Fanyasha: Why Do Angels Need People?

Father didn’t answer. He didn’t like to be reminded about anything, especially since he remembered about the window.

Mother felt that they made the window in Bosya’s room too low, and that’s why the boy spent too much time by the window, even when he didn’t know how to fly, and saw what he was too young to see. For this reason, he started asking questions and began to learn about what was not necessary to know in childhood. This, according to mother, was the reason for Bosya’s excessive bashfulness and fearfulness. In addition, the parents felt that the walks with their son at an early age and stories about the living arrangements of angels were not needed.

Consequently, mother and father decided to be more responsible parents this time, and shield Fanyasha from anything unnecessary, and keep her from leaving the house, even her room, for as long as possible in order to prolong her happy and carefree childhood.

But it should be noted that the adults’ notion of happy childhood often does not correspond to what children themselves desire.

“Oh, how I would like to become firm and resolute like father, so that I would be obeyed, too,” thought Bosya, and then heard his mother’s tender voice.

“Bosya, Bosyushka, dear, come, we are flying to show Fanyasha her room.”

From top to bottom Fanyasha’s round room was filled with soft curly clouds of different shapes and sizes in shades of light pink, gold and purple. Fanyasha happily sat in the middle of the room, batted her eyes, and waited for something.

“Should we shower our Efania with love and then we’ll go about our business? Except for grandmother, of course,” having said this father flew up to his daughter and put a beautiful pendant around her neck in the shape of a large letter “E,” which was iridescent and twinkling. Mother tenderly hugged and kissed Fanyasha, then kissed Bosya and followed after father, taking his hand.

“We love you very much,” whispered mother, looking back.

“Boriseyushka, please help construct a bed for your sister,” said grandmother, and put a large white cloud in front of Bosya. “And then you can go study. Fanyasha needs to sleep more today; I will read stories to her.”

Bosya got to work right away. He knew that the sooner he finished, the sooner he could finally retire to his room and deal with the important matters.

Fanyasha wanted to get upset about her parents leaving, but grandmother pulled a beautiful soft book from under the hem of her wide dark green dress, swept the palm of her left hand over the cover, and placed it in front of her.

The book levitated, twitched as if it was woken up at the wrong time, and opened itself with a groan. Of course he remembered it! It was his favorite book “Good Old Tales for Little Angels.”

The room became filled with the gentle subtle fragrance of cedar and lavender, the soft light of sunset, sounds of the babbling brook and bird trills. Fanyasha did not know what these sounds were, but she enjoyed them very much. She turned on her side, facing grandmother, and fell asleep. Grandmother started reading to her softly.

“Grandma, look, look!” anxiously whispered Bosya pointing to the back of his sleeping sister. “Look at her wings! They are growing in front of our eyes!”

“Well, of course they are growing, said grandmother smiling kindly. “Love always makes wings grow! All of the newborn angels grow their wings while they sleep, and when we give them love, their wings grow even faster.”

Bosya was so impressed that he even stopped rushing and started making a bed for his sister more diligently, glancing from time to time at how her wings were stretching, straightening and filling with silver light.

Chapter 3:
Why Angels Need People

Imagine the most beautiful day, the most pleasant weather, the best mood, the most beautiful house, the coziest room and the greatest happiness which fills you because you are doing exactly what you want to be doing – this, perhaps, is an approximate description of how an angel lives the first years after birth!

There are no worries, no cares, no troubles – nothing can disturb the feeling of absolute bliss, peace and pleasure of each and every moment of a carefree life. As surprising as it sounds, everything is like that, and not otherwise. That is how this world works. Such are the rules of an angel’s preschool upbringing. Everything that a little angel sees, everything that it touches, should always be filled with light, beauty and love. This, furthermore, is how small children are supposed to live too.

Among the soft clouds, in her wonderful warm room filled with either purple, pink or golden light, Fanyasha felt happy and protected.

Her mother and father would fly in to spoil her with nice gifts and kisses; Bosya helped decorate the new room. Now Fanyasha could brag not only about a comfortable snow-white crib, but also about two wonderful armchairs made of peach-colored clouds, a small pink table and a pretty lilac dresser. She had learned to make the pillows herself. She enthusiastically fluffed small curly clouds and then formed them into a variety of shapes, and had a lot of fun doing it.

