Naturally

He found it difficult to interpret her gaze. Was she interested in him, or was she amused over him? He yearned to know, because he was hopelessly infatuated with her. When she looked at him, in this subtle way, he felt almost helpless, and what he wanted most of all was to take her in his arms and feel the embrace reciprocated. He drank of her glance, and felt a divine trepidation in the heart while he imagined that this drink was poured directly into his cup.

Deep down, he felt that she was his, and he had felt so ever since he met her, and perhaps also before that. Only when he thought about the matter, he felt unsure, because there were so many thoughts that collided with each other. “Could I ask Cupid to shoot an arrow at hers and my heart,” he thought, “then all the problems would disappear in a split second, and my agonizing deliberations could be changed to peace and serenity or getting lost in the infinite depth of nothingness, where the world ends. I will ask him. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

But Cupid shook his head and said loud and clear that he did not dare shoot an arrow in a Najad. Naiads, Dryads and Oreades could fall in love, but you came into consideration only if you by your own efforts found your way to the gorgeous meadows where the Fairemones grew. Here you could then pick them, weave garlands and make bouquets. But what this efforts were, it was never written or told about. It could not be described, but had to be earned and realized.

“In these meadows,” said Amor with upturned palms and eyes, “bloom infatuation’s roses, and fully opened they are the pure love. It is the favor the Naiades, Dryads and Oreades give and it will be very satisfactory. Euterpe showed me once a painting she had made of one of the fully bloomed flowers, and it surprised me because it envisioned a thousand-leaf Lotus. I did not know you could paint, I said, and it didn’t remind me of a rose. Incidentally, I thought you only dealt with flute playing and lyrics. But she answered that it was impossible to reproduce these roses, so she took advantage of her artistic freedom. And my painting symbolizes exactly the same, she added. Well, the physical embrace, you had imagined and hoped for, is neither possible nor necessary, for the Nymphs true countenance is only available in the imagination. They represent, respectively, the water, the trees and the mountains, and the love that one melting together with here is limitless, I should probably add. “

It sounded promising, so thoughts and performances therefore had to be packed and laid into the little box he had been given by the Elves, so they did not disturb his quest. And it would be locked as long as he directed his attention to the point, which was smaller than the smallest, and would remain undisturbed until it hopefully suddenly gave in and became larger than the largest.

Then he would pick the universe’s most beautiful bouquet of roses that grew on the gorgeous meadows, make essence of the scent, and ask all the world’s rainbows dipping their every drop in it, from the smallest of the smallest to the largest of the largest before they presented their magical half-arches around the globe.