It was a clear, bright day at the
height of Summer. In the middle of a large, sprawling park, where tall, lush
green trees grew among expanses of well-tended grass and along winding, lazy
sidewalks, people sat on picnic blankets conversing, or chased dogs and
children through the grass and around trees, laughter floating upon a slight
breeze.
I walked, hands in pockets, sometimes along a pathway, sometimes on the grass;
mostly alone with my thoughts, but sometimes watching the people talking, playing
or running as I passed them by.
Ahead of me, I noticed another pedestrian walking along the sidewalk, an older
man, wearing suspenders and neatly pressed trousers. He wasn’t remarkable in
any way save one; above his shoulders, where you would expect his head to be,
there was nothing but air.
Startled, I stopped walking.
“Ahem, Miss?,” The word was obviously coming from the emptiness where his head
was, in a middling depth, slightly gravelly voice, “Excuse me miss, but I
seem to have misplaced my body, have you seen it hereabouts?” He said it in a
sort of singsong lilt, the words going higher and lower like water above a
rocky streambed.
Yes, he was speaking to me; that was apparent. Though he had no head; therefore
no face or eyes (the usual indicators of address), he had undeniably stopped
directly in front of me, and his body was arranged in my direction, shoulders
straight, feet pointed towards me.
“Um,” I sputtered, unsure how to handle this strange situation, “You have a
body, it looks to me like it’s your head that’s missing.” Well, that sounded a
bit rude, I thought, and internally winced.
“Oh. Hmm. That’s getting somewhere, at least.” Apparently that hadn’t sounded
rude to him, good. “Do you have any idea what dimension you’re in, or rather,
which dimension my body seems to be in?”
I laughed nervously.
“Welll, we call the world we move about in, with shadows and light and depth of
perception the ‘Third Dimension’…”
“Aha! But of course, that isn’t quite the name I know it by; you call it the
third dimension, and this is still the planet called Gaia, or Monos, or maybe
you know it by the name of Earth, is that right?”
“Mhm, Earth. That’s it.”
“Okay, so that would make it, by my reckoning… the 59th dimension!”
With that exclamation, a fizzing noise grew louder, and with a violent pop, the
man suddenly sprouted a head above his shoulders. Wild pepper-and-salt hair
waved in all directions save one; the top of his head was shiny-bald. His hair
didn’t match his orderly clothing or neat manners, much to my surprise. He also
wore thick glasses with heavy frames. The formerly headless man’s glasses made his
watery gray eyes appear significantly larger than they actually were. He peered
earnestly into my face, his gaze a little unnerving.
“There we go,” He said, a mouth finally accompanying his words.
He looked down at his feet. I followed his gaze, a little stunned by the sudden
appearance of what should have been at the top of his body all along, and
noticed that he was wearing sandals over white, baggy socks. Hm, I thought,
maybe his hair isn’t so incongruous after all… Still, there was nothing
terribly peculiar about that, however; his socks lay flat and empty just where
his toes should have been.
“Well, I’m off to find the ends of my feet,” He grinned at me, eyes sparkling,
all good humor and no bewilderment at his missing toes. I suppose that made
sense though, considering how his head had made an appearance. He took his
glasses off and polished them with a handkerchief from his pocket; his eyes
actually were that big, making him look like some sort of a very large insect.
“Thanks for you help!” he exclaimed after he’d replaced his glasses.
With a quick wave and a short leap into the air, he was gone. Disappeared,
though he left behind one thing that shortly vanished with him as well; a
delighted and exhilarated laugh that lingered upon the Summer breeze for half a
minute, before breaking up and skipping about, like the laugh that was said to
have created fairies.
“Well.”
I said out loud. “You’re welcome.” A little late, but I had a feeling that he
had heard me anyway. And I had the strangest notion that I had met him once
before, in another time, long ago…
(That was fun :) I think I definitely like him better as an old guy, more personality. I still want to try a young boy, though. It's funny how this is almost becoming a character study project...)
