GENRE: Fairy Tale

SUBJECT: Extinction

CHARACTER: A good listener

There was no once upon a time for Adagia. There was only every day at the same time. Adagia sat in the chair with the curly iron frame, filled the kettle enough for one cup of tea, dropped three leaves into her mug, and waited for the strike of the clock.

Ear turned to the forest at the edge of her garden, Adagia listened. The sights and sounds of a typical garden were nowhere to be found in Adagia’s garden, but she did not know that. It did not provide her with food, nor was it simply a pleasant view. The plants within did not have sisters or mothers or cousins in other gardens elsewhere. Adagia did not even know of elsewhere. She knew only of this garden and the birdsong that kept it alive.

The clang of the clock heralded a pause. Adagia had time to take a sip of tea before six notes flitted from the trees. Three higher, two lower, and one exactly the same as the day before. The birds of the forest sang to Adagia, but it was soft. It had grown softer by the day. Today, it was so soft that Adagia moved the chair with the curly iron frame one bed of plants closer.

Adagia repeated the birdsong to each plant in turn. One by one, slow and methodical because no plant thrived from being sung to in a manner in which it was not acquainted. She knew them all by heart and by mind. She knew that the Bush-That-Smelled-Of-Rain needed a gentle voice, and the Flower-That-Grew-Too-Close-To-The-Edge would be reined in by stern inflection. None were as fickle as the Tree-That-Insisted-On-Being-Blue.

And so it had been for each day of Adagia’s life. Adagia repeated the birdsong to the plants, nourishing their leaves and fortifying the muscles in their stalks, until one day, the birds of the forest did not sing.

“I am not a composer. I may only repeat,” Adagia scolded the birds, her toe nudging the edge of the border to the forest. She would never dream of crossing it. If Adagia were elsewhere, who would sing for the plants? “You must give me a song. That is the way things are. That is how it has always been done.”

But the birds did not sing, and the garden wilted.

The next day, the birds clacked their beaks and rustled their feathers, but not a single note fluttered from their little throats. The same silence greeted Adagia on the day after that, and again the day after that, until Adagia had a Bush-That-Smelled-Of-Mildew and a Flower-That-Barely-Grew-At-All. Oh how she missed the blue of the Tree-That-Had-Become-A-Noxious-Gray.

On the fifth day, the Whispering Willowbud whispered for the last time. Its soft-spoken petals wilted to the ground until there was nothing left but a hardened bud on a rotten stem.

“This cannot be!” Adagia cried, gathering the petals and trying her best to restore the Willowbud to its former glory. It was the first of its kind. It was the only of its kind. Adagia was the millionth tender of this garden that held the last of its kind. “What have I done? Birds, why do you not sing to me?”

But on the sixth day, the forest rumbled with new vigor, and a shadow emerged from the dense canopy. It was not a bird.

It was a man.

Adagia had never seen a man, though she had read a great many stories, and her curiosity was lush as a Nosy Narcissus. He was man-shaped – her limited studies confirmed that much – but he was far less hairy than her imagination had foretold with a smile more grand than crooked. Adagia liked this version a good deal better than the beast from her stories.

“Ah, madam. I have found you at last,” the man said.

Adagia rushed to the edge of the forest, thankful that her gardening pants allowed spritely movement. She had never tested them to such limits before. “You can speak? A man can speak?”

“Why would I not be able to speak?”

“You are supposed to have tusks.”

“And women are supposed to have feathers.”

Adagia placed her hands on her hips. “Me? Feathers? What an unusual thing to say. It seems our stories have been fiction all along.”

“Yes, so it seems.” The man stepped closer, hunched and cautious like the frightened mushrooms that clung to the Vines of Motherly and Fatherly Love.

“I do not suppose you have a name as well?” Adagia huffed.

“In fact, I do. It is Staccati.”

Adagia might have carried on with her investigation of this man who had so suddenly appeared in her life were it not for the shiny, silver monster in his arms. He held it like she might hold an especially adequate cup of tea. Precious. Well-guarded. Savored.

“What creature have you brought to my glorious garden?” Adagia asked with a confidence she hoped would give the impression that her garden was supposed to look as it did, proud in its decrepit and shriveled state.

“It is not a creature. It is a machine!” Staccati brightened, proving further that his teeth were not meant to bite her in two. “You see, I am taught to listen for the song in the river, which I sing to the birds, who in turn sing to you. But six days ago, my river ran dry.”

“So it is you who has caused this. You did not sing to the birds, and my Whispering Willowbud is dead.”

“Fear not! I have brought the riversong to you with my machine.”

“And does your machine have a name?”

“I call it Radio.”

That did not sound like a name to Adagia. She might have called it the Rectangle-That-Reflected-The-Sun. Then again, Staccati did not look like a man. She no longer knew what to think of men and names and the songs they might sing.

With a firm, practiced grip, Staccati nestled Radio into Adagia’s second chair. She had never sat in it, much preferring the chair with the curly iron frame.

“Why have you placed Radio there?” she asked.

“This is the perfect chair. It has an unusually large seat.”

“Will you at least let me offer you tea before taking a seat at my table?”

“I have found my own in the forest,” he said.

To Adagia’s horror – she was not sure what horror felt like but it was certainly introducing itself now with a forceful kick in the bum – Staccati reached into his pocket and produced a handful of sticky moss. He dropped it into the mug Adagia had used not two hours before and poured from the newly boiled kettle.

“The forest is rife with things waiting to be tea. You should offer them the opportunity,” Staccati said.

“I shall do no such thing.”

“You’re missing out on a lot of fun.”

Fun? Did he honestly say fun? Adagia sipped her perfectly ordinary tea while Staccati gulped his tea-that-was-not-tea.