This way, Fanyasha’s room was filled with numerous large and small pillows of odd shapes. What amused her most was how spooked her grandmother became: every time she found a small angular pillow in her hem, she jumped up screaming and tossed the unwelcome guest away.

“Now stop being naughty!” her grandmother wagged her finger, frowning, and at that moment her lips stretched into a smile that made her big brown eyes radiate unconditional and endless love for her granddaughter.

It was nice being with grandmother – she knew thousands of wonderful fairy tales and songs, taught Fanyasha how to dance and draw wonderful pictures using splashes of light. There were days when the air filled with drops of moisture, and the grandmother taught Fanyasha the craft of rainbow weaving.

It turned out that with the right combination of air and sunlight, one could create a wondrous beauty out of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. One glance at the rainbow, and the heart filled with goodness and joy.

Sometimes grandmother Nokomis surprised her granddaughter with the West wind game. She flew to the upper part of the room, sat by the window facing the wind, brought her long and gracious hands to her lips, blew the air slightly and, gracefully moving her fingers as if playing on invisible stings, created a beautiful play of sounds – it seemed that everything around became music, mysterious and magical.

In these moments, Fanyasha felt a certain power inside herself and even became aware of the wings growing on her back. She closed her eyes and imagined herself flying, strong and beautiful, and her long iridescent dress fluttering in the wind. But alas, she could not fly just yet.

“Everything in its time,” repeated grandmother every time Fanyasha showered her with questions about when she would at last be able to fly out of the room and discover the beauty of this world.

“Mom, I am already two years old, but I still don’t know how to fly!” complained Fanyasha one morning when her mother parted her delicate curly hair and started braiding it.

At the age of two, Fanyasha could talk, sing, dance, and even spell words from children’s books for angels very well. She could count to twenty, make a rainbow, draw well with splashes of light, mold objects out of clouds, and wholeheartedly enjoy herself in her room, but all of this wasn’t enough.

Her inherent inquisitiveness and her desire to constantly discover something new were eating her up, and demanded that she fly beyond the borders of the room, the door to which was positioned too high for this small flightless girl.

“My dear daughter, you will certainly fly when your wings grow and become strong!” replied her mother tenderly, and started making the second braid.

“But mom, when? When will they grow? I don’t want to wait! I want to fly right now! I want to leave the room and look at the house,” screamed Fanyasha and clenched her fists.

Mother did not understand why her daughter had this intense desire to learn about what was happening outside her room. It seemed that, together with father, they did everything right, having created for their daughter a world that was ideal, protected, full of joy and love, and that contained everything she might want.

“We love you very much, and your wings are growing fast. We just need to wait a little longer, my darling,” with these words she hugged Fanyasha, stroked her back, and the girl noticeably calmed down.

“Mom,” she said in a soft voice and looked up at her mother pitifully, “you probably love me only a little… Can you love me more, even a little bit?”

“Of course, sweetheart, of course I can,” replied mother, and pressed her daughter closer to her, and smiled.

Sometimes it is better to agree with the children, even if their request seems impossible or childish. But then, who knows what is indeed possible and what is truly significant in this world.

Perhaps thanks to her mother’s consent to love Fanyasha more, or perhaps as the long-awaited “everything in its time” finally came, Fanyasha felt that she could move from one side of her room to the other without touching the floor in just a couple of days.

This happened so unexpectedly and at the same time so naturally that at first Fanyasha thought that she was imagining it. She tried again and again, and when she was convinced that she could indeed fly, she twirled and shrieked with joy!

“Hey,” Bosya’s head appeared in the doorway with a frightened expression, “what’s going on? Need any help?” he said while examining the room for the purpose of discovering something unusual.

“I am flyyying! Flyyying! Look!” Fanyasha screamed with delight. Gracefully spreading her arms to her sides, she pushed off one wall, flew to the other, rose higher and higher. Here is the window, so close, and the cherished door, and…

“Aaaa!” she screamed, and plummeted downward.

