Steven George & the Terror
9
The Bottomless Pocket
ONCE UPON A TIME, in an age of tiny miracles, a wood elf named Panjameon was out walking in his woodland, playing merrily on a pipe and dancing in time to the music he played. As he walked, he became hungry. Seeing a bee flit into a hole in a tree trunk, Panjameon thought he might find honey to satisfy his appetite. He approached the tree cautiously, not wanting to be stung, but he saw no further sign of bees. He listened at the hole for the longest time, but heard no telltale buzzing, and saw no bees come out of the hole.
At last, he looked into the hole, but it was dark inside and he could see no sign of a beehive or a bee. This puzzled Panjameon, so he carefully and slowly reached his hand into the hole to feel around for honeycomb. He felt no honeycomb. In fact, what he felt was remarkably soft, like the fur of an animal. Panjameon withdrew his hand and walked around the tree to the other side, but there was no hole on the other side of the tree.
Next, Panjameon made a small torch out of bark and grasses and thrust the torch into the tree. But the torch did nothing to reveal the inside of the hole, and as Panjameon extended his hand farther and farther into the tree, the torch seemed to disappear in the darkness. Panjameon could not feel the other side of the hole that seemed to go on forever.
Again, Panjameon walked around the tree. He stretched out his arm and measured it against the width of the tree. His arm was much longer than the breadth of the tree.
This small miracle might have been enough for most people to discover and walk away shaking their heads in wonder, but Panjameon wanted to know more about the mysterious hole that seemed to have no bottom. So, after much thought and hesitation, Panjameon stuck his head in the hole. Darkness met his eyes and he thrust the torch into the hole with his head. This did little to illuminate his surroundings, but Panjameon discovered that he could get both arms into the hole with his head and soon he was up to his waist in the tree.
That was when Panjameon saw it—light. It seemed a bit far off at first, but as he wiggled farther into the tree, the light seemed much closer. At last, his feet left the ground, he pressed his whole body up and into the tree, and his head popped out the other side.
The ‘other side’ as Panjameon thought of it, was not a tree. Instead, he found himself looking out of the pocket of a sheepskin jacket, bouncing merrily along as a farm boy walked jauntily into a village. Panjameon shrank back in fear because he had obviously entered a land of giants.
“This giant’s pocket contains my entire world!” exclaimed Panjameon. After his moment of fear, Panjameon’s curiosity got the best of him and he pushed his head out of the pocket again.
The boy had stopped where a pancake seller had set up his shop and was negotiating the price of breakfast. Panjameon realized just in time that the boy’s hand was reaching for the pocket. He dove down into the depths of the pocket and scrambled around over mounds of loose miscellaneous and mostly unidentified objects. Panjameon looked up and saw the little light blocked out as the hand reached down into the pocket.
“Coins,” thought Panjameon. “He must be reaching for a coin to buy his breakfast.”
As the hand stretched toward him in the pocket, Panjameon scrambled among the piles at the bottom, found a coin, and thrust it up where the descending fingers could feel it. The coin was almost as big as Panjameon, and when the fingers touched it, they lifted it out of the pocket so rapidly that Panjameon scarcely had time to let go before being dragged out into the open. The boy exchanged coin for pancake and happily resumed his stroll.
Panjameon returned to the opening of the pocket and watched as the boy was joined by two others, and the three followed a village girl, while laughing and giggling. The boy moved closer rapidly while reaching for the pocket. Panjameon dove into the pocket again and as the hand descended, pushed the first thing he came in contact with into the grasping fingers.
He heard the girl scream as the frog the boy had grabbed slid down her back.
Not long after, the boy and his friends played in the woods making a lean-to. One of the boys said they needed to tie the frame together and once again the boy’s hand reached to his pocket. Knowing what he was looking for this time, Panjameon thrust a piece of hemp twine into the boy’s hand.
Panjameon began to enjoy the game and explored the depths of the pocket, which seemed to have no end. Every time he saw the hand descend from the opening of the pocket, he would push something else into it—an apple for eating, a flat stone for skipping, flint for making a fire, a whistle for playing a tune. Panjameon didn’t even need to think about what the boy wanted; he just pushed the next thing at hand into the boy’s fingers.
When the boy slept at night, Panjameon searched through the giant’s house and village for things that might come in handy for the boy. Each item he stuffed into the boy’s pocket. No matter how much Panjameon put into the pocket, there was always room for more. And Panjameon, too.
Panjameon so enjoyed the bottomless pocket that he began to travel farther away, both in his own world and in the boy giant’s. He gathered new things to stuff in the pocket. No matter what the boy’s need, Panjameon always had something to put in his hand from the miraculous pocket.
And so, the boy grew older and became a giant of a man. The vest that had once been so large on him, now fit snugly. But still the young giant always found just what he needed in his pocket.
Eventually, as often happens to young men, Panjameon’s giant fell in love. Panjameon recognized the object of his affection as the same girl giant who received a frog down her back on Panjameon’s first day with the giant.
The girl was coy, but pleased with the giant’s attention. As the couple walked through the market one day, the girl’s dress caught on the corner of a stall and tore. Quick as a wink, Panjameon’s giant drew a needle and thread from his pocket and sewed up the dress. Then a wind came up and the young woman’s hair began to blow in her face. The giant reached in his pocket and pulled out a ribbon to tie back her locks.
When the couple reached the door of the girl’s home, they discovered it locked. The giant reached in his pocket and brought forth a key that let them in. The girl thought to cook a meal for the two of them, but in the process dropped an egg on the floor. The giant reached in his pocket and produced another egg that she fried while he cleaned up the broken mess on the floor with a brush he pulled from his pocket.
After they had dined, the giant proposed that the girl come to live with him as his mate. She wept and he reached in his pocket for a napkin with which to dry her tears. When she said yes, the giant pulled a ring from his pocket and placed it on her hand. It seemed that no matter what the young man needed, all he had to do was reach into his pocket and the answer was at hand.
I will not try to describe all the impossible things that the giant pulled from his pocket over the years, looked over by Panjameon the wood elf, who thought it great fun to keep the bottomless pocket stocked with whatever might be needed in the future.
As things would have it, generations passed. The vest and its bottomless pocket passed from one to the next. It is that remarkable garment that I wear myself today.
Now, you might ask if I found my own way to the land of giants to steal the vest, but I tell you, no. This land where we live is the land of giants that Panjameon once feared and grew to love. For being a giant is a matter of perspective. Like all else I have ever needed, the tiny wood elf may still dwell in the pocket of my vest.
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