a not-quite-midnight picnic
We decide to have a midnight picnic with the moon but we leave early just after the sun goes to sleep so there will be enough light to see by to get there.
We bring strawberries and honey and blue cheese and a bottle of red wine but we pack teacups instead of wine glasses because they are easier to carry and slightly more difficult to break.
We tiptoe under the deep pink sky as not to wake the sun.
We find a good spot to place our blanket and we put stones on the corners to keep the wind from stealing it away and we can only find three good stones but a passing rabbit says he will sit on the fourth corner to keep it in place for us for the duration of our nighttime picnic if he may have a strawberry and a sip of wine. We declare this a splendid exchange and the rabbit snuggles into the stoneless blanket corner.
The sky turns indigo and mauve and grey and the clouds dance and the moon peeks out at us and we raise our wine-filled teacups to it in greeting.
We have forgotten to pack napkins so our fingers get honey-sticky but we do not mind.
The rabbit tells us stories about the bees who live on the North Star and make honey that is snow-white and sparkling, and we all agree that one can never have enough honey or too many bees.
After we eat the last berries and nibble the last morsels of cheese and lick the last of the honey from our fingers and paws we make wishes on the half-moon that they might come half-true.
Then we fold up our blanket and pack our wine-stained teacups away and bid our new rabbit friend sweet dreams and say goodnight to the world.
About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.