The Clockwork Toymaker and Other Fables

The Little Silver Circle

"It sounds scary," said the dots, glimmering in a rather pale imitation of the Silver Circle's twinkling glow.

"You've heard of it?"

"We've never heard of it," said the dots.

"So what's so scary about it?"

"We've never been there," said the dots, shimmering nervously. "Who knows what you will find?"

The Silver Circle blinked. The dots really were useless. They were so limited.

He decided to compose a poem:

Twinkle, twinkle little dots,

Like a Circle?

Really not.

At all.

"Okay," said the Little Silver Circle, "I guess I'll have to talk to the blobs about it, then."

The Little Silver Circle talked to the blobs.

"Tell me about daytime," he said.

The blobs were happy to oblige.

"It's wonderful," they said, even more amorphous and shifty than ever. "The sky is blue. It's much brighter than here. We can see so much more clearly. We like to play charades."

"What's charades," asked the Silver Circle.

"You wouldn't like it," said the blobs.

"Does it involve poetry?"

"It's largely a physical game."

"Oh," said the Silver Circle, "I'm more the cerebral type. But why would I want to go to daytime to watch you play charades?"

"You probably wouldn't," the blobs replied, drifting off to another part of the sky.

The Little Silver Circle stayed in the night sky. And he continued to feel bored. He thought a lot about daytime. What was so special about it?

He definitely wasn't interested in blobby games like charades. He wasn't sure why the blobs had even mentioned it to him.

But now he knew about daytime, he couldn't get it out of his mind. He wrote a poem about it:

Daytime's where I'd like to be,

A brand new place,

Where they don't know me.

Yet.

He was sure the children in daytime would like that one. He assumed that there were other children there.

He asked the blobs about it. "Are there any other children there?"

The blobs said that there were.

"There is one other child," they said, "A little yellow circle. She's very beautiful and shy."

"Really?"

"She's quite lonely. She can't play charades."

The Little Silver Circle blinked. "That's interesting," he said, "So she doesn't like charades either? I can write her a poem. Maybe she'll fall in love with me."

And so The Little Silver Circle set his mind to writing a poem for the little yellow circle. And to working out how to get himself to daytime.