Korridorium

♫ Yggdrasil Play­ground ♫

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“I enter the cor­ri­dor, which is said to be in a house—my house—located in a small town…”

“Grandpa,” one of the two interrupts—it must be Juli­etta, since she’s the one with the cowlick on the left side of her forehead—“why do you always start your sto­ries with ‘I enter the hall­way’ instead of ‘Once upon a time’?”

“Because the two of you are very spe­cial girls, and I tell you spe­cial sto­ries that no one else tells—not other grand­mas or grand­pas, and cer­tainly not the ladies at the preschool.”

“They aren’t ‘ladies,’ Grandpa. They’re our preschool teach­ers,” says the other one, Juniper.

“Sto­ry­book ladies, I mean. Any­way, my sto­ries always begin in the hall­way out­side your bed­room. Because, unlike the other fairy tales you hear, mine are all true. Now, may I go on?” Both nod with wide eyes, look­ing as if they couldn’t hurt a fly. Well, we’ll see.

“So, I enter the hall­way, which is said to be in a house—my house—located in a small town, in a region that belongs to a con­ti­nent, which in turn drifts across the sur­face of a planet over geo­log­i­cal timescales. Or so they say. But then I think of the gar­den of my childhood—the gar­den belong­ing to your great-grand­par­ents, whom you never met.

When I was lit­tle, there was a giant tree in our gar­den. It was so tremen­dously big that I thought entire coun­tries existed up in its branches, and the peo­ple liv­ing there prob­a­bly had no idea they were liv­ing in a tree.”

“There’s no such thing as a tree that big.”

“Oh, but there is. I should know. You see, one day I climbed it. And do you know what I found up there?”

“A bird’s nest?”

“No. A colos­sal, old, gnarled branch with mead­ows and forests, deserts, moun­tains, lakes, and entire seas. It took me many years to explore even a small part of those lands. Inci­den­tally, that’s where I met your grandmother—God rest her soul.”

“Grandma?” Incred­u­lous looks. “In the tree in your gar­den at home?”

I nod. “I built her a house in a vil­lage, in a coun­try on that branch. This very house. The one where your mother was born.”

“But that’s silly, Grandpa. We don’t live on a tree!”

“Maybe we do. I should know. After all, I’m the one who climbed it.”

“But Grandpa, we live on a planet, not a branch. Just look at Google Earth. When you zoom all the way out, you see the Earth.”

“And who says that has to be true? In the Mid­dle Ages, Google Earth would have shown the Earth as a disk—and if you weren’t care­ful, you’d fall right off the edge.”

“Grandpa!”

“But in real­ity, our coun­tries and con­ti­nents are noth­ing more than the bark of a colos­sal, old, gnarled tree. When the nights are very still, you can hear the wood creak­ing softly in the wind.”

“Oh, Grandpa, those are just sto­ries.” — “And your sto­ries aren’t even real fairy tales; oth­er­wise there would be hero­ines and princes…” — “…and horses and squir­rels and dwarves.” — “And no cor­ri­dors.” – “Exactly. Def­i­nitely no cor­ri­dors.”

“Not even the ones in a fairy-tale cas­tle? Well, tell you what, you two hero­ines. I’m through with cor­ri­dors any­way. First thing tomor­row morn­ing, I’m set­ting off to climb back down.”

“Climb down?” Two pairs of wide, appre­hen­sive eyes look at me.

“Yes. Back down from the tree that stands in the gar­den of my child­hood. You see, my father had hung a swing from one of the lower branches, and if I remem­ber cor­rectly, that swing was the most beau­ti­ful place in the whole world to be.”

“You’re leav­ing?!”

“Well, we’ll talk more about it at breakfast—about whether you believe me about the tree, or if you’d rather trust Google Earth.”

“We believe you about the tree, Grandpa!” — “Google Earth is just try­ing to trick us!” — “You can eas­ily use Pho­to­shop to make a branch look like a planet.” — “Don’t go away, Grandpa!”

“No, my angels, don’t worry. I don’t even think the swing is still there. Now, close your eyes and let the wind that blows through the branches of the world night after night lull you to sleep.”