1. Is it wrong to keep a fairy captive?

        Last night I caught a fairy.  This is for real.  No joke.  I was out in the woods and stumbled across and caught this tiny little creature, less than a foot tall - with wings.  She is so peculiar, like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I think she must be a real live fairy.  I don’t know what else one would call such a creature.  She looks a lot like a person, except she’s very tiny and has gossamer wings.  She’s incredible to see.  Not like anything you could imagine.

        What should I do with her?  I’m torn with indecision, so I’m opening this blog hoping someone out there will have some good ideas.  I don’t want to do wrong, but I don’t want to squander this incredible good fortune either.  How often is one going to find a fairy?

        I want to keep her, I really want to keep her; but would that be wrong of me?  She’s not a person, but she’s not a dumb animal either.  It would be improper  to think of her as a pet, like an she’s an animal, I know that.  I feel bad holding her captive; but if I let her go, I’ll never see her again.  She looks kind of human, despite her size, and even acts sort of human in some ways, but she’s not.  She’s very small, and yes, she can fly.  She’s a lot of fun to watch.  The simple truth is - I don’t want to let her go.  I want to keep her.  Is that so wrong?

        I have the little fairy in my room in an old hamster cage that belonged to my mother.  The fairy doesn’t like being trapped and it’s obvious she wants out.  She hardly has enough room to stretch her wings, let alone fly.  She’s not strong enough to bend or spread the bars apart, I saw her make the attempt once, and she’s too big to squeeze between the bars, I’ve seen her try that too, when she thought I wasn’t looking.

        I’ve tried to make things comfortable for her.  I cut up a pillow case to exactly fit the floor of the hamster cage and laid it out like carpet for her, so the ground is soft to walk on.  Then I gave her a couple of my handkerchiefs to use as bedding.  I put a matchstick box in there so she would have something to sit on.  She has the hamster wheel to use for exercise if she wanted to, since she doesn’t have room to fly, but I’ve never seen her use it.  In one corner I put a small tin dish and some toilet paper.  In another corner I hung the hamster water bottle, which feeds water down a metal tube, and I have seen her drink from it, again when she thought I wasn’t looking.

        She turns her back to me whenever I’m in the room.  When I first put her in the hamster cage she crawled to the farthest corner away from me and covered her tiny little face with her little hands.  It worried me that she might be frightened.  When I moved around to the other side of the cage to see what was wrong, she got embarrassed.  She sat up in a huff and turned her back to me, the first of many times; but not before I got a glimpse of her face and saw an expression of  utter mortification, which was so surprisingly human it shocked me, and I haven’t been able to get that wide-eyed open-mouthed fairy-like expression out of my mind ever since.  Now whenever I enter the room, she stops whatever she’s doing and immediately whirls around so I can’t see her face.  She usually sits herself daintily upon the edge of the matchstick box and pretends to ignore me, until I leave or turn my attention elsewhere.

        I try talking to her and tell her not to be scared.  I tell her I’m not going to hurt her.  She doesn’t answer me, just hunches her shoulders.  Once she put her hands up over her ears, either to block out the noise of my voice or else tell me she didn’t want to listen.  She’s never spoken to me, but a couple of times, from outside the bedroom door - I heard her singing.  She stopped as soon as I opened the bedroom door.  She has a tiny voice, melodious and soothing, very pleasant, but a bit squeaky.  The words were not in any language I, nor probably anyone else, has ever heard.

        I’ve only told two people about the fairy, Westley and Madison, friends from church.  Well, Westley’s a friend from church anyway.  Madison is just a girl in our youth group that I do know, but don’t particularly like.  Westley thinks I should keep the fairy.  He thinks we could make a fortune with her, but I can’t imagine how.  People would just take her from us if they knew we had her.  Madison is “totally astonished beyond belief” (her words, not mine) that I would even consider keeping the fairy.  She can’t phantom why I haven’t let the fairy go already, and she tells me so every time our paths cross, but that is just Madison.  I really don’t appreciate a girl trying to tell me what to do.  She said she was going to tell my mom, or the police, or the humane society.  Whatever.  Fortunately I had Westley and Madison both swear to God they would not speak a word to anyone if I let them see the fairy, and so far they’ve kept their word.

        I do like watching the fairy.  I keep the hamster cage on the front edge of my desk, which is along the far wall of my bedroom opposite the bed.  My bed has a row of built-in bookshelves as part of the headboard and I placed a mirror between some text books, positioned so I can lie with my back to the hamster cage and still observe the fairy through the mirror.  She has no idea I can see her when I have my back turned and must think I’m asleep or something.  She makes faces at my back sometimes.  It’s funny.

        She’s very fastidious.  The first thing she did, after trying to squeeze through the bars and escape, and then stomping around a bit in frustration, was to take a handkerchief and dip it up the water bottle spout, and then she proceeded to wipe and wipe in a very meticulous and careful manner until she had scrubbed every last speck of dirt off her face and arms and legs and feet.  Then she ran her fingers through her hair until she had thoroughly groomed herself.  Then she wiped down her clothing the best she could with the wet cloth.  Finally she went about the cage straightening up the pillowcase flooring and then made herself a little bed before laying down to sleep at last.  She fascinates me.

        I do feel bad she’s trapped in a cage and all, but what can I do?  If I let her out she’ll fly away.  I don’t dare tell my mom, or anyone else; they would take her from me and I don’t want to loose such a marvelous creature.  I’m the one that caught her.  She’s mine, right?  For now anyway.

        So I’ve created this blog to see if anyone has any ideas?  Is it wrong of me to keep her?  And what should I do with her?  How best can I keep her hidden from the public?    I know sooner or later someone, probably my mom, will find out I have this fairy.  It would be hard to keep her hidden indefinitely.  I’m not going to allow the fairy to be turned over to the authorities, I would rather let her fly away, to whatever fairyland she came from, and loose her forever, than take a chance of her becoming a guinea pig for science or put in a zoo.  So what should I do?  Any ideas?
 

       September 29, 2012
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