Bosya immediately dashed to his sister and managed to

grab her by leg right before she reached the floor.

Of course, falling on the soft downy floor in Fanyasha’s room

wouldn’t hurt her, but Bosya was proud to be able to perform such a

brave and fast maneuver to catch his falling sister.

“This means that I am indeed brave and resolute,” thought Bosya,

and carefully sat his sister in an armchair.

Fanyasha was silent for a couple moments until her eyes filled with tears; then she threw herself on the floor and sobbed loudly. She was bitter that she couldn’t reach the door, and ran out of strength in her wings so treacherously fast.

“Hmmm,” mumbled Bosya perplexedly.

Fanyasha cried so loudly and so bitterly that he couldn’t concentrate and figure out what one needs to do with a crying girl.

It did not cross his mind, as it wouldn’t cross the mind of any fourteen-year-old angel-boy, that a crying person needs to be hugged and kissed. Bosya was certain that important and useful knowledge always helps. Narrowing his eyes, he began going over everything he studied at school about tears, but could not pick anything appropriate for this occasion.

“…There are tears of happiness and tears of pain… Tears cleanse… Tears transform… Tears transfigure… They help understand… They help accept…” was whirling in his head. “Ok, maybe this,” he thought, flew up to his sister and blurted out, “Fanya, everything is ok. Tears are necessary and important. Tears signal moving from one state to the next. People have a hard time comprehending this, but angels know this to be true. That is why we need to accept tears with gratitude. There.”

“What?” Fanyasha asked keenly while looking up, and calmed down immediately. She quickly wiped her tears with the hem of her purple dress, and sat across from her brother.

“Who are ‘people’”?

“Uh oh,” mumbled Bosya, and his eyes darted around the room as if he was trying to find something that could get him out of this awkward situation.

“Well, they’re… well, how do you say it… Well, I…I don’t even know what to tell you.”

How could he mess up so badly! From the first grade of elementary school he had had a whole class dedicated to correct information handling. And he remembered how important it was not to disturb the carefree, happy and peaceful ignorance of little angel-preschoolers! And most importantly not to talk about people! What a disaster! What should he do now?

“Bosya! Bosya! Answer! Why are you quiet?” Fanyasha insisted, pulling her brother’s shirt sleeve.

Her brother’s nervous silence ignited her interest more and more.

He knows something interesting! How she dreamed of discovering the answer to at least one of the secrets that surrounded her carefree childhood.

Her parents always flew away to work and were occupied with something very important; Bosya studied at school and learned about new things; she hadn’t seen her grandfather, he had been away on a super secret and super important assignment for a couple years; even her grandmother sometimes disappeared on some important matters. Everyone had their rooms and their secrets and nobody wanted to share!

Fanyasha realized that the world around her was enveloped in mystery. She noticed that her parents, when flying past her room, would often switch to whispering, and when her father helped Borisey with homework, the door to his room was closed shut so that she wouldn’t be able to hear anything.

And so it was finally here, and she wouldn’t miss it for the world! Bosya had said too much and – oh, how lucky she was to have a brother like that – was incapable of lying.

“Answer! Answer now!” she demanded in a whiny tone. “Tell me right now! Tell me everything!”

Bosya froze, shut his lips and just batted his long eyelashes. Then Fanyasha saw that she was not getting anywhere by yelling and decided to change her tactic.

She remembered how softly and lovingly her mother spoke with her father, and how willingly he answered any of her questions. She also remembered how her grandmother whispered to her mother when they were hanging new pearl curtains in Fanyasha’s room, “Men love to be praised, and if the woman does it genuinely and with love, the man will be ready to throw the whole world at her feet!”

“Let’s try!” Fanyasha figured. Especially since she did not need the whole world, she only wanted to find out one little secret.

“Bosechka, my precious brother! You are always so kind and brave! Also, you are such a handsome man! And smart! And curly! Please tell your dear sister, who are ‘people’? ” she twittered.

How fascinating are feminine essence and feminine wisdom. They are passed by word of mouth, by mothers and grandmothers, in a way much better than could be described in books, or explained at school. Interestingly, even a little baby like Fanyasha could remember and apply this experience.

