Christmas Story 2012: The Unfulfilled Fairy

While it may be generally believed that a fairy’s life is filled with luscious green forests, crazy light shows, unmapped roads, and magical shenanigans, and that such a life may be enough for most magically born creatures, this one fairy, whom we’ll call Bob, found it to be unfulfilling and insufficient. Bob the fairy said, to all who would listen, “I’d much rather be an angel.”

“But you can’t be an angel,” said Bob the fairy’s mother, also, quite naturally, a fairy. “You have fairy wings, which are very much like butterfly wings. Beautiful and awe inspiring as they may be, fairy wings are not, and do not ever resemble, angel wings. Fairy wings cannot take you so high as an angel’s wings must be able to take an angel.”

“Still,” Bob the fairy said, “I’d much rather be an angel.”

“But you can’t be an angel,” said Bob the fairy’s human servant, who was pretty and, once upon a time, had found herself lost in a woodland. “You have a fairy’s natural inclination toward mischief and alcohol, and angels, as you know, do not drink wine. And angels, as you know, do not play humans for fools.”

“Still,” Bob the fairy said, “I’d much rather be an angel.”

“But you can’t be an angel,” said Bob the fairy’s friend Francesca. “That’s just foolish.”

So Bob the fairy examined his wings quite closely in a mirror, and knew his mother spoke the truth. Then Bob the fairy released his human servant, a full four years before fulfilling her contract–albeit, he never guided her back home. And finally, Bob the fairy had to concede Francesca was the wiser.

After all this thought and consideration, Bob the fairy said, “If I cannot be an angel, then perhaps I can be an elf.” He travelled north, far north, into snowy icy realms, seeking an elven colony of which he’d heard tell, and he found the elves. Bob the fairy presented himself. He said, “Hello, elves. I am Bob the fairy, and though I’d much rather be an angel, I believe it would be just as brilliant to be an elf.”

The big man in charge, jolly and red-cheeked, gave Bob the fairy a thorough looking-over and admitted, “I can always use another good toymaker. Welcome aboard.”

And that is how Bob the fairy became the first fairy of Christmastown.