Archie had before him something that shivered with life, glowing with the stuff.

It might have been considered an ordinary day for Archie, standing upon a wooden stool while lowering a pawn shop gold chain into the top of a swirling orb, a mysterious little eddie that seemed to dance nervously upon the workbench before him.

His hand trembled, and he murmured into the air a jumble of faint lines, as if recalling the words of a lost play:

”Take this, as it is all I have to offer-- will you teach me how to live?”

With a sigh, Archie withdrew the chain from the orb and sat with a thump, cradling his chin with one hand, peering down into the swirl.

There in the glow were the throngs of tiny beings, hurrying about in their little orb as usual.

Archie had always been mesmerized by the golden light that seemed to bathe their little world-- it was no wonder the inhabitants hardly noticed his shiny gold chain-- the heavy trinket was to them only a reflection of their own natural glow, and they perhaps saw the chain as a mere illusion if they saw it at all.

”Where does that light come from, and what makes it all spin? How is it that even your voices flow together into tiny songs that tickle the ethers, as easily as bees make honey?”

Archie had surrounded himself with darkness so that the tiny world would show, but as his day quickly unfolded, we can begin to see that Archie is alive but doesn’t know it. As the day ticks on, we can see now that Archie is as harmless as a mechanical boy, animated with just enough juice to putter around the darkened workshop where he thinks he was built, but that he is actually alive.

An intense curiosity seemed to drive Archie, as if an understanding of his own origins and purpose might be found in the vibrant sphere that played before him there in the shadowy room.

Archie had become enchanted by the tiny world, and had even come to learn some of their tiny flowing songs by ear, the faraway melodies bringing a touch of joy to his heart.

Something stirred, and all it took was a tiny song, a golden light, and one tiny spinning golden world, and now Archie focused on the gold chain again.

The tiny people of the tiny world were not interested in chains, and their very existence was golden.

Existence Itself is Golden

Some might say it was the pawn shop chain that led Archie to the light, showing him that his existence was as bright as any tiny world, and indeed Archie probably got a few bucks for the gold chain later that day, but when he returned to the workshop, the orb had vanished, and he knew what had to be done. He would try existence.

Archie decided to simply exist for a moment, and as we look into the golden orb that he has generated, as we listen to the little golden song that he hums as his sphere shimmers in response, we might offer a gold chain and gently lower it into the ball, and perhaps Archie will teach us how to live as well.

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watercolor above by me, 2018- for more artwork, stories and variety, click below these birds:

click @therealpaul for more