Amala.
Ian Douglas Robertson

I remember Amala as if in a dream. Sometimes I wonder whether she really existed. I can still picture her so clearly, in all her miniscule splendour, her long golden hair, her emerald green tunic and peaked cap, a creature so human in appearance and yet so totally alien to our culture, a miniature Eve in a Garden of Eden. 

I know that you will not believe the story I am about to tell you, which is probably a good thing. As Man has no respect for life, he would certainly find some pretext for wiping out the Forest people. He kills a fly, for example, just because it’s buzzing against a window pane or a wasp because it’s after a bit of jam on his plate. I can hear some minister or other saying in Parliament, “We can’t have these little fellows inhabiting our forests. Before long we’ll have nature-loving activists telling us we can’t cut down the trees, and then where would we be? Besides, they don’t pay any taxes…”

The whole notion of killing, and that includes trees and plants, is totally foreign to the Forest people. They can’t understand why, for example, people insist on destroying spiders, which, after all, trap the insects that annoy them, or the mice under the floorboards, whose only crime is to finish off a few leftovers. And the joke is that Man considers human life so precious, when there are millions and billions of humans cluttering up the world.

This story is about how I fell in love with one of the Forest people one sunny day in spring, when the leaves were sprouting light green on the reawakening trees. You may have heard of the Forest people by another name. In Ireland they’re called leprechauns, in England elves, but they’re all offshoots of the little people. They very seldom reveal themselves to humans, which is not surprising, given the reputation humans have in the forest. Sometimes, however, they recognize a kindred spirit, usually a child, and appear to him or her. Why do I use the word “appear?” Well, quite simply, the forest people are able to make themselves invisible to the human eye. I’m sure that if this quality had not evolved in them, like the hump on the camel and the neck on the giraffe, they would be as dead as the Dodo is today. Of course, it would be very interesting for scientists to study this remarkable quality and discover its nature, but they would only use it as a weapon. Yes, it’s true. If you look at Man’s history, which is no more than a series of battles and wars, you’ll see his so-called “progress” is entirely due to his desire to produce a more powerful weapon to destroy his enemies, which are usually his neighbours.

Anyway, very near our house, just beyond the garden fence, there used to be a deep unspoilt forest, in the days before they drove the M15 right through it.  I loved to wander in those rustling woods, teeming with life in the days before sprays and insecticides. There seemed to be a creature under every leaf and on every branch, and I loved to feel all this life around me. I knew I was intruding, though, because as soon as the animals and birds heard me, they’d scatter in all directions and there’d be a flapping and a screeching and a scurrying, and then everything would go silent until they were sure I didn’t want to harm them.

Then one day, when I was sitting at the foot of an enormous old oak tree, admiring a hedgehog going about his business, a little person appeared in front of me. She was about the same size as me or perhaps a little smaller. She may have mistaken me for one of her distant relations, but I don’t think so. I wasn’t at all frightened. She had such a friendly smiling face.

“You’re human, aren’t you?” she said in a squeaky little voice.

“Yes,” I said, quite disarmed by her forwardness.

“We don’t like humans. You don’t seem too bad, though. But I wish you wouldn’t kill so many insects with those big feet of yours.”

I looked at her feet and saw that they were tiny and covered in thick fur.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to kill them.”

“Can’t you hear them scream?”

“Scream?”

“Yes. I know humans are insensitive, but I didn’t think they were deaf as well.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, at a loss for words.

“Oh, that’s all right. It’s not your fault, I suppose. Well, bye!” And with that, she disappeared.

By the time I got home I wasn’t sure whether I had imagined her or not, but decided not to tell my parents, just in case they thought I was making it up.

I very much wanted to see this little person again. So, I went to the forest early the next day and sat in the same spot under the oak tree, but she didn’t appear. I went back every day and had almost given up hope when finally, after about a week, she popped up in front of me.

“May I suggest you don’t wear those big black boots? If your feet were bare, you wouldn’t kill so many forest creatures.”

“But I was being very careful,” I said guiltily.

