The Boy Who Swallowed The Moon

The Boy Who Swallowed the Moon by Sola La Tauler Once there was a boy named Avery.

Many people,

Being introduced to him,

Thought his name must be Avery and so called him that.

But no,

He would say,

My name is not Avery,

It is Every.

As in everything,

They would ask?

Yes,

The boy would answer,

As in everything,

Everything in this world and in any others.

Then he would turn himself away from the questioner and send his attention elsewhere.

Some people would be put off by this,

Thinking it was meant to be a slight,

But no,

It was just his way of dealing with a world he found difficult to tolerate.

To him,

The sound of most people's voices was like the cawing of crows,

Hard on the ears and upsetting to the soul,

His soul anyway.

He was aware that he was different from most people,

Even his parents,

Who had birthed him and raised him thus far.

But the sound of his own parents was as so much cawing to him,

Even the sound of his baby sister,

Though not as upsetting,

Was like the sound of a young crow.

He found most of the world very disturbing,

And of course,

Most people,

Even his parents,

Found him a bit disturbing.

It was disturbing how he would wince and turn away from them when they tried to speak to him,

How he would twitch and shudder when they laid their hands upon him,

Hoping to soothe his troubled soul.

Some people in the small village turned away from him and spat on the ground when he walked by so that they would not be troubled by the spirit of this troubled boy.

Some even called him a devil child.

He spent much,

If not most,

Of his time alone,

Wandering in the hills around the village.

There people would say he was communing with evil spirits,

If not the devil himself.

Of course,

The other children in the village would torment him whenever they came upon him.

They pulled his hair,

Scratched his face,

And even threw stones at him.

But he would never fight back,

Never cry,

And always took their punishment without saying a word.

By and by,

The children grew tired and bored with this.

After all,

It was no fun to torment someone who didn't seem to care what they did.

They began to be afraid of him and would run away when they saw him walking back to the village from wherever he had spent the day,

Alone and out in the lonely hills.

Actually his parents had not named him Avery.

They had tried to name him Avery after his father's father,

But the only name he would ever respond to was Avery,

Which is how he heard his name deep inside himself.

Avery was very odd,

It is true.

But also,

He was special.

Special in the way that a person who has one foot in one world and another in a different world can be.

Special in that he experienced the world in a much different way than others did.

He saw things and heard things and even felt things that other people did not.

This sometimes caused other people to think that he was dull or stupid or even retarded in some way.

But Avery was not dull or stupid or retarded in any way.

He was just on a different track than other people.

Sometimes his track and the world around him would run close together and at other times his track and the world's track,

At least the world that his parents and other villages were on,

Veered away sharply.

Avery was indeed a very intelligent boy,

But intelligent in a different way than most people.

Some of the villagers called him touched,

Which could mean not right in the head or,

As in ancient times,

Touched by the fairy folk or nature beings,

Back when people were intelligent enough to believe in such things.

Avery was indeed touched by these spirit beings,

Though he perhaps would not have thought of it as such.

He did not see himself as remarkable in any way.

To him,

The world around him seemed very strange and even crazy at times,

While he himself was often the only sane person he knew.

He knew,

Of course,

That he was seen as different by the others in the village,

Even scary or dangerous,

But he knew that it was their problem,

Not his.

All he tried to do each day of his life was keep out of everyone's way and go his own.

If others felt strange or threatened by that,

There was really nothing he could do about it.

One day,

Deep in his ramblings,

He came upon a cave.

The opening was hidden by some large bushes,

Which is why,

Although he had passed that way a hundred times,

He had never noticed the cave before.

He approached it slowly,

In case it was the home of a large animal.

Avery loved animals and spent as much time as he could with them.

He had learned how to call the birds in a language they understood.

They would come and perch on his shoulders and peck gently at his earlobes.

He could also call rabbits,

And deer,

And all kinds of other animals,

Each in their own language,

Which he had,

Somehow,

Taught himself.

Oftentimes when he appeared to others as talking to himself,

Another sign of his being touched,

He was actually teaching himself animal languages.

He didn't really know how he did this,

It was just enough for him that he did.

But he had never learned bear language,

And he was a little afraid of them,

Truth be told.

He certainly did not want to wake up a slumbering,

Grouchy bear.

He approached the cave very slowly and cautiously,

But once he was able to poke his head into the cave,

He saw that it was empty.

It did not smell like an animal,

It did not smell musty or dangerous.

It smelled good,

Like herbs,

Like flowers,

Like tea.

Avery enjoyed drinking tea with his mother,

And sometimes with his father,

When his father was not too busy with farm work.

