The Clockwork Toymaker and Other Fables

The Little Silver Circle

The Little Silver Circle was bored. He was an artist and a poet. And everybody loved him. 

All night he would float across the sky, creating and reciting, impressing the fluffy little children with everything he did. It was all so easy.

Everything about him was special, from his pleasing silver glow, to way he transformed, steadily and rhythmically, like a slow blink. It wasn't easy to be so adored. But it came naturally to The Little Silver Circle.

As far as The Little Silver Circle was concerned, impressing the fluffy children was far too easy. Whenever he spoke they listened intently. Who wouldn't when his poems were so incredible?

Silver Circle in the sky,

Shining brightly like nothing else,

You are so special,

Blinking and floating,

An inspiration.

He loved to recite that poem. It made him happy to see the way it amused the other children.

But still, he was bored.

"I'm bored," he said to whichever of the children he was talking to; they were so amorphous and fluffy it was hard to tell them apart.

"That's too bad," said the blob, "but I'm not sure what to say. I've never felt bored before. Perhaps you are lonely? You are all alone here in the night sky. That can't be much fun."

"What do you mean," asked The Little Silver Circle. "I'm not alone. I have all of you to recite my poems to."

"True," said the blob. "But you are so different from us. I'm not sure we really understand you."

"Yes," said The Little Silver Circle, "That's very true. I'm a complicated entity. I'm not sure anyone could really understand me."

The blob changed shape, passing through several configurations before settling into another unrecognisable arrangement.

"Possibly," said the blob, "but that's hard to know, given that you spend all your time floating in the night sky."

"What else can I do? The night sky is all there is. But, oh, I understand it all so well. It's difficult to be me, to be so unique in this vast blackness."

"Have you spoken to the dots about it?"

"The dots? They're all so tiny and identical. What would they know about how special it is to be me?"

"Well, they're trapped here, too."

"I'm not trapped," said The Little Silver Circle. "I'm just bored."

"Fair enough," said the blob, "but there is more to life than the night sky. Maybe you should go there sometime."

"Go where," asked The Little Silver Circle.

"Daytime," said the blob and he drifted off to meet some of his other blobby friends.

The Little Silver Circle had never heard of daytime and he didn't know what to make of the blobby child's suggestion. He was so special and important that he couldn't imagine a whole part of the sky he'd never seen before. He couldn't wait to go there. He was sure they'd like his poems.

He decided to talk to the dots about it.

"Dots," he said, "I've been thinking about visiting daytime. What do you know about it?"