Vanishing Species

The little ones - they were there in various sizes and attitudes - tumbled and frolicked, shrieking with unbridled joy, as they tossed themselves into the billowing crystalline formations that had transformed their green-hued landscape overnight. The alteration in temperature that accompanied this transformation appeared not to trouble them at all.

In their abandonment to the pleasures of losing themselves within the undulating hills of soft, comforting crystals, they paid no mind to the cooling ambiance. They were enraptured at the light nuances, at the sudden, twinkling change from white to colour, as they dove, and swam through the tender thickness of the crystals. The bright, light filaments of their hair flung about their heads echoed the colours of the crystals.

Just as their own skin began to turn shades of pale colour, thickening as it changed, so too did the crystals, as though they were cleverly mimicking them, and they screamed aloud with ecstasy at the very thought that they and their antics were capable of altering that in which they sought out such rapture.

Unlike the changes that occurred in those lively bodies and limbs of flailing little ones, however, it was simply the colour, reflecting their own, that the crystals adopted. The light, flaky crystalline presence did not alter, become coarse, or thicken, as did the skin of the little ones.

And, as their skin thickened and coloured from pale to bright to dark in contact with the cold, the children stood in mock horror, pointing at one another, claiming to have been altered from the delicate woodland creatures that they had been, to the robust, and feared plains creatures they so assiduously avoided - by the sage advice of the wizened, bearded elders whose experience was their history, just as their environment was their living laboratory of knowledge gained year upon year.

Memory was such that they could recall previous years of just such transformations, but details escaped them, and now, directly confronting the reality, it was as though each year’s experience was fresh, unanticipated, beautiful well beyond recall, and invigorating to their very souls. For souls they certainly were possessed of. Quite lovely souls, in fact, which made themselves available on request at times of uncertainty, when comfort was sought and sturdily given.

There were many of these small creatures sporting within the landscape. Some small groups could hardly be distinguished one from the other, for each within that group precisely resembled one the other. And in other, larger groups there were even smaller groups with distinct resemblance one to the other. Readily explicated when one became aware of the wonderful attributes nature had endowed these creatures with.

Their abodes were blended into their wooded landscape, exceedingly well disguised but readily distinguished by those who had familiarity with them. The interiors, however, were quite amazing in the quality of the luxury afforded the inhabitants. Deep, glorious colours abounded, with plush appointments for the comfort of those who lived there; the small among the middling among the large and finally the elderly. Generations lived together in harmony within their dwellings, and dwellings there were many.

Nature had endowed these creatures with qualities of social grace and physical beauty, genders distinguished by the exquisite delicacy of the females, the sturdy physicality of the males, though there were many overlapping character traits where personalities often reflected similar views acculturated by the species’ proclivity toward quiet reflection and grave attention to an unspoken but revered social contract forbidding strife.

Within that framework there were vast differences both physical and attitudinally between the inhabitants of the settlement of that forest blessed with an abundance of other wildlife kindly regarded, and plant life affording their landscaping abilities to the greater appreciation of all those sensate creatures.

Now, there was a perfectly logical reason why - although there could be a vast physical difference in the facial and bodily features of these creatures - there would appear to be groups of the little ones who so remarkably resembled one another. Within their homes, sumptuously laid out with all manner of creature comforts, there also existed in each a peculiar slate-like apparatus which, despite the greyness of its exterior was still capable of perfectly reflecting the visage of one who stood before it.

And that one, if it be little, could invite the reflection to step outside the confines of the apparatus, and join it. Whereupon the like reflection would stand beside the original. This could be repeated many times. Each of the evoked reflections, however appearing precisely similar to the original would manifest various character differences; moody, exuberant, reflective, sad, even combative.

After a period between the rising of the sun and the setting of the sun, the original would select which of its reflections it would like to remain companionably with it, throughout the course of the following day; the remainder were absorbed back into the slate apparatus. This process of creation, temporary though it was, could be evoked only by the little of the species; the middling had had their opportunity, and the large no longer had the capacity with which they had been earlier endowed.

The more frequently the little ones chose a particular character trait to accompany them and play with them and share the day’s various activities with them, the closer the original little one began to resemble its choices, imbuing its character more decidedly with the chosen traits, be it humour, optimism, wisdom, languor, assertiveness or compassion, for example.

