The Great Tiny Escape

Hansa had felt for a long, long time that he was alone; that he was the only one who had felt the way he did. He knew he was smaller than the family who had taken him in, but they lived so far above his own head that he really had no one to with whom he could speak.

Most of the biggies had been kind enough, but there had been the odd one who had come to the house. He’d heard them talk about how Hansa was surely a freak, too small to live, against God’s nature – surely?

But the family had heard it all before and just smiled. Yet all of this perplexed, Hansa. Surely those folks who thought him a freak had enough of their own problems to be bothered with a little old man who mostly sat in the corner and dreamed of freedom?

But it seemed that there were unhappy souls in the world who loved to spread their own unhappiness to all. And Hansa noticed that they felt obliged to quote some god or other as their reason to be unkind.

Hansa heard them say that if you lived by this rule or that rule and beat people over the head with the rules, then you would live in eternity with all the other rule followers.

Hansa realised that living with all the rule followers would not have made him happy in the least and decided that he’d ignore them all in future. He felt that if a heart was good then that was enough for any lifetime.

One morning when he was helping to drag some old newspapers out to the rear of the house, he thought he saw another one of his own size waving.

“Up here,” shouted the girl. ”I say, can you see me?”

“You’re the same as me,” Hansa said, surprised and who nearly fell backwards.

“Of course, I am,” and she hopped down off the wall.

“You’re the same size as me,” said Hansa, still very much surprised.

There are thousands of us, it’s just that the biggies keep us separate – that way they can control us.

Hansa didn’t think that his family could be like that, after all they were kind and let him sleep in their house.

“But they’ve never told you about the rest of us?”

And Hansa thought, and no, they had never mentioned any other little folks.

“They’re all the same, no matter how kind they seem,” said the girl.

And then she dragged Hansa behind a tree and made him swear that on his tiny life, that he had to not tell another soul or else.

Then after he had spit on his hand and spit on her hand and they both had shook hands, she felt free to tell them of the great escape.

“What great escape?”

So she came in close and whispered, “The great Tiny escape. The next full moon we are heading off to the Far Country.”

“Where?”

“I’m not too sure, but it’s far…”

“and it’s a country,” said Hansa, who was still trying to get over the shock and newness of all of this.

“Exactly,” said the girl, followed by, “My name is Creato.”

So they shook hands again and for the first time in his tiny life, Hansa felt he was at home.

Creato told him that the Great Provost would be the one who was organising the Tiny escape. That for too long the little folks had been at the beck and call of the biggies and that enough was enough.

“How are we going to get to the Far Country,” asked Hansa.

On a flying machine built by Provost and his friends.

And that was how Hansa found himself bound for the Far Country on an aeroplane built by a group of tiny people.

Each of them had a story to tell and each of those stories was recorded by Hansa.

And I will tell you some of those stories and the Far Country, sometime soon.

But let me just say that the escape was not as straight forward as they had hoped.

Take care. 

bobby stevenson 2014