En Passant

Right up on a time at least once lived a man who was little and old and a part of God’s plan. He told tales that started and ended and might have a middle, like this one which he told tonight:

At least once upon a time lived a little old man who used to doddle a lot. “Doddle” not “dawdle.” The two aren’t the same. What one is the other is not.

He doddled at midnight and doddled at noon. He’d doddle too late and he’d doddle too soon. The animals teased him, “You doddle too much” but he never would listen to claptrap and such.  So he doddled.  He doddled, for doddling was fun. But one can’t eat doddling and he was a one. So he scavenged in woodlands and ate nuts and leaves, ‘cause one can’t curb doddling nor what one conceives.

Dumb animals liked him in animal ways. No animal animus tinctured his days. They thought him peculiar, but loving and kind and gentle and giving and peaceful, but blind to the joy in numbers. His bers were all num.  But he doddlingly skipped dum de dum to his drum.

So they liked him. He liked them. Beasts and doddling old man. Thus they gingerly teased him as only beasts can. “If you doddle much longer,” for instance the horse would tell him, “You’ll wind up a doddler, of course.” The hoot-owl would regally sit on a limb and bellow, “Hey Doddler, you doddle by whim.” The bobcat purred nimbly, “Hey! Do you know what a lifetime of doddling might ever would show?”  And the fox, being funny, would cunningly cry, “His doddy’s a doddler, like Dod in the sky!” Good-natured and humble, he’d laugh and say, “Sure.  And if doddling’s a curse then I hope there’s no cure.”

One day an imperious man with a crown walked by on an old country lane toward the town when he spotted the Doddler in a grove of oak and made it his business to tell all the folk. They listened, for he was a prince, and soon they convened by the grove in a scurrilous way.  They'd jauntily taunt, they'd mock, scoff and jeer, “Hey Doddler! Are you gonna doddle all year?” But the doddler kept doddling and took no offense.  He was happy to doddle at no one’s expense.

Eventually onlookers approached the Clan and said, “We must restrict this doddling old man.” A council was formed and concerned Clanizens took the doddler by force to Conditioning Pens. There teachers taught him to act more like them: Imminently sensible from stern to stem. 

The doddler complied. What else can one do when one is offenseless and when one is not two? He complied -- it would do no good to complain -- and learned doddling was simple and stupid and plain.

When he was done they gave him a degree and followed his progress with cameras and tea. He went to the grove and just stood there erect, stolid, proper, and stiffly, what one might expect. He stood there all morning and on through the night. He sweltered in sun and quaked in moonlight. What animals saw him just sniffed him and passed. They suspected, correctly, that they’d seen the last of the strange happy doddler with whom they could speak. The hoot owl forgot him within half a week. 

He stood there all decade all rigid and right.  He stood out.  He stood there.  He stood out of sight.  He stood there an eon, through a Spring storm, through hot Summer drizzles in his Clan uniform. And he stood there. He stood there. A little old man.  Not happy, not doddling, but part of the Clan.

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