They would sit in front of the fire pit,

And drink the tea slowly,

Letting all the good flavors of the tea enter their heart and body.

Of course,

Avery would not talk to his parents at this time,

He hardly ever spoke to them.

They often saw him talking to himself,

Very seriously,

In some weird,

Made-up language,

But no one ever realized that he was speaking in different animal tongues.

But he did enjoy sitting in silence with the two strange,

To him,

People that had born him and fed him and looked after him all through his infancy,

And even now,

Provided food and bed in a cozy hut,

Even though he spent little time there.

He would gaze deeply into his teacup,

And often saw strange shapes of strange beings in strange places,

Though he,

Of course,

Never shared that with his parents.

They,

In turn,

Would just sit and look at their strange son,

And enjoy spending time with him,

Even in this way.

As Avery moved further into the cave,

He saw that it was much,

Much deeper than he had first thought.

He kept moving deeper and deeper,

Listening and watching intently,

On the lookout for an angry bear.

But there was no angry or otherwise bear there.

He just kept moving further and further into the cave,

And the warm smell of the herbs and flowers and tea began to get stronger.

As he got deeper into the cave,

It,

Of course,

Got darker.

But then it seemed that the further and deeper he got into the cave,

The lighter and brighter it became.

Suddenly,

He came out into a large room,

Which was very bright and smelled very good.

He saw that there was a girl about his own age,

Sitting in front of a fire pit,

With a large kettle of water that hung from the tripod above the flames,

Which was bubbling and hissing along.

Avery looked at the pot,

And heard its song,

And smelled the good smell of herbs and flowers and tea.

The girl smiled at him,

And motioned for him to join her around the fire.

So Avery slowly made his way over to her,

And sat himself down right across from her.

The girl smiled,

And he found himself smiling back,

Which was a bit disconcerting to him.

But he just could not help himself.

She was smiling so brightly,

Like a sun in a blue sky.

Presently,

The girl took a large ladle and took out some of the dancing water and poured it into a large clay bowl,

All the while smiling and nodding to Avery,

Though without speaking.

Then she held up a smaller clay bowl filled with herbs.

She passed it over to Avery,

So that he could be introduced to them.

Avery looked at them and smelled them,

Recognizing them as some kind of tea.

It smelled like the forest,

And the creek that ran through the middle of it,

And the flowers that grew alongside the creek,

And even the smell of the forest animals that drank from the creek.

It smelled like the rain,

When it was falling very softly in the spring,

And of the wind that blew ever so gently then,

And of the earth that breathed beneath his feet wherever he walked,

And the sky that smiled down on him as he moved through the world.

He passed it back to the girl,

Who received it as if he were offering her a great gift.

She picked up a clay teapot and dropped a great handful of the tea into it,

And then filled that with the dancing water.

Then she sat back and smiled at Avery,

Who was sitting across from her,

And watching her through the flames that danced between them.

Even though she did not speak out loud,

Avery heard every word she spoke to him.

He heard it as a song,

A song much like the ones his bird friends would sing to him,

And like the ones he sang back to them.

He heard it like the creek running joyfully through the forest,

And he heard it like the sun that smiled down on him as he lay back on the soft grass beside the creek,

And he heard it like the earth that sang beneath him as he lay there,

Snug in his own body,

At home in the forest,

As he never felt at home in his own home.

The girl,

Still silently singing,

Poured some of the tea into a large clay cup,

Much larger than the ones his parents used,

And passed it through the flames to him.

He held it gently in his cupped hands,

Like the way he would hold the tiny birds that came to him when he sang their song.

It was so large and a bit heavy and very hot,

Yet Avery held it tightly but loosely,

Like a living,

Breathing creature.

The girl smiled at him again,

But now she seemed to be getting lighter and lighter and harder to see,

And then he could see her no more,

As she floated up to the ceiling of the cave like a puff of smoke.

He looked down into his cup,

And he saw there,

Not the reflection of the ceiling of the cave,

But the sky outside the cave.

He saw the stars there,

Twinkling in their own language,

One that he was still learning.

And he saw the moon there,

Riding high in the sky,

Like a ship on a vast sea.

He smiled into the cup,

And the moon smiled back,

Not asking for anything in return,

Not wanting him to be anything that what he was.

She smiled at him and sang to him in her own lovely moon language.

He sang back to her,

Very softly,

In his own,

Very own,

Avery language,

The one he only sang to himself when he was alone.

He smiled at her with a smile as big as the sky,

And then,

Lifting the cup to his lips,

Drank down the moon.