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A Fairy Tale
We Have Nothing to Fear, But Fear Itself
Long ago, a wise man coined the phrase, ‘We have nothing to fear, but fear itself’. I am sure that he actually believed it, but having said that, I truly believe there are some things than cannot be included under that heading… The older I get, the more I feel that many, so many of the things we explained away with the confidence of youth, are in reality far too complex to treat in so simple a manner. Take my uncle John, for example, he passed away almost a year ago, but not a day goes by without his beloved wife, my aunt Josephine, speaking to him. Yes, I do realise that you are probably thinking, ‘It’s just a woman grieving after her love’, and to a point you are right, my friends, but only to a point. Let me tell you their story… John and Josephine Fitzmaurice lived a long and happy life together. They were married in nineteen fifty-seven. They lived in the village of Glanbride, high in the Scottish mountains, and for almost fifty years, they were blissfully happy together. John had been fit and healthy all of his married life, and when he died, despite being in his late nineties, looked no older than his mid sixties. The reason for this youthfulness began the day a stray dog wandered up to the back door of their home… “Ah, would you look at that, John,” said Josephine as she drew back the curtains, admiring a large dog standing patiently outside their door. John glanced though the windowpane, and for a moment his heart softened at the sight of the poor, bedraggled mutt, but being a poor man he imagined the huge amount of food such an animal must consume, so he said, “Leave it be, Josie, we have more things to be doing than feeding stray animals.” For a second, for one fleeting second, the dog’s blue eyes fixing onto John’s, sending shivers of cold sweat running down his spine. “I’ll just give it a few crumbs, to help it on its way and to fend off the chill,” said Josie, as she searched the larder for a few morsels of food. John said nothing; he loved his wife too much to force an argument over something as inconsequential as the appearance of a stray animal. After she had fed the scraps of food to the dog, which it gulped down so fast she truly believed that it had not eaten for over a week, Josie returned to the kitchen and watched it through the windowpane. After licking the plate empty, the dog ambled away from the house, disappearing into the woods at the far end of the garden. “The poor creature is going,” she whispered to her husband, as he pulled on his work boots. “It’s probably all for the best,” he replied, taking hold of his axe and opening the door. After kissing his wife on the cheek, he made his way outside, to begin chopping the mountain of timber that was awaiting his attention.
Over the following days, Josie was both relieved and happy to see the dog return on a number of occasions, and with each new visit, the animal trusted her that bit more. On one occasion, it even came in through the door that she had ‘absentmindedly’ left open. “What’s that thing doing in here?” John growled, when he returned from his chopping one evening, seeing the dog sitting contentedly at the fireside. “Oh, I must have left the door open,” she replied, pretending she had not seen it. Hurrying across to the door, she coaxed the animal out from the kitchen. The dog willingly obliged, though it did give John another one of its icy-cold stares as it passed him by. “There’s something about that dog,” said John, all in a shivers, when it was gone, “that I don’t like.” “What do you mean?” Josie asked, surprised that her husband could have said such a thing about so wondrous an animal. “I, I don’t know,” he spluttered, grappling to find the right words to express himself properly. “I think he’s a wonderful animal,” his wife insisted. “And with him nearby, you won’t have to be worrying yourself about any of them bears coming along.” “There are no bears in Scotland, woman!” he snapped. Ignoring this remark, she said, “I think old Blue is a godsend.” “Blue? Who’s Blue?” “Now don’t you be giving me that smart talk,” Josie chided, “you know full who I mean.” “Why Blue?” her asked, trying to rebuild the bridge he had just burned. “Because of his eyes,” she explained. “They’re so blue.” “Wolves have blue eyes,” her husband replied in a whisper. “Wolves have very blue eyes indeed…” “Said the same man who told me there were no bears in Scotland.”
As the days passed, the relationship between John and Blue had its ups and its downs. One day he might warm to the animal, perhaps even offering it a crumb or two from his own plate, and the next day he would want nothing to do with it, scolding his wife for having encouraged it in the first place. Despite these difficulties, Josie was encouraged by her husband’s gradual warming to the dog. With it and her beloved husband by her side, she was as happy and contended as she had ever been in her entire life...
One day while she was out in the garden tending to her vegetable plot, Josie thought that she heard the sound of something moving about in the high bushes to the rear of the chicken house. Creeping carefully towards the flimsy structure, she tried to see if it was a fox, for one had been after their chickens, of late. “Come on, Blue,” she called. Springing to attention, Blue obediently followed his mistress to the rear of the chicken house. “Can you see anything, Blue?” she asked, as she approached the bushes at the rear of the ram-shackled structure. Baring his teeth, Blue growled. “What is it?” Josie asked. “Is there something there?” Hunkering down low, Blue crept silently forward. He knew there was something there. Suddenly, a huge bear bursting its way through the bushes made a lunge for Josie. It was so fast, she had no time to react, to run away, and she screamed in utter fright. With no thought as to its own safety, Blue, barking and snarling, defending its mistress with all of its might, sprang high into the air aiming for the bear’s throat,
On the far side of the house, at the log pile, John heard the terrible ruckus. Fearing the worst, remembering what his wife had been saying about bears, he grabbed hold of his axe and raced across to help her. When he reached her, puffing and panting from his exertions, he said, “Thank heavens you’re all right! What happened?” he asked. “Blue,” the hysterical woman screamed out. “That bear was about to attack me… But Blue – he defended me – he saved my life!”
Blue was unable to kill the bear, it was simply too large and strong an animal to have any hope of doing that. Although the bear battered and bruised him quite badly, Blue also managed to give it some nasty wounds of its own to remember him by.
Watching the bear scamper away, disappearing into the forest from which it had come, John saw Blue in an entirely different light; he saw an animal that had risked its own life for the women he loved, a woman who had offered it – friendship. Approaching the bleeding animal, John patted him on the head, and then hugging him, he said, “Thanks, Blue. I will never forget this!”
Blue? You want to know what happened to Blue, don’t you? I will tell you what happened to Blue, he shattered John’s dream of happy, rural isolation, replacing it with something far better, becoming man – and woman’s best friend, and all three of them lived happily ever after to a grand old age. The End.
Fairy Tales, by the Crazy-mad writer
© Gerrard T Wilson 2009
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