The Lake of Truth: A Fairy Tale about Desire

There was once a tragic little field mouse who was out of work and down on his luck. After almost a year on welfare he decided to look further afield for work and discovered that there was a factory located in an enchanted forest just a few miles from his nest. It was expanding its production and was looking for animals to work on the floor putting acorns into shells and checking for defects. He went for the interview and, a few days later, was offered a job.

Pretty soon he got tired of the commute and moved nests. Eventually setting up in a cheap but up and coming part of the forest. Everything ran smoothly as he got to know his job and made new friends. Then one day, quite by chance he was out gathering food for winter and met a beautiful guinea pig. He quickly became infatuated with her and asked her on a little date.

Things went well and pretty soon they were going steady, however this was an insecure little mouse and so he became worried that she didn’t really love him.

He would ask her all the time if she loved him and each she would answer in the same way, “Yes, of course I love you, I loved you from the first day I set eyes on you, I love you this very day and I will love you all the days of my life.”

But this answer never satisfied him because he knew that she could be lying and so his insecurity kept growing until he was so preoccupied he couldn’t concentrate on the job. Then one day while on a smoke break one of his companions, a large slimy frog, asked what was wrong. With a little coaxing from the frog, the hesitant little mouse confided in his companion, telling him how deeply in love he was and how insecure he felt about whether she felt the same way. The slimy frog listened patiently as his friend fretted about what to do.

Eventually, when the field mouse had finished, the frog told him about a small lake nestled in the very heart of the enchanted forest, a lake that had a strange, magical power. The frog told him that, if you drank from it, you’d be able to hear the thoughts of the person you were with. “Perhaps,” said the frog, “you could use this water to discover whether or not your friend is lying.”

So the little field mouse took his friends advice and tracked down the magical lake. Then, one hot summers day, he convinced his silky smooth friend to take a long walk through the forest, a walk that would take them past this body of water.

As they were passing by the little mouse pretended to be thirsty, scurried down to the waters edge and took a long drink.

Once he had gulped down as much as he could he turned to his friend and asked, “do you really love me.”

Once again he got the response he always got.

“Yes, of course I love you, I loved you from the first day I set eyes on you, I love you this very day and I will love you all the days of my life.”

A few moments passed and then, sure enough, he heard what was going in her mind as clearly as he had heard her words.

“Yes, of course I love you, I loved you from the first day I set eyes on you, I love you this very day and I will love you all the days of my life.”

Well he was over the moon because of what he heard and they went on to have a wonderful day of adventures. The next day he told his slimy friend what had happened over their 11 o’clock smoke break and that night they went out to celebrate the good news. However a few days later the little mouse took time off work without any explanation. He didn’t come back for weeks. And when he finally did return he was downcast and distraught. Seeing this his slimy friend asked what was wrong.

“My beloved was having an affair with a hamster,” squeaked the field mouse in tears, “turns out it’s been going on for months. You know, he had brighter fur, a shinier nose and a nicer nest. A couple of days after our trip to the lake she just upped and left”.

“So was it really a lying lake” said the frog in surprise

“No”

“OK, a broken lake?”

“No.”

“A cursed lake?”

“You don’t get it do you,” said the tiny field mouse, “the lake worked perfectly. She just didn’t love me. She only thought that she did.”

 ——–

Recently I wrote a small book of fairy tales of which this is one. I’m not sure if or when the book will discover the light of day, however I might be including this story in a Play that I have written and hope to put into production in the next couple of years.