Bosya relaxed a little, came to his senses, pensively scratched his head, then frowned and tried to invent a fairy tale where people were a special type of cloud, or another word for a ray of light, but quickly saw that he wasn’t capable of doing that.

Fanyasha sat closer to her brother and tried to give him an understanding and tender look just like her mother would do.

“Fanya, please understand. I…I shouldn’t tell you about people. You are still small and it’s too early for you to know such things.”

“Such things!” this got into her head and she pleaded, “I am begging you, my dear brother, please, tell me at least a little bit, a tiny bit!”

“So, essentially, people are sort of why we exist,” Bosya gave in.

Fanyasha’s eyes rounded and she was waiting for the continuation of this strange idea with interest.

“So, in other words, there are angels and there are people and we sort of help them. And so that’s how we, angels, live, and people are like us only very different. Do you understand?”

Bosya was pulling on his pants nervously.

“So, essentially, it’s difficult for you right now, but an angel is born, and in roughly ten years a person is born for him, and then the person must be helped. Always. There. That’s it! Don’t ask me anything else! I already spilled the beans! And promise not to say a word to anybody about what I told you. Got it? I need to get to school. Bye.”

With these words, Bosya rushed to leave his sister’s room in order not to say anything more.

“Oh, my,” whispered Fanyasha raising her eyebrows, “How about that!”

She understood that she didn’t understand anything, and that was awfully interesting!

“I definitely need to find out more about these ‘people’! Why do we need to help them?.. And most importantly, why do angels need people?..”

Chapter 4:
These Butterflies Won’t Fly Anymore

Little angels don’t have a concept of time. They do not care about counting minutes, hours, days, and years. They live by taking pleasure in every moment, and this gives them a feeling of being completely dissolved in time and complete happiness.

It is only natural that until you become aware that everything passes, it is hard to imagine counting time, and there is no sense in it. When you know only what you are meant to know, when you don’t need to rush anywhere, when it is not important what was yesterday and what will be tomorrow, and there is not a single doubt that everything will always be ok— that is true childhood!

However, Fanyasha’s sweet, carefree life came to an end the moment she found out about people. It is not that it bothered her. Quite the opposite; forbidden knowledge filled her being with a certain magical trepidation. She felt special, and waited for the opportunity to learn some more.

Now the time dragged unbearably slowly and days spent in her previously beloved room now felt like a long imprisonment.

Bosya hadn’t stopped by for a while – probably because he was scared of having said too much. Her parents, who always hurried away to work, visited briefly, praised their daughter’s new accomplishments, admired her new crafts, and were sure that Fanyasha wholeheartedly enjoyed her happy childhood. Yet, children always know and understand more than their parents think they do.

Fanyasha saw that everyone except her knew something important about people, and that a person must be born for her too. But when? And why? These thoughts haunted her. Having to live as a child for many years, having to wait for this childhood to be finally over and for the period of new discoveries to begin was weighing heavily on her.

Her room seemed smaller and more cramped every day, and her childish matters became duller.

Sometimes Fanyasha carefully asked about what was waiting for her in the future, what she would learn at school, and where her parents flew off to, but such questions always remained unanswered. Her father frowned sternly and asked grandmother to be more careful with her fairy tales.

But fairy tales were the only thing that distracted her from her sad thoughts.

What can you say, it is evident that a special talent is awakened in all grandmothers – they become such masters of voice and intonation when they tell their fairy tales that you forget about everything else, and fly off to a magical world.

So this is how nights were spent: grandmother’s velvet voice lulled Fanyasha, and in her sleep Fanyasha saw extraordinary stories, wondrous events and unusual objects. She learnt about natural phenomena, flying metal ships, various curious creatures, some of which were called “birds,” – they could fly but could not speak – while others, with the funny name “cats,” could neither speak nor fly but could run on their hands and feet, climb trees and, unlike most other ones, could communicate with angels.

When Fanyasha stayed alone in her room, she diligently trained, ran, jumped, pushed off the walls, and flew higher and higher. One time she could almost touch the door, but realized that she didn’t have enough strength to maintain that height. Then she grabbed the soft wall, drooped and jumped on the windowsill of the only tiny round window in her room.