“I know. You only killed five ants, four earwigs and a spider today, which is an improvement on yesterday, when you killed—”

“Oh, no! Don’t!” I cried, not wanting to think of all the lives I had taken by my carelessness.

“Just leave your big boots at home.”

“Oh, I will,” I said, and before she had a chance to disappear again I said, “What’s your name?”

“Amala. That means Courage of Three Ants. What’s yours?”

She wasn’t at all shy like the girls at school, who didn’t really like talking to boys.

“Derek.”

“Trick?”

“No, not Trick, Derek.”

“That’s a funny name. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. My parents have never told me.”

“Weird parents. It sounds like Four Leaf Clover With a Ladybird On It, which is quite a nice name. So that’s what I’ll call you.”

And from then on she called me Trick, which I didn’t mind, now that I knew it meant Four Leaf Clover With a Ladybird On It.

Then, it suddenly occurred to me that English was not her natural language, which explained why she spoke with a bit of an accent.

“How come you know such good English?” I said, curious to know more about her people.

“We hear you lot blabbering away all the time. It’s quite deafening.”

“You mean through the walls of our houses?”

“What else?”

I noticed that she could be rather rude, but I assumed that that was the way they were.

“Well, I’ve got to pop. I should be with my family gathering nuts for the winter,” she said, and disappeared.
I decided not to tell my parents, or any of my friends, about Amala. I wanted her completely to myself. I thought about her all day long, and at night I dreamt about us getting married and living together in the forest. I didn’t know then about the four-lane highway that would cut straight through the forest.  Anyway, almost every day she would appear to me and she would tell me a little bit more about her people; how everything in the forest was sacred and that every creature, down to the tiniest insect, had its place, and was just as important as the biggest bear. Amala told me that some animals were allowed to kill, but as they were few, it didn’t matter. Only humans had got out of hand. She called us the “rogue” animal, because we were enemies to all living things. The funny thing was I had never thought of myself as an animal.

One day I said to her, “Can I come and live with you?”

She looked at me for a moment rather strangely and then she said, “Are you in love with me?”

“Yes,” I said, “I think I am.”

“Oh, dear, I was afraid this would happen.”

“Well, can I?”

“Of course not. You’ll grow up one day and become a proper human. You wouldn’t be able to get in and out of our home, and think of all the insects you’d kill every time you went collecting nuts and berries.”

“But I could make myself hairy shoes like your feet and I would stay thin so that I could crawl through the doorway of your burrow.”

“I’m sorry, Trick. But you’re a child and I’m grown up. Do you know how old I am?”

“So what if you’re a couple of years older than me. Mum’s three years older than Dad.”

“I’m ninety-nine and old enough to be your great great-grandmother.”

“Ninety-nine!”

“Yes, and I’ve only got a few weeks to go before I give myself back to nature.”

“What’s that?”

“You humans call it dying. We call it going back to nature. When we reach a hundred, we take a special drink of berries and herbs and lie under our favourite tree and then our children cover us with leaves and we go to sleep until nature takes us back inside her.”

When she told me this, I was heart-broken. I couldn’t believe that such a beautiful creature was going to die. “Surely you could put it off for a year or two.”

“No, it’s the law of our people.”

“But you look so young. Do you have to die?”

“Go back to nature, you mean? Of course. Even you humans, who think you’re so high and mighty, have to go back to nature, but you start going back the day you’re born. We stay young until our time. Don’t be sad. I’m not. You see, I’ll be reborn again and again, forever. Next time I may be an ant. That’s why I’d be grateful if you’d make yourself a nice fluffy pair of woollen boots for walking in the forest.”

“This is the last time I’ll see you then.” I wanted to cry, but I was afraid of showing her that I was only a child.
“I don’t mind if you cry, Trick. It’s good to cry. What a pity we didn’t meet about ninety years ago! We could have had so much fun together. Here, let me give you a kiss.”

She skipped over to me on her short little legs, threw her tiny arms around my neck and kissed me all over, and then after a final goodbye she disappeared for the last time.

Of course, I realize now that, even if she had been ninety years younger, we could never have been happy together forever. We were too different.

I was only a child then. I’m forty-two now. Yet, I’m still in love with Amala, and most probably always will be.