The Legend of Nez

by Melhi

from a 1998 e-mail of Melhi's, in response to a thread regarding Monkee meetings:

I've met all but Mike, he's using the fact he doesn't know I exist as an
excuse to avoid me. <g>

Lessee,
I met Micky in August of '92 - Decatur, IL
I met Davy in March of '94 - Decatur, IL
Then I finally met Peter in early '96 - Rockford, IL 

Kinda thought this was my year to meet Nez, given the pattern, but the
chances of bumping into him at my local Wal-Mart in the next two months
are pretty bleak (read: nonexistant)    

Actually, <posturing> I don't believe in Nez. Santa Claus, I'll
buy. I mean, who knows that Elvin technology isn't advanced enough to
keep some old geezer philanthropist slash toymaker alive forever? Maybe
they keep him cryogenically frozen from January through mid-December
to help him accomplish this. That would certainly explain why he'd live
at the North Pole where even bugs with a negative IQ are smart enough
not to live. Heck, even the Easter Bunny could be a genetic experiment
gone horribly, but happily awry. But Nez?? Come on, that's just too
far-fetched even for me!

The Legend of Nez

t is said that in the land where all things are bigger, a giant was born to average parents. He was not a giant in height or in girth, but in depth of mind and breadth of soul. In his youth, he played merrily at his mother's skirt hem whilst she brewed her magic elixer... a potion which allowed mere mortals a second chance at correcting their mistakes. He watched, he helped, he learned at her knee and as he grew, so did the man inside himself, continuing long after his body had ceased to grow.

The growing pains were often more intense than those caused by physical growth. Soon, his skin was too small for the size of the man within and it was time to let out the seams a bit. He began to share his talents and insight and wisdom with the world, touching it lightly with beauty, leaving his fingerprints on their souls.

The world embraced him, lovingly, adoringly and then, after he'd travelled to the kingdom of glitter and glitz, the world feasted on him. It was upon his arrival to the kingdom that he fell haplessly into the clutches of evil and even as he was good, he found himself a puppet to their strings. He tried to do their bidding and he did it well, but it was not himself he was sharing, it was evil's portrait of him. And so, he continued to grow inside himself, trapped and unable to let any part of him out. The growing pains became more fierce and intolerable each day... ripping him apart from the inside.

The inevitable battle against evil was fought fiercely. In the final days of that battle, evil knew its cause was lost and donned the mask of honesty, swaying the world with its words against the giant. The battle ended, won by the good and gentle giant, but the damage was done and done well. The giant tried to share himself with the world again, giving them the best of him, but less and less did he find the world receptive. As had his skin, the world too had become crowded, squeezing him out.

Shunned and humiliated, made small in the world's eyes, he left behind his hard won kingdom of glitter and glitz for the great expanses of the New Mexican desert. He chose a hermit's life, sharing himself with the wind and sky and moon and rain and even, on occasion, a curious white lizard with bulbous eyes to whom the giant had taken a liking.

As the days passed, the world began to see the lies spun by evil and the ugliness left in evil's wake. They missed their gentle giant, his grace and wisdom. They tried to follow him, but his footsteps had long since vanished from the sands. They called into the winds to repent having shunned him, they sought his forgiveness, expressed their gratitude for the beauty he'd added to their lives... a beauty missing except in the sunsets, animal song and whispered breezes of the desert. But the giant had sought refuge in his solitude, which was protected by walls of his own despair, walls which the voice of the world could not penetrate. Where once the walls had shielded him from their taunts, it now shielded him from their praises.

Legend holds that there will come a day when those walls of despair will begin to crumble and the giant will look beyond his solitude to see the world beckoning him. It is said that on that day, the legendary giant Nez will rejoin us, again touching our souls with beauty. But until that day, the world waits, listening for him in the wind and watching for him in the fiery embers of sunset's last moments.

Or maybe he's just shy.