The Fading Light - Short Story

By Glen V C Kirby

A fairy sat beneath an old oak tree at the edge of a cornfield and muttered at the world.

“Mortals,” she mumbled to herself. “You let them in. You show them your favourite places—the hollow in the beech tree where the moonlight pools, the foxglove meadow after rain, the exact spot above the river where the dragonflies catch the last of the evening sun. You share a hundred years of yourself with them, and they look at you with those warm, ridiculous eyes, and you think—foolishly, always foolishly—this one will stay.”

Her glow flickered, dim and unsteady, like a candle in a draught. She pulled her knees up and said nothing else, because there was nothing else to say.

Then the corn moved.

It rustled.

She sprang to her feet, wings half-raised.

A golden retriever burst through the stalks and stopped dead in front of her. Enormous, tongue lolling, panting hard—its tail worked itself into an uncontrollable wag.

They locked eyes, like a standoff beneath the lowering sun.

Then it lunged forward.

Lowering its great head, it pressed into her.

She disappeared entirely into its golden fur, clawing for breath past soft ears and licks that felt like a warm, wet flannel. The fairy was the size of a small bird, so she had only been swallowed whole on a few occasions.

“Biscuit!”

An old-timer came through the field’s edge, still calling the dog’s name. He stopped when he found them.

He was tall but weathered, as if time hadn’t been too kind. His hands—enormous and scarred—wrapped around a well-crafted walking stick. He looked at the fairy and froze. His eyes moved to the corn behind her, then back again.

“You,” he said. “You’re the one taking milk from my spring house… and corn from my granary.”

The fairy lifted herself from Biscuit—who immediately tried to reapply his nose to the situation. She smoothed her wings, straightened herself to her full, inconsiderable height, and presented herself respectfully.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He watched her wrestle with the dog for a moment—one enormous paw planted, tail still wagging furiously, entirely delighted with itself. Something shifted in the old-timer’s face. Not softness, exactly. Recognition, maybe.

“Sorry about him,” he said. Then, quieter: “You’ve been crying?”

She hadn’t meant it to come out, but the old-timer had a way about him that felt… friendly. And her best friend had just died. Her guard was down more than usual.

“She’s gone forever,” she said. “It’s not fair. Do mortals understand what forever means? Do they have any conception of what they leave behind when they die?”

Her glow flared—hot and erratic. Her wings snapped open.

“How could anyone be at peace with it?” she demanded. “How could an entire world of people simply go about their days knowing that everything they love will one day stop? That the people who know them best will just cease to exist? What kind of arrangement is that? Who agreed to this?”

She was in the air now—furious and blazing—dancing above the corn, raging at the structural injustice of a universe that had looked at the concept of death and said, yes, that will do.

Biscuit watched her, head tilted at forty-five degrees.

The old-timer waited.

Eventually, she stopped for breath.

She landed on a branch of the tree. Her wings folded. She looked down at her hands. Tears rested on the edges of her eyes.

“I see you’re grieving,” he said.

He rested his stick against the tree and took a seat on the roots that protruded from the ground. He gazed out at the sun setting over his land, reflecting on times past.

“Death is a weight to carry,” he told her. “A weight most people carry their whole lives. The trick is not to try and beat it—but to learn to walk with it differently. Everyone has to find their own way.”

She looked up at him.

He breathed in, quietly, before speaking again.

“I was a warrior once. When I still had my stride, the fear of death was my travelling companion. Every campaign, at the dawn of every battle, I would look death in the face… and I thought it would be an honour to die protecting my friends and loved ones.”

He paused.

“That fear turned to excitement. My death had purpose.”

The fairy flew down beside him and locked eyes.

“So you were happy to die?” she asked.

“For a time,” he replied. “Yes.”

He looked out across the fields.

“But then I returned home. I met my wife. I had three beautiful children. I watched them grow. I watched them start families of their own.”

He smiled faintly.

“I built my home from the ground up. I grew my crops, cared for my livestock. I put my back into my living. I calloused my hands. I earned the sweat on my brow.”

The fairy said nothing. The corn moved gently around them.

“What I came to realise,” he continued, “is that celebrating death would be a waste of life. Living in the present—that’s what gives you the feeling of a thousand lives.”

He gestured lightly.

“Each small moment—however ordinary it may seem—is yours. Sometimes shared. Sometimes kept. And knowing it won’t last forever… makes it sweeter.”

She processed his words.

“So death matters?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “For us humans, of course. Life and death are essentially the same thing. They’re connected—like your wings to your back. You can’t die if you haven’t lived… and you cannot live if you cannot die.”

She hesitated.

“What about me? I don’t know if I can die.”

“I can’t speak for fairies,” he said. “But from what I’ve seen, you bring joy to people’s lives. And if you ask me—that’s a life worth living.”

He reached for his stick.

“As for your death… that’s something you’ll have to figure out yourself. Just like us.”

He stood.

“What was her name?” he asked.

“Clara,” the fairy said. “Her name was Clara.”

The old-timer drifted into memory.

“Clara… I knew her well. She lived well, too, if I recall. First of us as children to jump from Red Ridge into Thatcher’s Creek.”

He scoffed fondly.

The fairy smiled—grief still there, but softened now by memory.

“Hey ho,” he said. “Sun’s setting. Best be off. Supper’s on the ready. Biscuit—come.”

Biscuit gave his farewell in the only way he knew how, then took the lead on the journey home.

The old-timer tilted his hat in respect and turned to leave.

Then he stopped.

“It isn’t much,” he said, glancing back, “but I’ve broth on the boil… and fresh bread marinated in garlic butter. My own signature dish. Care to join me? Perhaps you can tell me more stories of your adventures with Clara.”

The fairy’s glow deepened—warm amber, like the fading sky.

No words were needed.

She flew beside him and nodded.

Together, they made their way back to his home as the sun sank beyond the hills.

The End