ESTHER AND THE SEVEN DWARVES

"Hey! Hey Girl! Wake up!"

Esther stirred. She had a crick in her neck and a kink in her back. She was not falling asleep on another stoop in a hurry. She opened her eyes and looked up into several bearded faces. "Are... are you the owners of this house?"

"We are."

"My name is Esther."

"Get out of the way! Give the poor girl some room!" said a woman elbowing her way through the beards.

"I'm Jara, and these are my brothers." Esther stood and saw that she was head and shoulders taller than the lot of them. "Come inside, Esther," said Jara.

Esther followed Jara inside, followed by the brothers. Jara stoked up the fire and began putting together dinner. Each brother was given a vegetable to cut up and put in the pot. With so many working together, they had a soup in short order.

The table was set and Esther sat on a small chair that was made to fit the others. She sat at the table with her legs to one side, as they did not fit under the table.

"What brings you to our door?" asked Jara.

"I'm avoiding my marriage. I despise my fiance."

"Was the man so terrible?"

"He's in love with himself, and he only wanted to marry me because I'm the heiress of my father's kingdom."

"Jerk," muttered one of the brothers.

"He should be beaten," said another.

"Scurvy dog," said a third.

"He who loves himself has no love," said a fourth.

"You can stay here until he leaves," said a fifth.

"Do you want us to kill him for you?" said the sixth.

She thinks about this possibility for a moment. "Tempting, but no. As much as I detest him, he at least treats his own subjects fairly well." Esther eats some soup. "This is wonderful. What are your names?"

"Farol."

"Aord."

"Lerso."

"Kurgh."

"Mofiz."

"Vogar."

"Unusual names. Have you always lived here?"

"No. We're Dwarves. We're from... somewhere else," said Jara.

"What are Dwarves?"

"Dwarf is like Human or Fairy. You are Human. We are Dwarves."

"Are there many Dwarves?"

"Not here. We are the only ones in this place."

"Oh. What brings you to our kingdom?"

The seven Dwarves looked at each other over their soup bowls. Some nodded. Some shook their heads. "We've come here to take back the Fairies," said Lerso.

"Really? Why?"

"There was a... a problem... at home... and the Fairies escaped. We have been tracking them down and returning them to where they came from," said Vogar.

"Good!"

Several eyebrows rose. "Good?" said Jara. "I thought Humans loved the Fairies."

"My sisters and I are the recipients of their 'gifts'. If you ask my father, the king, for assistance, he will gladly help you."

The Dwarves grinned. "This is good news indeed," said Kurgh. "Not many Humans have been willing to help us."

"We will help you."

"Excellent!" said Farol. "The Fairies know about us and have been avoiding us. They don't want to leave this place."

"They're having too much fun," said Mofiz.

"Fun?!? Fun!?! FUN!!! Is that all we are to them?!? Fun!?!" Esther threw down her soup spoon. "Why those dirty!... Selfish!... Users!!! That is it! No more Fairies! I want them out of my kingdom, now!"

"That's the spirit!" said Vogar.

Elizabeth Williamson Copyright © 2010

Enjoy To Taste

Enjoy your food. Take time to savor it. Of course, I have. I enjoy certain foods a lot. Other foods, well, if I do not like it, I do not consider it edible. As long as I eat only “edible” foods, I enjoy them!
Take Christmas, for instance. We have chocolates, other candies, waffles with pure maple syrup, toaster pastries, oranges, apples, bananas, tangerines, ham, potatoes, mixed broccoli and carrots and cauliflower with cheese, cottage cheese, farm fresh cider, etc. – you know, all easy stuff that you don’t have to fix. My favorites also are meals that other people fix. The beauty of Christmas is, I don’t DO pies!
Now, that holiday in November, you know the one, toward the end of the month? That’s a battle with the pie crusts, and a knock-down, drag-out fight with a stuffed turkey, and then on top of all that, you have all your trimmings to go with those! You end up so dragged out from all the prep work and time, that you just want to collapse and gorge yourself. You hope you are alert enough to taste the food! So you just keep eating until you do. What a job! What a grueling task! What a gigantic appetite! You call that fun??! Well....
My brother phoned the other day. He happened to mention all the sweet rolls he made for Christmas: poppy seed rolls, sticky buns, cinnamon rolls, apricot ... I cannot even remember all he made, at least eight different kinds. If he were here, I would clear the kitchen for him and let him make all he wanted. Talk about enjoy! Delicious.

Enjoy To Taste
By M A Williamson
Copyright © 2010

TOPIC: FOOD

Let's start the New Year right. with lots of posts on FOOD. food is the universal language. everyone likes food and it's one of those things anyone can talk about. mmmm.... food....