As the little ones evolved over the years, almost imperceptibly forming their character traits, they were modestly influenced by a growing awareness of the middling ones. It was the middling ones who were identified by a gradual subduing of the little ones’ enthusiasm for everything about them, whose collective sense of adventure, creative fun and challenge of their environment enlivened the days of the large ones who contemplated their antics so fondly. And who knew, from learned experience, to maintain a distance between themselves and the middle ones, urging the little ones to do likewise.

For the middling ones, struggling with the completion of their identities as unique beings, having absorbed those elements from their slate-shadows over the course of many years, were a rather surly lot. Uncertain of their choices, yet unwilling to contemplate the possibility of shedding some, embracing others, utterly confused by their inexorable transition from little to middling, and fearing the inevitability of becoming large. A prospect that left them embittered at the potential of stifling stolidity in obeisance to custom, their little years of freedom and discovery and happy unmindfulness long left behind.

They resented their isolation within the community. For they no longer sought the company of others like them; that was left behind when they were no longer little, genial of temperament and accustomed to moving about in groups of light-headed delirium with love of life. Their short tempers and obvious resentment earned them another type of isolation, where the elders looked gravely upon them, doubting the final evolution, at the same time regarding the little ones with fond endearments, encouraging them to delightful excess.

The middling ones were confused, upset and worried that they no longer felt wonder at all that surrounded them. There were no more mysteries whose source should be sought and revealed, for they had absorbed what they felt were all the dreary aspects of their future, based on what they observed of the large among them.

They brooded and they suffered, and they formed small cliques to gather where none others could detect their presence, and they plotted to become other, not to meld into the creatures, stolid and maturely plodding that was theirs to become.

Even they, however, played music, for music elevated all their souls, the rhapsody of sound that brought to mind everything that nature, their great benefactor and sometimes-antagonist brought to their lives. Stiff, hollow grasses were plucked from the earth and these they fashioned into pipes and into flutes and the thin, reedy sound of the music they played, passed down by venerated absorption from one generation to the next, drifted wraithlike and thrilling to all ears that cupped and loved those sounds.

The music played by the middling ones was ever sorrowful, full of regret for something they were unable to identify. The little ones’ music was fresh, lilting, bordering on the chaotic, but always seeming to find the melody that expressed their zest for adventure, fun and the thrusts and parries of exploration in their world of the forest. The music of the large was stoic yet placid, hauntingly beautiful, while the elders’ music was melancholy with regret for time that passed them by.

Their sensual appreciation for all the wealth of nature that surrounded them, magnitudes of vegetation that offered berries, edible roots, tree-fruits and grasses to be pounded into grains and nuts and seeds, nectar, honey that sustained them through storage in the dark months spoke of their place in the centre of this world unseen by creatures who had no business in their realm.

In the growing seasons they habitually and ostentatiously plucked floral offerings to decorate their homes. They constructed wreaths and garlands whose fragrance followed where they went, looped fantastically over their bodies, the aura of sweet and spice permeating their surroundings, wafting on the air wherever they went. This was their life. Unique creatures of creation itself.

They were so utterly involved with and among themselves, took such great delight in their presence in this cradle of their existence, they were ill-prepared for the sudden, unexpected swarming by the prairie creatures so like, yet so unlike themselves.

The comforts in which nature indulged them, their harmonious and egalitarian society, their presence in that wooded area that afforded them such grace of being had long been envied by those others. Others whose presence they were acutely aware of, but which were so seldom observed, heard or considered as an imminent, and dire threat that when that dark day of oncoming spring when the creeks thawed and the ground gave up its winter covering bringing thoughts of a fresh new growing season, also brought hordes of evil-smelling, yowling and leaping, armed and violent creatures intent on annihilating them, they were in no position to defend themselves.

Alas, all the structures that were built decayed, the tiny meadows within the forest that had been tilled became overgrown, and memory of the creatures that had been, faded. When next the bright white crystals of snow fell upon the forest the birds and the small furred creatures that lived there huddled for warmth and waited for spring. But the sounds and sights of excited, happy little ones no longer rang on the air with their boundless enthusiasm for life.