Chapter 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.