This is just a whimsical little story I gushed out a couple mornings ago. It’s inspired by a very small, very old book titled Flatland, although it’s nothing like the book. It probably means something to me and hopefully I’ll figure that out someday.
The Room with the Giant Loom
The Girl wasn’t an ordinary girl although she might have seemed ordinary, but she had her own shark. She also had a pack of squirrels and a one big, opinionated cat. She didn’t know the dream weavers personally, they were always out of sight, but she knew they were there.
The Shark wasn’t an ordinary shark. This shark lived in the Sea of Information. He wasn’t the kind of shark that ate people; he was a very inquisitive shark and had a natural instinct that kept him connected to The Girl’s interests. Each day he would swim out in the sea and search for information for the girl. When he found something of interest, he’d snatch it quickly and quietly. The Girl was always interested in something new, so he gobbled up new data voraciously.
The Girl didn’t know The Squirrels very well, but they knew that she wanted the information stored so she could study it, and when The Shark returned home each day, the squirrels would take the new data then scurry hither and yon, storing his discoveries in a huge bank of old-timey mailboxes. Sometimes they’d have to move information to different boxes if The Cat didn’t like where they put it, so they were extremely busy squirrels.
The Cat was a big tabby cat and one of The Girl’s closest friends. He was a persnickety fellow and very particular about doing his job. Like most cats, he pretended to be lazy, but he had a keen sense of where the data should be stored. He also had no tolerance for fake information and he would yowl loudly at any squirrel who put fake data in a mailbox. He told the squirrels that bad data would cause The Dream Weavers to make a mess of The Tapestry.
When fake news and data was discovered, it was placed in a large basket and the basket was tossed out every few days. However, The Cat was wily and had a knack for spotting items that piqued his curiosity. When that happened he’d take it into the box where he liked to sleep, and use the data to pad his bed. In fact, he’d leave it there forever unless something new caused him to recall the odd item. And it did happen from time to time, and The Cat would grab the item, jump to his feet, and dance around in the special way that cats do when they are happy and crazy. For him, these were gemstones.
The squirrels were scared when The Cat danced crazy, but they dutifully obeyed him and rushed to put the data into the proper mailbox. The Cat always smiled at the squirrels when they did this, and that made them beam with joy.
No one ever saw The Dream Weavers. Everyone knew that they only came at night. The Cat was sure that he had glimpsed the weavers’ dark shadows swishing around the mailboxes, but he could never actually describe them, so no one believed him; not even the squirrels.
Each night, The Weavers grabbed as much information as they could then rushed off to The Room with The Giant Loom, and worked all night: weaving, unweaving, reweaving. Each weaver was responsibility for a different part of The Giant Tapestry and as they worked, occasionally they’d find themselves in disagreement with one another. When that happened, their frustrations poured into The Girl’s dreams. Nonetheless, they redid their nights work until every tiny piece of was in the right place. No matter how well the work went at the end of each night the weavers were never able to complete the work.
The Master Weaver told the weavers: The Tapestry is everything that makes the world work! It must constantly be changed, as life itself changes. So, do not fear, if it is never complete.
The Shark, The Squirrels, and The Cat knew that the tapestry was the property of The Girl, but all of them felt their own sense of pride in their contribution. The Shark boasted that there would be no information if it wasn’t for him. The Cat snorted at The Shark and advised him that The Tapestry would never be correct if he wasn’t there to get rid of fake data. The Squirrels were just happy to be part of the conversation, and not get eaten by The Shark or The Cat. The Girl appreciated and loved her friends because they helped her figure out the world.
The End
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