By Raji Singh

Our Founder, James Thaddeus “Blackjack” Fiction
‘Tell our stories, Raji. If you don’t, it will be as if we never lived.’
These whispering cries of joy and sorrow rise from the bookshelves and portraits in the Fiction House.
I cannot refuse.
(Artwork enhancements by: Joseph Rintoul)

Our special holidays came early this year… Easter, Passover, and various human (‘two-leg’) celebrations. But with Spring upon us, we can all welcome that lightness of heart. Plant, bird, butterfly, and creature (the ‘four-legs’) celebrate, too. They call it Transformation: The Time of the Great Desert Pilgrimage.

For your two-leg reading pleasure, here is the magical, surreal poetry we at the Fiction House cherish.

LET ME TELL YOU THE TALE OF PRICK LILY THE SAGE

A ragin’, sagin’12 feet tall

Green

Cactus Queen

Prick Lily

Whose wisdoms come

Quite Willy Nilly

To partake of her

East Tehas Wit

Far away Critters

To her desert

Will flit

But not too close…

For fear of being

Pricked Silly

The towering Prick Lily mystically emanates to her butterfly sister, Calico. ‘Know what today is, Calico?

My heart flutters like Calico, A Foundling’s Gentlest Friend
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

As magical as Lily’s communion, is Calico’s reply from off in the desert. ‘But of course, Lil. On this day, at this hour, for thousands of years, never interrupted.’

Lily emanates,‘Yes! The Great Desert Pilgrimage. Lead them to me.’

‘Indeed Lil I will.’

The gulf breeze tips Prick Lily’s forever-upright arms. Bastion trunk firmly anchors her. She doffs white, ten-gallon – Doves sail. Lily sings: ‘Ya hoo and rippity doo. It’ll be a rip-roarin’, rootin’-tootin day deep in the heart of Teharoo.’ Lily’s emanations spring forth from her prickers, thousands of tuning fork transmitters. Critters, plants and varmints of the territory, their sensations, preened from millenniums of nature’s honing, absorb her vibrations. Lavender petals, the shape of fine porcelain dishes, and, just as delicate, forever blossom on Lily. Their lacey antennae-like pistils are her sense-sound receivers.

Calico becomes – hundreds of butterflies – and her shifting colors bewitch all who see.

Luny Mum suddenly seems to glow above the desert, making a rare, full, daytime appearance. She gleams to a just-as-anxious Poppy Sol. ‘A parade, Poppy. Wouldn’t miss it.’ Her beam streaks the blue sky, touches, and holds Poppy’s warm ray tightly.

The hundreds of Calicos – they swoop down and light upon Lily – then become one Calico again. No one can ever be jaded to butterfly magic.

Creatures of the desert sand will witness a parade few humans can imagine. What a tale could be told.

Spider-webbings royally cloak Lily’s shoulders

Calico perks antennae. ‘Do you feel the vibration Lily?’

‘Indeedy do. ‘bout time. I ‘xpect you’ll be the one to lead em all in.’

Calico affirms with the flit of a wing, then flies off, to beyond the horizon. Lily beams to her subjects near and far. ‘As the heat Orb shines his brightness and the night Goddess honors us with a daytime audience, come all! Gather for the royal procession that will transform our desert – into – our Paradise kingdom.’

LILY’S ROYAL TALE

Creatures stream across the sand to Lily. Most are timid, like lizards and armadillos, but also copperheads, coyotes, Gila monsters. Prick Lily trusts all, fully. In turn, she is trusted infinitely. Creatures convey to Queen Lily their most private thoughts. Passing leaves, migrating birds, deliver news; plants, other cacti, relay messages. She collates, stores all; interprets and disperses desert sage.

Lily achieves near harmony among her subjects through her fanciful mix of cowgirl frivolity and Solomon edicts: ‘Coyote territory – north of me; wild hogs, south; all insects are fair game to salamander, and sal, for snakes; snakes for birds of prey – but only if those doing the preying rely first on the dying for their diet. ALL must gather for sunset vigil with others of their kind…’

Stray bulls might charge Lily to challenge her desert dominance – but only once. “Youch!”

If humans wagon by, they stop and look in awe of her majesty. For those lost in the desert, parched by torturous heat, she provides sustenance by easing the sharpness of lower prickers, allowing them to gouge trunk to suckle her liquid.

THE SKY PARADE COMMENCES

What all the critters spent the year anticipating BEGINS.   The sky becomes awash with colors, yellows, ambers, reds. Calico leads hundreds of thousands, maybe a million butterflies.

The parade’s spectators’ eyes widen. They are fanned by the cool flutters as the promenade surrounds Prick Lily. The critters feel they are swept up into it, swaying gaily, airborne within the hues. Any sorrows are deadened. Their world is beautiful, loving.

‘If only we can keep these feelings forever’; they think. No more pain, sadness. Just joy. They’re certain the world has chosen only them to savor its beauty.

Butterflies’ flutters thunder louder than any herd of horses. They barely see Lily because so many of the paraders encircle her. Lily yells, ‘Yahoo, rippity roo…’

Sweet music is this peacefulness. This all may last a minute, or five, or maybe an hour. Maybe a year, a century. Creatures cannot tell; so lost they are in their reverie.

Then, the music disappears.

A TALE OF RESURRECTION

Calico now is dying – a butterfly’s natural death. She lights upon Sister Lily’s cheek and flutters one last time.

Calico whispers, but all desert creatures hear her. ‘Do not feel sorrow for the dying. They live on in those for whom they cared. Grieve only that they no longer feel life’s glory.’ She drops onto Lily’s arm. Instantly, she shrivels to a larva, no bigger than a dot. She rolls, falls, and then catches on a flower near Prick Lily’s trunk.

Begins the magic of instantaneous re-chrysalis – the domain of Calico alone. Larva morphs to caterpillar, hatching, devouring flower. Chrysalis sack becomes big as a worm, absorbs sky’s colors, burns with them. The image of Calico shines over the desert; almost out-glowing Poppy Sol.

Prick Lily shouts out to the desert creatures surrounding her, ‘Look skyward, All. You’re seeing the glory of commencin’-on.’

Then, a re-born Calico appears.

Prick Lily weeps joyfully at the beauty she sees. Her falling flower petal tears brush the sand-bound creatures’ faces, replacing their ‘glums’ with smiles.

My heart flutters like Calico, A Foundling’s Gentlest Friend
(©2013 Image by Joseph Rintoul)

(Read more of sisters Calico and Prick Lily in the novel, Tales of Fiction House.  Join me at the Fiction House, your place for short story, lark, whimsy, and merriment.  Meet the many residents as I archive their lives and centuries of adventures.  You can read of their origins in my novel TALES OF THE FICTION HOUSE.   My novel is available at Amazon, (Kindle and Trade Paperback) and Barnes and Noble.)

©2013 Raji Singh

©2014 Raji Singh (additions)