My Little Prince III

Sometimes, I have to make my obligatory visits to the Planet of Forms. And when I do, I sit behind a huge black umbrella that shelters me from my bare head to my little pink toes.

Then the little flying poison darts of paper and words fall harmlessly on my umbrella. Except for the occasional one that gets through and stings. This is the Planet of Forms. One gets damage for sins real and imagined.

And that is how the Little Prince found me. Hiding under my black umbrella. He smiled his little smile and pulled me to my feet. In the next few days, we were catching poison darts from the air and casting them back with a fluorish. I watched each one disappear far into a milky mist.

In the aftermath of a particularly nasty barrage, there was some time to soak up the afterglow. I turned to him and said with my hand in my heart, "NOW you are real to me."