Misadventures of the Enchanted Forest: Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Kinza who lived in a stone house in the middle of an Enchanted Forest. She was endlessly curious, exasperating her parents with her endless desire for knowledge. She would ask question after question, trying to get them to satisfy her deep longing. For each question, she was given a clear answer. Yet, she always sensed it was wildly incomplete.

When she asked them to share the story of the day she came into the world, they told a tale of a foggy day, some medicinal herbs to induce labor, and a resulting small baby girl who fit in the palm of her father’s hand. As she heard this story again and again, she sensed that there was more underneath the surface, but she didn’t have words for what it might be. Maybe they didn’t either.

When her dad told of how she fit in the palm of his hand, the corners of his lips would turn slightly up and his arm would move slightly as though rocking her as a newborn. But then abruptly, he would remind her of a chore or homework that needed to get done. She always wished that instead of stopping abruptly, he would reach out and ask her to lay her head in the crook of his arm. But she knew that was foolishness. There was work to be done and no good came from silly fantasies.

When her mother spoke of the foggy day, she would sometimes get a strange look in her eyes, as though there was more she wanted to share. Each time, just as Kinza thought her mother might let her in on a grand secret, her mother quickly closed her eyes and put her mask back into place, as though nothing had happened.

As time went on this sense of something being amiss grew within her, consuming her thoughts whenever she had a moment alone. No, maybe that wasn’t right. Because thoughts as she knew them are comprised of language, but this was beyond her ability to express in words. Was there a language without words? Could she someday learn of that language?

And yet, she looked forward to the way this sensation bounced around her body, dancing across her tongue but never quite forming any words. She sometimes wondered to herself whether the fog her parents described may have cast a spell on her, forming a cloud around and within her, making a home in her bones, tainting everything she saw, heard, and did, obscuring something important from her.