“Tell me how Radio will help my garden,” she said.

Not only did Staccati not answer this, he did not even look at Adagia as he thumped and poked and tinkered with the growths protruding from Radio’s body. A sound as nauseating as the Screeching Scricactus blasted from Radio.

Adagia leaped from the chair with the curly iron frame. “Take that abomination from my garden at once!”

Staccati made one final jab and the screeching stopped. “But you have not heard it sing.”

Six notes, distinct but so high and short that Adagia’s head began to ache, squeaked from Radio’s body.

Aghast, Adagia returned her mug to the table. It rattled in her hand as it met the saucer. “That was not a song.”

“You heard the notes, did you not?”

Yes, she had heard the notes, but notes alone did not make a song. Where was the subtle inflection in the descent? Where was the strong breath before rising to the most dramatic pitch? Where were the crescendos and ritardandos? Where was the heart?

“My plants will not respond to mere notes,” she said.

“Have you asked them?” With Radio secure under his arm, Staccati approached the Bush-That-Once-Smelled-Of-Rain. “I carry within Radio the song of the river. Each day, Radio’s other half is able to interpret the melody from the dry riverbed in ways I cannot. Radio receives the song, and I give it to you.” At the twist of his finger, Radio produced the awful screeching once more and repeated the succinct notes. It was too loud for the sensitive Bush. Radio would not know to keep its voice soft. To sing with just enough breath to carry the tune. The-Bush-That-Once-Smelled-Of-Rain twitched, then cowered away from the monstrosity, further wounding its delicate branches.

Adagia rushed to the Bush. “Stop! You are harming it!”

The wrinkles at Staccati’s brow multiplied. He scratched his chin and said, “I do not understand. I truly thought that would work.”

Adagia whispered coaxing comforts to the leaves, but the damage had been done. “You are not gentle. You do not know these plants as I do. The song must come from the birds. I have always listened to the birds.”

“And I have always listened to the river. But a river is ever-changing, so I adapt,” Staccati said. He continued his trek through the garden, declaring at full breath, “Listen, plants! Behold the riversong! Bask in its sweet nectar!”

Adagia followed behind, picking up leaves and stems and petals as they leaped from the plants in his wake. “Stop, I beg of you! You’re killing them! They are one of a kind!”

A crack echoed from the far reaches of the garden. A branch, mildewed and sick with rot, crashed to the bed below, crushing the once-hardy Wreaths of Reassurance. The Tree-That-No-Longer-Had-Color split down the middle. Shrapnel spewed across the garden.

“The plants!” Adagia cried. “Your Radio has ruined them!”

The Pimpled Pumpkin burst at Adagia’s feet, splattering guts and goo on the sparkling needles of the Dandelion Divas. Screams from the Choir of Lilies made the Sleeping Shamrocks cower in their bed. The Flower-That-Grew-Too-Close-To-The-Edge tried in vain to run away into the grass beyond.

The garden was weeping. The loss crept into Adagia’s heart. She had failed them all. Adagia fell to her knees and pleaded, “Please! Please stop. It will not work.”

Staccati did stop, silencing Radio with a slap.

One plant remained. The Rose-Without-Thorns. Adagia had loved every plant under her protection equally, but now the Rose was her favorite. The Rose was all she had left. She would die before letting its life slip through her fingers at the squawk of a terrible machine.

Though the beast was quiet, its notes drifted in her mind. Adagia plucked what nuance she could from is stilted, mechanical tones. Cupping the bulb of the Rose-Without-Thorns, she repeated the song of the river.

Her voice did not harm, but it also did not revive.

“I am sorry. I am so, so sorry,” Adagia said. The Rose-Without-Thorns was still, and silence stretched, lifeless apart from a rustle in the trees.

An idea, as sudden as a slap from the Angered Angel Trumpet, came to her. Adagia leaped to her feet, careful not to step on the corpse of the Pimpled Pumpkin. “Mr. Staccati, you brought that dreadful thing through the forest, but the river was never meant to sing to me. You have come too far.” Adagia raised a finger to the forest, and a small, rotund canary landed on it. “The river sings for the birds.”

Staccati must have been smarter than the men in Adagia’s books because he knew what to do without her having to tell him. He raced to the edge of the forest and drenched it in Radio’s notes.

The birds began to sing. Their voices – numb from days of stifled instincts – rang out over the garden, a symphony of triumph. Six notes floated from the trees, connected and slurred as if the birds were drunk from their prolonged hiatus.

Adagia cooed the melody as she skipped back to the Rose-Without-Thorns. The birdsong sprang from her voice, vibrant and crystal clear like the silt-less trickle of a glacial stream. The faded petals erupted with color as the Rose perked up and smiled. It had always been kind, as it had no thorns with which to bite.

Staccati lowered his machine. “I believed that Radio would be my companion in this unfortunate predicament, but it is you who the birds sing for. It is you who deserves it.” He held the machine out to her. A resigned shadow crossed his eyes.

“I will not touch such a ghastly creature.” Adagia faced her garden. She could not bear the thought of abandoning it now. “I will need a handyman to wield it.”

“You want me to stay?” Staccati asked.

“I want you to stay.”

“And we will do it again tomorrow at the strike of the clock?”

Adagia gestured for him to join her at the chairs. “We will do it again tomorrow, and you will teach Radio to sing more gently.”

Staccati filled his mug with sticks from the forest floor as he sat in the chair with the unusually large seat. “Perhaps a hint of routine will suit me.”

“As would a respectable tea.” Adagia selected three tea leaves as she had always done. “But I might open my mind to other possibilities,” Adagia said as she dropped a fourth leaf into her mug.