Lost in the Maze of Yesterday
A Tale of Felix and the Shadow Weaver
High in the old forest, where the trees spoke of ancient secrets to the wind, where the stars twinkled with a million stories, lived Owl Nightlong. From the top of the oldest oak, he watched the night, guided lost souls, and wove into the present any stories of the past.
One night with a shining of the silver moon on the forest floor, Owl Nightlong saw a fox, a young fox, called Felix. Felix stumbled around lost, sad, and confused. He’d lost himself.
Then Owl Nightlong appeared, swooping down silently at Felix’s side.
‘Greetings, Little One,’ he hooted quietly. ‘What troubles you on this lovely night?’
Then Felix raised his head, and saw, to his surprise and relief, that it was the owl. ‘I’ve been wondering who I’m supposed to be’, he said, ‘but, stare as I may, I keep seeing the errors of ages past, and I’m afraid I’ll never find my way.’
Owl Nightlong waved a wing, and the night sky grew misty as the stars rearranged themselves into scenes and words that spoke of a Shadow Weaver who had once, like Felix, been lost in the maze of his own past, still deluding and damning himself with hindsight, what-ifs and ghosts of missed opportunities.
But from the Shadow Weaver,’ went on Owl Nightlong, his voice now a sway of leaves,
‘he learned that to each shade of yesterday, there is a chime of light to come. Accepting his history, he turned remorse into understanding, error into learning, and found that
it was the darkness of yesterday that made the light of tomorrow so bright.
Felix had watched the stars bloom through the tunic’s rippling lights, taken aback as the Shadow Weaver spun from bleakness to transcendence.
‘As you can see, then,’ Owl Nightlong smiled, ‘your past has a shape just as the weft shapes the woof, yet there’s no such thing as a chain when you’re weaving a tapestry.’
He raised his cup and grinned. ‘Your tomorrow is one set of threads dangling from those past. Best of luck to the future you are hanging today, my good fellow.’
A sense of hope was suddenly coming up in Felix. ‘Thank you, Owl Nightlong,’ Felix said. ‘It makes sense now to me. My whole life does not equal who I am. Just because I had a start that sucked doesn’t mean it has to suck forever.’
He nodded his head, flew back to his perch, and spread his wings wide. He turned to the stars and whispered:
To change, and to grow, and to the long tomorrows. To shove the nightmares aside, and put away the thistledown and let the pine cones fall by the wayside this time; to the burning wildfire and the patchwork blanket quilt of forest magic tomorrow.
And so Felix, under the advising gaze of Owl Nightlong, stepped forth a little lighter on his feet and a little brighter of spirit, embracing the future with the wisdom of the past. And all around, the forest sang with new life as the stars gave silent praise to the tango of time.
I recommend reading this great reflection on childhood experiences and relationships by zizi majid
✍🏽 — Published and Deeply Appreciated by LIN at Dancing Elephants Press. Click here for submission guidelines. 🪄
