Marianna Rosset - Fanyasha - Why Do Angels Need People?

Consequently, mother and father decided to be more responsible parents this time, and shield Fanyasha from anything unnecessary, and keep her from leaving the house, even her room, for as long as possible in order to prolong her happy and carefree childhood.

But it should be noted that the adults’ notion of happy childhood often does not correspond to what children themselves desire.

“Oh, how I would like to become firm and resolute like father, so that I would be obeyed, too,” thought Bosya, and then heard his mother’s tender voice.

“Bosya, Bosyushka, dear, come, we are flying to show Fanyasha her room.”

From top to bottom Fanyasha’s round room was filled with soft curly clouds of different shapes and sizes in shades of light pink, gold and purple. Fanyasha happily sat in the middle of the room, batted her eyes, and waited for something.

“Should we shower our Efania with love and then we’ll go about our business? Except for grandmother, of course,” having said this father flew up to his daughter and put a beautiful pendant around her neck in the shape of a large letter “E,” which was iridescent and twinkling. Mother tenderly hugged and kissed Fanyasha, then kissed Bosya and followed after father, taking his hand.

“We love you very much,” whispered mother, looking back.

“Boriseyushka, please help construct a bed for your sister,” said grandmother, and put a large white cloud in front of Bosya. “And then you can go study. Fanyasha needs to sleep more today; I will read stories to her.”

Bosya got to work right away. He knew that the sooner he finished, the sooner he could finally retire to his room and deal with the important matters.

Fanyasha wanted to get upset about her parents leaving, but grandmother pulled a beautiful soft book from under the hem of her wide dark green dress, swept the palm of her left hand over the cover, and placed it in front of her.

The book levitated, twitched as if it was woken up at the wrong time, and opened itself with a groan. Of course he remembered it! It was his favorite book “Good Old Tales for Little Angels.”

The room became filled with the gentle subtle fragrance of cedar and lavender, the soft light of sunset, sounds of the babbling brook and bird trills. Fanyasha did not know what these sounds were, but she enjoyed them very much. She turned on her side, facing grandmother, and fell asleep. Grandmother started reading to her softly.

“Grandma, look, look!” anxiously whispered Bosya pointing to the back of his sleeping sister. “Look at her wings! They are growing in front of our eyes!”

“Well, of course they are growing, said grandmother smiling kindly. “Love always makes wings grow! All of the newborn angels grow their wings while they sleep, and when we give them love, their wings grow even faster.”

Bosya was so impressed that he even stopped rushing and started making a bed for his sister more diligently, glancing from time to time at how her wings were stretching, straightening and filling with silver light.

Imagine the most beautiful day, the most pleasant weather, the best mood, the most beautiful house, the coziest room and the greatest happiness which fills you because you are doing exactly what you want to be doing – this, perhaps, is an approximate description of how an angel lives the first years after birth!

There are no worries, no cares, no troubles – nothing can disturb the feeling of absolute bliss, peace and pleasure of each and every moment of a carefree life. As surprising as it sounds, everything is like that, and not otherwise. That is how this world works. Such are the rules of an angel’s preschool upbringing. Everything that a little angel sees, everything that it touches, should always be filled with light, beauty and love. This, furthermore, is how small children are supposed to live too.

Among the soft clouds, in her wonderful warm room filled with either purple, pink or golden light, Fanyasha felt happy and protected.

Her mother and father would fly in to spoil her with nice gifts and kisses; Bosya helped decorate the new room. Now Fanyasha could brag not only about a comfortable snow-white crib, but also about two wonderful armchairs made of peach-colored clouds, a small pink table and a pretty lilac dresser. She had learned to make the pillows herself. She enthusiastically fluffed small curly clouds and then formed them into a variety of shapes, and had a lot of fun doing it.

This way, Fanyasha’s room was filled with numerous large and small pillows of odd shapes. What amused her most was how spooked her grandmother became: every time she found a small angular pillow in her hem, she jumped up screaming and tossed the unwelcome guest away.

“Now stop being naughty!” her grandmother wagged her finger, frowning, and at that moment her lips stretched into a smile that made her big brown eyes radiate unconditional and endless love for her granddaughter.

It was nice being with grandmother – she knew thousands of wonderful fairy tales and songs, taught Fanyasha how to dance and draw wonderful pictures using splashes of light. There were days when the air filled with drops of moisture, and the grandmother taught Fanyasha the craft of rainbow weaving.

It turned out that with the right combination of air and sunlight, one could create a wondrous beauty out of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. One glance at the rainbow, and the heart filled with goodness and joy.

Sometimes grandmother Nokomis surprised her granddaughter with the West wind game. She flew to the upper part of the room, sat by the window facing the wind, brought her long and gracious hands to her lips, blew the air slightly and, gracefully moving her fingers as if playing on invisible stings, created a beautiful play of sounds – it seemed that everything around became music, mysterious and magical.

In these moments, Fanyasha felt a certain power inside herself and even became aware of the wings growing on her back. She closed her eyes and imagined herself flying, strong and beautiful, and her long iridescent dress fluttering in the wind. But alas, she could not fly just yet.

“Everything in its time,” repeated grandmother every time Fanyasha showered her with questions about when she would at last be able to fly out of the room and discover the beauty of this world.

“Mom, I am already two years old, but I still don’t know how to fly!” complained Fanyasha one morning when her mother parted her delicate curly hair and started braiding it.

At the age of two, Fanyasha could talk, sing, dance, and even spell words from children’s books for angels very well. She could count to twenty, make a rainbow, draw well with splashes of light, mold objects out of clouds, and wholeheartedly enjoy herself in her room, but all of this wasn’t enough.

Her inherent inquisitiveness and her desire to constantly discover something new were eating her up, and demanded that she fly beyond the borders of the room, the door to which was positioned too high for this small flightless girl.

“My dear daughter, you will certainly fly when your wings grow and become strong!” replied her mother tenderly, and started making the second braid.

“But mom, when? When will they grow? I don’t want to wait! I want to fly right now! I want to leave the room and look at the house,” screamed Fanyasha and clenched her fists.

Mother did not understand why her daughter had this intense desire to learn about what was happening outside her room. It seemed that, together with father, they did everything right, having created for their daughter a world that was ideal, protected, full of joy and love, and that contained everything she might want.