\nI stared at the tiny, shiny, silver spoon in the well-wrapped solstice box wishing we\u2019d just gone to the semi-annual Solstice Ball at Castle Ever After instead of exchanging gifts first.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI did not want to give you love,\u201d he said to me. \u201cSo I gave you a spoon!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe smiled like this made sense. Like the spoon was an appropriate substitution for love.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cUm.\u201d I didn\u2019t know what to say. I tore my eyes from the offending trinket.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI know love was on your wish list and a spoon wasn\u2019t. But love\u2019s so messy! Just, you know,\u201d his hands sprang into the air and swirled around, \u201ceverywhere. And then if things don\u2019t go right, just messy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI blinked, my mind still blank. What response did he expect?\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cA spoon,\u201d he went on, \u201cis so useful.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBut it\u2019s so tiny,\u201d I protested. This spoon would not hold cereal or peas. Maybe one or two peas. Definitely not three. Even flower-fairies would struggle to implement this utensil.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLove starts out small, too. Then grows.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe was right.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDoes the spoon grow?\u201d I asked, my mind filling with a spoon that gets ever larger until it was a shovel, or maybe it transformed.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe shrugged. \u201cIt\u2019s just a spoon. It isn\u2019t magic or anything.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell, thank you,\u201d I said for politeness sake, and I set the gift aside.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe waited expectantly, his brown eyes big, a near-smile on his lips.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe really should have given me anything on my list. I requested more than love. Perhaps, peace and hope had been too vague. A spoon was not near as useful as he thought. Imagine if he\u2019d given me a magic spoon. A magic spoon, yes, that was useful. And why had he specifically mentioned the spoon in lieu of love?\n<\/p>\n
\nI had a back-up in case the gift exchange disappointed. Oh, how it had gone awry! Initially I wanted to give him joy. But, alas, all he was going to get was this possibly magic bean.\n<\/p>\n
Adria Bailton (she\/they) imagines entire worlds and universes to share while spending her days studying atoms, the smallest unit of matter. More of her stories where she strives to create characters that reflect her own bisexuality, neurodiversity, and disability appear in ZNB Presents, Constelci\u00f3n Magazine, and Worlds of Possibility. Originally from the Midwest, she creates from the US PNW, on the traditional territory of several Indigenous nations, including the Stillaguamish, Suquamish, and Duwamish. Find her at www.adriabailton.com<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I stared at the tiny, shiny, silver spoon in the well-wrapped solstice box wishing we\u2019d just gone to the semi-annual Solstice Ball at Castle Ever After instead of exchanging gifts first. \u201cI did not want to give you love,\u201d he said to me. \u201cSo I gave you a spoon!\u201d He smiled like this made sense. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107971,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20138],"tags":[20139],"class_list":["post-140366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-52-summer-2024","tag-the-colored-lens-52-summer-2024","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107971"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140368,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140366\/revisions\/140368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}