tall tails

‘I’m bored!’ Zach declared to no-one in particular. Mum was busy ironing, dad wasn’t coming by till later and all his friends had gone off on holiday somewhere leaving him to amuse himself. Zach was pretty good at amusing himself, he would make up stories with his toys and act them out for hours on end but he’d been doing that already and was in need of a new adventure. In the absence of anything more exciting happening he thought he’d go on a bug hunt so he went down the garden to see if Blue would join him.
‘So what you doing today then Blue?’ Zach asked
‘Oh still watching the world go by’ Blue replied with a great big smile
‘Well I was thinking that not much of the world really goes by here does it?’
‘Oh yes it does my friend! The whole world comes by here. Take that flower over there for instance’
‘What the yellow one?’
‘Yes. Now what do you see when you look at that flower?
‘Well it’s yellow and it has a green stem and a couple of leaves’ Zach answered
‘But how did it come to be here growing in that particular spot?’ Blue asked
‘I have no idea’ Zach laughed
‘Well when I see that flower, I see sunshine and rain and wind and insects and earth and all the things that had to come together to make that one little flower grow. The seed that grew into that flower could have come from miles away.’
‘Really?’ said Zach
‘Yes that’s a dandelion and the seeds get picked up by the wind and carried away. Other seeds get carried by birds and animals or by water but dandelions have beautiful little parachutes on them that get picked up on the wind and blown all over the place.’
‘Aren’t dandelions weeds though’
‘Well weeds are just flowers that grown-ups don’t think are pretty’ Blue replied
‘I think dandelions are pretty and buttercups and those little purple ones…’Zach said
‘I know and every one of them is a miracle when you think about it. The wind that picked up the seed that grew into that flower might have been blowing on the other side of the world earlier that day, the rain that made it grow might have come from one of the great oceans and the sun that made it blossom might have shone on another flower thousands of miles away just a few hours before. So you see the whole world has come by here just in that one tiny flower’.
‘Wow – that is amazing!’ exclaimed Zach ‘you look at stuff so differently from everyone else Blue. What do you see when you look at me?’
‘Well I see the love of your mum and dad, I see the chocolate that you ate earlier that’s still on your face, that you didn’t share with me by the way, I see eyes that sparkle like sunlight on water when you’re interested in something. They’re sparkling now as it happens. The only problem with you is that you don’t have a tail’
‘Why do I need a tail?’
‘Because it’s not so easy to tell if you’re happy or sad without a tail’.
‘Can’t you tell from my face?.
‘No, humans are funny like that, sometimes they smile when they’re sad and they cry when they’re happy. You really need a tail to determine what you really feel, a tail can’t lie, the faster it wags the happier you are!’
‘Your tail always wags really fast when you see me Blue!’
‘It certainly does little bro it certainly does!’