Me and the Magic Beans

You might not believe in magic beans.  Doesn’t matter.  Jack believed in them, and he grew a beanstalk.  So when I got my hands on a whole dozen of the dry little beans, I figured I’d at least get me a golden goose.

I planted them carefully in the backyard, separating them by a good two yards each, and made something of a grid.  I apologized to the oak.  It’s stood in the middle of my yard for longer than I’ve been alive, and since I didn’t know how crowded the beanstalk would make things, I figured I ought to give a warning.  I waved to the squirrels, too, who played up and down the side of that oak as though they owned it.  Which, all things considered, they did.  They nested up there, in that thing I thought for the longest time was a bird’s nest.

Speaking of birds, they didn’t make themselves apparent, though I heard some in the distance.  I wasn’t worried about upsetting their lives so much as I feared they might feast on my freshly planted garden.

I watered the garden.  I sat on the back porch and watched it.  The birds, when I saw them, ignored the magic beans.

I chatted on the phone with my mother for a while, and then a friend from college, and a girl I liked.  I drank red wine, but skipped dinner.  I played Solitaire with an old deck of Aviators.  I kept drinking, and I kept playing, and eventually the sun went down and the battery in my phone died and I fell asleep.

I dreamed of climbing through the clouds, which tasted remarkably like vanilla ice cream.  I kept hearing, “Fee fi fo fum!” but never saw the giant.  Or his wife.  Or the golden eggs.  It was only a dream, after all, and couldn’t be expected to fill in the blanks for me.

I woke with sunlight in my eyes.  For a moment, I couldn’t see past the rising sun; it, and the red wine, hurt my head.  My eyes adjusted, though, and in the morning mist, I saw…I saw…well, it wasn’t beanstalks.  Were they?  They were narrow but tall.  Well, they were about as high as my waist, which is a fair amount of growth for a single night, but nothing to touch the skies.  There were twelve, arranged just as I’d arranged them.  Rubbing my eyes, and holding up a hand to block the sun, I approached to survey my garden.

Twelve sticks, in red, green, blue, and yellow.  With a clockwork sound, they began unwinding their outer petals.  Out popped twelve little people.  They were no more than a foot tall, very thin, dressed in the colors their leaves had sprouted.  They raised their legs high when they walked, and as a group they moved to encircle me.  They sounded like wind-up toys.  The one in the middle, straight ahead of me, bowed and said in a high-pitched, nasally voice, “Master.”  The others bowed, too.

“You’re not what I was expecting,” I told the little man.

“Our apologies, Master,” he said.  “We rarely are.”

“So what’s it to be, then?” I asked.  “Golden geese?  Giants?  How does this work?”  I figured I’d missed a part of the story.

“Oh, that,” the little man said.  “It was a hen, not a goose, and it’s long since dead.  And the castle in the sky has decayed into cloud stuff, so there’s no use in even making the attempt.  It’s a dangerous climb, too, Master, not one I would recommend.”

I have to admit, I was confused.  “What, then, would you recommend?”

“We are your servants,” the little man said.  “Command us.”

“But I have no commands,” I said.  “I only wanted a little gold.  Something to chase away the economical blues.”

“We can find you gold,” the little man said.  And off they went, all of them, in varying directions.  I rubbed my eyes again.  I figured I’d awakened into another dream, so I gathered my phone and my wine glass, went inside, and found my bed.

This time, I slept dreamlessly.  I was awakened by the metallic clicks and scratches of twelve little people crossing the wood floor.  They surrounded my bed.  I yawned, big, and this time came fully awake.

Their leader hopped onto the foot of my bed, held out his hand, and dropped a piece of gold between my ankles.  It was gold, yes: a school ring.

One by one, the other eleven little people–about half were women–deposited their treasures.  A vial of gold leaf.  A three inch coil of wire.  A gold tooth.  Another ring, this one much smaller, a woman’s engagement ring, complete with diamond.

“Wait,” I said, picking up the ring.  The diamond looked real.  So did the tiny drop of blood.  “Did you steal all this?”  I looked around at each.  With one exception, they hung their heads.

The exception puffed up his stick-like chest and said, “I did not steal anything, Master.  This was an honestly found object, of which no one can complain.”  He dropped a penny onto the pile.

“That’s not gold,” one of the others said.

“It looks like gold.”

“It doesn’t even look like gold,” another said, one of the women.  “You’re a fool.  It’s copper.”

“Not copper,” said another, leaning close and sniffing, then licking the side of it.  “Zinc.  Definitely.”

“It’s a penny,” I said.

“We acquired the gold you requested,” the leader said.

“And this ring?”  I showed them the diamond.  “Was it still on her finger?”  When no one answered, I said, “Was it?”

“Yes, Master,” one of the little people said.

“Bring it back,” I said, throwing it down onto my sheet.  “Return it all.  I didn’t raise you to steal for me.”

“But Master,” the leader said, “did you not intend to climb into the sky and steal from the giant?”

At first, I didn’t answer, and none of the little people moved.

“We did nothing less than what you required,” he added.  “And via your own intended means.  Master, I cannot help but believe we’ve done nothing wrong.”

“No,” I said.  “No, of course not, nothing wrong.  It was me.  I didn’t phrase it right.  I expected magic gold.  Not stolen.  Not even found.  Created.”

“Ah,” said one of the little women.

“Ah?” I asked.

“Ah, indeed,” she said.  “We’ve a fool for a Master.  You cannot create gold out of thin air.”

“You need base metals,” added their little leader.

I grinned.  “That, we can do.”