Snow Fay (a mite's wish)

SNOW FAY (A Mite’s Wish)
~Ivy E Nowosad

What if fairies are microscopic? Mistaken
for whirling motes of dust in sunlight,
like bacteria or some floating particles,
or colored flecks in the air at night?
What if fairies are only mites, wingless?
Smaller than a whisker, the Demodex mite.
What if I am that fairy mite, shed in a strong wind,
clutching a flake of dead skin and softly falling?
In my exoskeleton, yet fragile as a jelly
washed ashore, the sea still calling, calling.
How would the world appear if tonight,
I am that mindful mite, observing snow fall
for the first and last time in this life. How does it feel,
that flicker of awareness, before the unknowable?

If I had a name, it would be Fay. The perfect name for the small, almost invisible (invincible), thing that can suddenly fly! My condition in a few words: I am shook loose, lost in air. The night is everlasting.

My carriage was separated from its natural place in a rush of wind, and I was transported by the surge into the wide-open gray of space. It was a long time adrift, clutching a thin rug from home, my life raft.

Finally, I have landed in soft mulch, shadowed by branches. Safe, for now. It’s almost dark, and the cold nips my feet. I burrow, as is my nature, into marbled soil and the brown lattice of what was once living. The translucent veined cells remind me of home, minus the warmth.

I’m not alone, but the others are just clumps of empty shells, all dead. I consider eating one and sample its belly-up husk. Dry, tasteless. It’s been gone too long. Murmurs of future beings reverberate in a hidden network far below me. This place will crawl with life if it is ever warm here. Thinking of warmth fills me with longing to be nestled in that pocket of hide once my home, and I huddle shivering in my carpet scrap.

Outside, something has quietly shifted, softening the air. Beyond the tangled thicket, magic falls from the sky. Like bands of angels slowly descending from heaven. So gently, they fan out and multiply, landing one after another, legions of crystalline spirits falling, gracefully. Falling in grace.

Feathery, starred messengers of silence, they resemble saucer-sprays, dandelion glass. Each angel is unique and hypnotizing the air, lifted by swirling currents in a brief ballet. All fall eventually, just as I fell, all blanketing the ground as one. The sight captivates, like a happy memory returning. Once settled on the ground, in the near dark, they seem to make their own light.

I abandon my burrow and crawl toward them, mesmerized. Of my eight limbs, one has gone numb, another is broken. They trail behind me, will not hinder my journey much longer. With the last of my strength, I join the messengers in a dreamscape.

Once, I was a dreadful mite, like a miniature troll burrowing amongst dead skin and sebum. Now my body is a thread, dispersing and slowly, intricately weaving into the fabric of something vast and brilliant. All complexities fall away, meaningless in the perfect brightness of snow.