while a large troll sniffed you and drafted me into a Little disagreement. And my arms ache and my fingers are sore, and I think the cow was not meant to be sold.

There are big waves, a big focus, a big push. I am careful not to say too Little and yet there are things binding me that press back every time I dance near them, as if we are courting the same girl at the Masquerade Ball and we shove up against each other but neither dares to cut in. A geasa is no good for the gander.

They will deal with you in good faith. Remember where the best of intentions lead, for that is the road I travel. A soul is not a Little thing, nor is love, ever, a petty token. They are fascinated by love. Love more than music, or poetry, or any art, is a passion they desire because it changes one. It changes puppets to real boys. It transforms monsters into Princes. It makes one want to be better, to be the person they see in the one who loves them’s eyes. Even friendship, true friendship (mad friendship?) touches upon this.

They tell you not to sweat the Small stuff. I disagree.

I implore you: Do not follow. But you may lead where I have gone.

And give my regards to the King. He is a good King, for all that he is not a good man.

– Thomas