Make happen: Ladby Larabee and the bird that perched atop a coffee mug
April 21st, 2008 at 10:03 pm by hisham (Fiction, Writing) · Email this post
Ladby Larabee (which some of you mistakenly read as Lady Larabee) was an ordinary man as far as ordinary men went: he was not dashingly handsome in any sense, nor was he hard to look at; he was not talented in any way, nor was he an idiot. Ladby Larabee was simply average. His outlook on life, though, was not average to say the least.
In the morning, Larabee woke up his soul with a prayer and his body with a shower. He would then sit in the balcony thinking of things that were, are and will be. He traversed his own universe of knowledge, scouring for answers from the nether and hither fields of his mind.
Most of the time Larabee’s universe of knowledge was confronted with a considerable number of questions to which answers were not immediate. Such occasions, numerous as they were, prompted Larabee to seek answers from books, people, film—even music. Thus, Larabee’s universe expanded.
One day—as with all days referred to with a consequential sounding “one day”—Larabee’s mind expanded more than he ever fathomed. On that one day, Larabee found himself floating on the wings of an oft pondered notion: fate and free will.
Books, people, film and music (and pizza, Coke and gummie bears) all conspired to conjure up an answer for Larabee. That questioning started taking twists and turns, going back and forth in time, traversing diverse planes of knowledge, and masquerading as a parade of history’s most famous: prophets and fraudsters, princes and paupers, champs and chumps.
Indeed, the questioning turned into a quest. The quest, dear reader, consumed Larabee. With each turn of the page in the grand book of universal knowledge, Larabee’s days rushed into each other. Flip-flip-flippity-flip, Larabee’s eyes scanned the words of the living, the dead, and the word of God.
Until one day (one of those one days undoubtedly), a little bird perched itself atop Larabee’s coffee mug. Tweet-pew-tweet, the bird said.
“Do you have an answer, little bird, about fate and free will?”
Tweet-po-tweet.
“I figured. I’ve been racking my head all this time trying to find an answer. I still don’t have anything.”
The clichéd days turned into clichéd months, which in turn turned into even more clichéd years. Larabee kept pestering the universe and its book of knowledge with how so? And how come?
The universe was aware of Larabee’s quest alright, it just wasn’t about to let go of the grandest secret ever kept without some more work on poor Ladby’s part. Yes, the universe was willing to answer, but only if Larabee would submit his question in the sincerest form possible.
***
Tweet-po-tweeeet!
Larabee awoke in the middle of the night upon hearing the bird. “You. What’re you doing here at this time of night?”
Tweet-tweet-po-weet!
“So, you’re saying that if I manage to sing my heart out I’d eventually find an answer? That if I go out on a limb and risk everything I might stumble across an answer? That needs a lot of faith.”
Tweet.
And so Larabee did. Not only did he sing. He danced, and danced, and danced. He skipped from star to star, galaxy to galaxy, he tossed pebbles of questioning across the grand pool of knowledge. Skip-skip-skippity-skip. He smiled and smiled. And laughed too, lots.
Larabee had found what he was looking for. He had found an answer to the age old question of fate and free will. It wasn’t in the annals of history, nor in the mouths of men busy about nothing. It was right there in Ladby’s heart.
***
In life, there are matters best left to fate, while others are best left to free will. It is with such delicate balance of fate and free will that our individuality arises.
Everyone is handed a set of cards. That’s fate. Playing the cards however you want, now that’s free will.
The common factor between fate and free will is faith. Faith is that which helps us believe in what we have (or are given) and what we aspire to achieve (what we want). Be it running an errand or changing the world, whatever we do is an intertwine of what God has predestined and what we ask God to please make happen.
Ladby Larabee, Esq. and Tweet, Bird.
