The Little People

Let’s just pretend that we’re living in a story book.  An old, worn, thick bound story book, drenched with intricately illustrated pen drawings and a smell of generations
passed.  The story is full of mysterious characters and unknown lands, great journeys of hero’s and heroin’s  and battles lost and won.  This is where our story begins.  Not with a story of hero’s, but rather with the entry of the protagonist; The Little People.  A story some wish were not true.

The hero has said goodbye to the flat desert and greeted the mountains ahead with great anticipation.  Up, up, up they went and down and down and up  and up some more.  Past farmers fields and villages, mountain passes and switchback turns, they found their way to the heart of the new world.  Early mornings with mist hanging low in the valleys, the sun sparkling over the purple flower bushes hanging on to roadside and mountain side alike.  The hills roll on ahead, each climb bringing a new vista, and the trees are full of delicious fresh fruit.  This is heaven.  Little by little, the villages wake up, the men and women go to work in the fields or down to the market, the youngsters tag along or head to school, but what is left of the Little People?  What happens when every known adult is off, with nothing left for the littlest ones to do?

In being quite little, they know what is best for their kind, they know to stick together.  When together, anything is possible.  Today the Little People saw something strange come through their land.  One very large truck with paintings on the side, unlike any of the tracks from here.  Then another, and then yet another, only slightly smaller this time.  The Little People got together.

In no time they were ready, without a moment to spare.   Enter the first of the Bicycle People.  No matter how little, they each had an important role.  The littlest ones, hardly walking, cute as can be, they would be out front.  A great disguise.  The next in command could run, they could charge at the Bicycle People to see if they could throw them off their coarse,
and the biggest of the Little People had the most important job; throw of stone.  Attack!  The Bicycle People kept coming!  Tens and tens and then of them, their work
was cut out.  The Bicycle People came and went throughout the many hours of the afternoon but the Little People didn’t
feel they were done.  They passed their plans along to their fellow Little People who lived were the Bicycle People were camped, with instructions for the final attack.The Plan.  Assemble all of the biggest of the Little People, they’ll look most identical and will have the most dramatic effect.  Collect matching cloaks for all, darker colours are best, and supply each with a matching staff. Wait until the Bicycle People are eating, occupied, and then, form a ring around camp, just as the sun in setting, nothing but cheek bones , noses and eye poking out and all with their staff in their right hand.  This should throw them off.

Well, the plan worked in so far as startling the Bicycle People, as they had never seen such a sight.  The Bicycle People stayed in their camp, and the Little People watched on.  “Maybe they’ll drop a camera, a sandal, or a watch, and then it’s ours!” 

The Bicycle People and the Little People never did figure out entirely what each other were up to and remain a great mystery in each others eyes still to this day.  One might even say there has been a Little Person watching ME this whole time.    

 — Adele Woodyard