Sky Log #26: Teatime with the Little Prince

CAUTION: SPOILERS ABOUT LITTLE PRINCE SEASON

It was undoubtedly a pleasant surprise to have a visitor from another universe host a Sky season.

When I first met him at the Starlight Desert, I was very much surprised to find how different his features are to us. He was dressed very differently and called himself "Little Prince". He had spiky blonde hair that caught the bright rays of sunlight, and he didn't wear a mask. The Little Prince doesn't have eyes that glowed brightly. Instead, he had dark soulful eyes that held so much wonder and fascination about our world. He couldn't fly like us, so he got by with the help of the birds in our world.

Yet, the more I got to know him and learn about him, I realized that he was not so different from us after all.

He was very curious about the world of Sky.

One word he had mentioned was strange but familiar to me. He asked if there were any "grown-ups" in our land. This made me recall the bizarre dream I had a couple of weeks ago. As he described their appearances and mannerisms, it was an uncanny resemblance to the "adults" I have seen in my world. He told them so vividly that I felt I was almost seeing them in front of me.

He recalled meeting a soldier who kept drinking the dark water. When I asked why he was drinking it, the Little Prince said that the soldier's mournful answer was to forget. To forget that he was drinking the dark water. It was such a strange answer that I could not wrap my head around. Even the Prince agreed with me.

Next, he met a lone man on a stage, surrounded by mirrors. He had just completed a performance and was getting applause from his "audiences". "I am the handsomest, best-dressed, richest, and most intelligent man on the island," the Little Prince mimicked him. I chuckled at his actions and said, how can he be all that when he was the only person. The Little Prince shrugged at my question, for the man had also ignored such a question.

He spoke about a lamplighter whose duty was to lit up and put out the lamp. He was to turn the light on when it was off and turn it off when it was on. Even though the orders did not make any sense, the lamplighter was adamant about fulfilling his job. I wondered if the lamplighter ever gets tired of his work, but the Little Prince said that the man never gave up and continued his work no matter how tired he was. I find the lamplighter's sense of duty admirable but foolish.

The Little Prince's journey then took him to a man who was counting stars. He claimed that owning them makes him rich, and being rich would help him buy more stars. I was amazed at how the star collector thought he could own the stars. I felt that there was no price to them and that no one could own them. To me, everything in the world was priceless. Perhaps, these strange "grown-ups" have different thinking from me.

The Little Prince said that there were many more exciting characters he had met along his travels and that he would tell me slowly. Then, he departed off with the help of the birds to visit the next realm of Sky.

It wasn't long before I met him again in Sunny Forest.

He had a little difficulty flying up to get to the next area, and the birds were on the other side of the forest. So, I lent a helping hand.

As thanks, he gave me a piggyback. I was pretty excited about it since it has been a while that someone gave me a piggyback. I squealed with laughter as he zoomed around while mimicking the noise of a curious object called a "plane." He said he once met a grown-up stranded in a desert because his plane had crashed to the ground. When he described the plane's appearance, I was half-tempted to ask my friends to try and recreate it. However, on second thought, having a plane in our lands would be odd since we all can fly, and we wouldn't malfunction and crash into the ground.

It made me wonder, too, if the plane was similar to the four-wheeled object in Office. I think the scholars in the Vault called it a "car" and said it was something that could reach places faster than we could walk. Unfortunately, the car was like the crashed plane that Little Prince talked about. It had never moved an inch before.

Anyway, I urged Little Prince to continue onwards because I knew the creature up ahead would amaze him. The giant mama whale has never failed to amaze us with her rumbling call and enormous size.

And his reaction did not disappoint me, for I saw the sparkle in his eyes at the sight of her outstanding appearance.

The Little Prince wondered if the creatures in our land could be tamed. Or whether they would sing. I answered that they are free to go where they want to be. They sing in their way, and we would try to copy their calls to sing back to them. I spoke about Sanctuary Islands where the mantas lived and recommended that he head there and try to tame them. He had a look of contemplation before he agreed.

I was pretty surprised that he was astonished at how there were so many butterflies. It seemed that back at his tiny planet, he could only keep 2 or 3 caterpillars to become butterflies.

It was when I realized that I had taken the butterflies for granted.

There were so many of them in Sky that I had overlooked their precious existence. Many times, I had found them to be annoying because they had gotten into my way of getting candles. Yet, to him, he had discovered their existence a miracle.

I wondered how many new things I could learn from him in the coming weeks.

His eyes filled with a new fascination for Sky was ideally needed for many children in Sky. I'm sure that his presence would reopen their eyes to the splendor and wonder of this world.