“Wow! How pretty!” she whispered with delight pressing her face against the glass.

Outside the window, everything sparkled and radiated blue light, and semi-transparent and airy pink clouds rapidly flew by —grandmother weaved curtains and tablecloths out of them. In this azure light, here and there one could see thick accumulations of clouds. “These are probably the houses of other angels,” figured Fanyasha. She once heard that the parents flew to visit neighbors and friends.

The houses resembled huge snow-white magical tree trunks, which reached so high, that it was impossible to discern what was up there, and what kind of tops these trees have. Instead of branches, along the trunks hung rooms with windows like large droplets. On the right, the windows were square, on the left, round. In the lower part of the houses were large round or oval living rooms with large windows.

“Oooh! Oh, how interesting!” thought Fanyasha. “So this is how we all live here.” A little to the right she saw a large house with twelve rooms of different sizes, and below, a large living room sphere with panoramic windows.

“My goodness!” she said in awe. “How many people live there? They probably fly, play and have fun together. It’s not like what we have – mommy and daddy are always at work, Bosya is either at school or in his room studying something all the time, and it’s not even that fun with him, only grandmother knows how to live well.”

But then she noticed another house a little further to the left. Only two rooms hung on its thin trunk – one larger, and the other small, possibly a nursery with one round window at the top.

“Would you believe it, a room like mine,” thought Fanyasha, “with a tiny round window. A little girl like me probably lives there.”

“Only there are only two rooms in her house. That means she lives only with her mother or only with her father, or with her annoying brother. And she doesn’t have a grandmother, and no one kisses the poor baby, no one hugs her, no one praises her and no one tells her stories,” she thought with sadness, sighed deeply and slid down.

In comparison to the life of that unlucky girl, her own life didn’t seem so terrible all of a sudden. She smiled, flapped her wings and whirled in a dance around the room, jumping from the armchair to the bed, from the bed to the dresser.

“How pretty and blessed you are! How this yellow lacy dress suits you! What beautiful eyes! And eyelashes! And braids! And lips! And wings! Lovely!” Fanyasha cooed to her reflection in the mirror, trying to mimic her grandmother’s gentle voice.

From then on, when Fanyasha became sad or bored, she climbed on the windowsill, absorbedly studied the houses of other angels and imagined what their residents were doing.

“Efania, are you up?” asked father one morning, peeking into his daughter’s room.

For some time he was scanning the room wonderingly in search of Fanyasha. To his surprise, the little one was sitting on the windowsill, almost below the door.

“How much you’ve grown! You climbed so high! Aren’t you scared?”

“Not one bit!” Fanyasha replied proudly, sticking her nose up in the air and gracefully tossed her braids behind.

“Since you are so brave, it’s time to show you the house,” with these words her father flew up to his daughter and stretched out his beautiful strong arm.

It’s hard to describe the happiness and glee that filled Fanyasha. Anticipating the long awaited exit out of the room, she was ready to scream as hard as she could, squeal, laugh and cry simultaneously, but decided not to waste time on emotions, and hurriedly jumped off the windowsill and dashed for the door, leaning on her father’s arm.

“What amazing self-restraint and motivation. Bravo, my dear, you take after me,” thought the father and smiled.

“Look, Efania, over there, higher, there is mother’s room right above yours, and across is mine,” told father, and helped his daughter fly up through the wide sun-filled corridor with beautiful oval windows. The higher they rose, the harder it was to fly. Fanyasha felt how tired her wings were. The father caringly took her in his arms.

“And over there, even higher, look, is the room of grandma Nokomis,” he pointed up at the beautiful green door located above the door to mother’s room.

“And what’s over there, even higher? At the very top?” Fanyasha asked with interest when the father started descending. She peered intently up the corridor but could not make out anything except for the movements of the clouds and blurred and scattered purple light somewhere extremely high.

“It’s too early for you to know about this, Efania. Here, let’s look in here and see what your brother is doing.”

They opened the door of the room that was positioned underneath the room of the father. There were notebooks and books of all colors and sizes lying all over the place. Below, next to a large square window, Bosya was sitting at a table and was scrupulously writing something into a white notebook. In front of him lay a large book with a golden cover opened almost at the very beginning, in which magically the words drew themselves carefully and the pages turned themselves. “I wonder what this self-writing book is,” thought Fanyasha.

