A Touch-me-Not Story

When stories enter head spaces, the heart pines for even more. This weekend promising to be a beautiful, busy one, I decided to give the stories a rest and give my daughter a cake instead, an invisible cake. Well, who was I to fool? When she is too excited, or content, she kisses me mad till my cheeks are wet. She almost hovers on borderline biting. Show her a horror film and she would clutch me tight, or the end of my skirt. Never very unfriendly, she insists a little of my little finger to give her the momsie-assurance when she speaks of stars and bears with others. To fake a cake to a touchy person like her is rather clumsy of me. In retrospect, what a waste of time! This one is for making it up:

 

Copy was known to be a serious person, oozing oodles of secret stories to anyone who cared to flip through Pages. Pages was what it was composed of, one deeply empty flare after the other. And the dress it wore was a sombre indigo-black-white combination of supreme fancy. However, one pleasant evening, it was caught dancing by Pen. Now, Pen was a flamboyant character, with its silver-shine flash outdoing the serious nature of its age and wisdom. Seeing Copy dance, it was outrageously happy and wanted to dance beside Copy, inside Copy.

 

There was a catch though. The Copy belonged to one Miss Hoity-Toity, whose middle name was Temper. She was so upset about Copy taking this wayward step out of character that she took it all out on Pen, "Do not spoil the Page!" she screamed. Pen was taken aback! All it could do, and was ever meant to, was to skate over Page -- up and down, in twirls and curves. Such a nasty command shook Pen's very existence.

 

Very, very sad, and almost tearful at such a show of Temper, Pen shut down. Slowly, it begun to rust. Copy was a dear friend too, you see. They always travelled together, Copy and Pen. And together they scribbled sketches. But now, with Temper in between, they only wished to have their Cap and Cover on, tightly wrapped around, shutting the world away.

 

Pen cried a lot, angry and hurt. It promised Copy that it would never sing again for Miss Hoity-Temper-Toity. Temper touched it so harsh that soon she began to miss the melody. But she was too Hoity-Toity to accept it. As for Copy and Pen, they have an anthem to themselves, "Touch-me-Not!"

 

Temper withered out of such a teamed up closure from Copy and Pen, and they? They were soon to become the famous songstress and danseuse of an ordinary, old Wordsmith, we will speak of later.

 

Touch-me-Nots are shy plants, little one, blooming in wild glory, all along roadways. One faint finger and they seal themselves down, tight. Respect that, dearest -- what one wants, what one is. And you would then touch them where others failed, their heart.