“Borisey, dear!” called the father, “Take a short break, we are waiting for you in the living room. Fanyasha turns six today, we’ll be congratulating her.”

“But dad, I have exams soon, I don’t have time for celebrating. If I don’t pass the first time, I will have to repeat a year in the Middle School and I really can’t wait to move on to High School,” mumbled Bosya, but did not dare contradict his father. He closed his notebook, then the book, and flew towards the door.

The life of little angels entails staying in a constant state of happiness and love, that’s why for them birthdays are not that important. As for Bosya, he didn’t understand why birthdays were needed. Instead of having fun, he preferred to lock himself in his room and flip through a book or at least to ponder something. Fanyasha, on the other hand, really loved celebrations, gifts and congratulations.

And how wonderful that it was her birthday. That is why father came in the morning and decided to show her the house. What a gift!

“What a wonderful day!” she thought, examining the photos on the walls while descending into the living room down the corridor.

Mother and grandmother were already waiting for them there. Upon seeing the birthday girl, they started clapping and talking over each other, congratulating Fanyasha and kissing her.

“My sweet girl, we have a present for you! Open it!” said the mother tenderly and brought Fanyasha a large caramel-colored box.

“Wow!” shrieked Fanyasha and started laughing when a flock of colorful butterflies flew out of the box and whirled around in circles through the living room. The wings of the butterflies gleamed in the sun and reflected sunrays, and it seemed that the whole room filled with colorful flying twinkles.

Seeing the delight on her granddaughter’s face, the grandmother folded her hands on her chest and also started to laugh. The mother hugged the father, put her head on his shoulder and they both looked at their daughter with enchantment. Even Bosya smiled and preceded to jump and catch butterflies together with his sister, but they briskly dodged their hands and were constantly landing on Bosya’s and Fanyasha’s shoulders, noses or heads, which amused the whole family even more.

“How I wish for her to be a child for a little longer,” said the mother softly. “Childhood is so amazing. Maybe we let her out of the room too early. She is only six. We wanted to wait until she starts school and shield her against the world. There is so much around us that could interfere with her carefree happiness.”

“Not too early at all,” muttered the father. “You should have seen where I found her today! On the windowsill! Yes, imagine that.”

The mother raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“So that means that in the near future she could fly out of the room herself,” said the father very seriously. “Efania is curious and willful; we cannot keep her locked up anymore. It’s time for her to learn more about this world. And by the way, we should remove our photos with the people from the corridor. They hang pretty high, of course, but it’s better to be on the safe side.”

“How fast she is growing,” sighed the mother. “Dear, let’s not let her out till she starts school. I don’t want her to find out about people for as long as possible. Let her live for herself a little bit more.”

Towards the evening, the butterflies calmed down and sat all over the furniture and walls, turning the living into a beautiful colorful garden.

The father, mother, grandmother, Bosya and Fanyasha settled into the large puffy couch and played the cloud game, guessing the color and size of the next cloud that passed by the window. To everyone’s surprise, grandmother was leading by a large margin, as if she herself sent the clouds of the right color and shape.

Later, the whole family discussed how they should make a new couch and how to better enlarge the living room: to widen it on the side of the front door, or by enlarging the windows across the room. That‘s how it was usually done when a child grew up in an angel family – luckily, houses made out of clouds could easily be enlarged and remodeled in any way you please.

“And now it’s time to thank our beautiful butterflies, say good-bye to them, and let them go,” said the grandmother all of a sudden, and started flying towards the window. “We will open the windows and ask the wind to take care of them.”

“But… why? Why do we need to say good-bye? What happened?” Fanyasha was about to burst into tears. “I thought they would sleep, and tomorrow they would fly again, and we’ll play together again. Why? Why do we need to let them go?”

“Efania, dear, please understand, these butterflies won’t fly anymore. The lived a wonderful day and their time has come,” the father explained in a calm voice. “Everything in this world has its time, everything eventually ends, and we need to accept this with gratitude.”