The Tale of Olivier

A story of life after death

Olivier meets Foxy. ©Donna Almendrala

Now that he was dead, the little ghost named Olivier wanted to write the story of his life, and he wanted to call the story he wrote ‘The Tale of Olivier.’ But there was a problem: Olivier couldn’t remember anything about his life, which had ended just moments before he awoke as a ghost in a snowy forest bathed in the light of a setting sun.

Notebook and pencil in hand, Olivier, who was about 12, sat beneath a snow-laden pine tree and sighed. Snow fell softly all around, and some of the snowflakes fell through Olivier, who watched and discovered that the snowflakes fluttering through him sparkled a rosy light. Olivier fished his glasses out of his bag, held out his hand, squinted, and discovered that inside each snowflake a memory of his past life played like a film that lasted for just a second. He saw bits and pieces of memory – a desk covered with pieces of paper, a dark house in a field by a forest – but the snowflakes would always dart away before he could tell what each memory was really about.

Olivier’s red wiry hair bristled as he scribbled notes about what he saw – but the notes, he knew, were only pieces of a much larger story, like an unfinished concerto.

Olivier could remember just two things: his name, and that he had loved to write in his notebook. Everything else was impossible to recall, and all his other memories, he now knew, lived inside snowflakes that he could barely glimpse.

Pondering all this, Olivier sat with his back against the tree, and he watched the snow fall through the rosy sunset light. The flakes were in no hurry to reach the ground – they twisted, flipped, turned, and danced before settling forever upon the earth. One of the snowflakes did a corkscrew before landing on a black pebble sitting alone atop some fresh powder. Then the pebble started to move all by itself. It wiggled from side to side, and Olivier looked just above the pebble and saw what looked like two little twinkling stars. It seemed to him that the stars were looking at him.

‘Ah-ah-choo!’

A flurry of snowflakes blew into the air. Hundreds of flakes fell through Olivier, and for a flash the flakes all joined together as one rosy light, and inside that light Olivier caught a glimpse of a door slamming shut followed by darkness.

Then Olivier heard a kind, warm voice.

‘My friend, how I love your rosy sparkles.’

Olivier looked up from the memory inside his belly, and there in front of him sat a small Arctic fox smiling affectionately at him.

‘That was a firework of snowflakes that just flashed inside you, old chap! Makes me want to compose a little song. Never seen the likes of it!’

The fox went down on his front legs, and his fluffy white tail wagged in the air as he looked at Olivier with delight. The fox wore a green vest with gold stitching. A red-silver watch chain hung from one of the vest’s pockets, and a small silver sleigh bell hung from a leather necklace around the fox’s neck. Olivier looked at the fox, and he felt that the fox belonged very much to the winter that surrounded him – the gently falling snow, the icicles hanging from the trees – and that the winter belonged to him. Olivier thought that the two were almost the same thing when he saw he could not quite tell where the fox’s snow-white fur ended and the snowy ground began.

Olivier then heard what sounded like church bells ringing from somewhere in the distance. The fox darted a glance over his shoulder before pulling out his pocket watch.

‘It’ll be dark soon, and I can smell that that wild blizzard wants to stir up again. What’s your name, friend?’

The question made Olivier pause. It was a common enough question – maybe the commonest – but it had the air of a question Olivier had rarely ever heard.

‘Olivier, I’m Olivier,’ he said.

‘Olivier!’ The fox said with joy and smiling eyes. ‘Olivier! Olivier!’ My friend, did you know your name is a little song all its own? I don’t even need to compose one! No classes at the tired old music school in town needed to hear the music – one need only open their mouth, say your name, and even old Mozart’s ghost would crack a smile, wherever he’s wandering around this time of year. Olivier, Olivier, Olivier!’

The fox sang his name in all different kinds of ways – like an opera singer, like a jazz singer, and then what sounded like a trumpet. The fox looked up in the air as if he could see Olivier’s name written there, and he kept on with the singing.

‘Olivier!’

It was the last time the fox said the name, and as he said it his twinkling eyes found Olivier’s.

‘Where do you come from, my friend?’

Olivier looked down at the snow. ‘Ah. Well, what’s your name?’ Olivier asked quietly, dodging the question.

The little fox looked confused.

‘Me?’ The fox said. ‘Me…Hm, no, no, no, that was the moment for you to start telling me your story, Olivier.’

Olivier blushed.

‘I,’ Olivier began. ‘Well, you see…’

And that was it. Olivier felt tears start to stream down his face, and he buried his face in his hands and wept.

The fox, shocked, stood there in silence.

‘My dear, dear boy,’ the fox said after a few moments. ‘My dear, dear Olivier.’

The fox didn’t say another word. He stepped forward very gently over the snow, sat down next to Olivier, and looked at him and at the rose-colored snowflakes flashing gently inside him. The fox closed his eyes, lowered his head, and leaned close to Olivier.

‘My dear boy, I’ve been such a duck, quacking on over here demanding you tell me about yourself, when all you wanted to know was my name. It’s Foxy. That’s it. I’m Foxy. That’s what my friends in the forest call me – the birds, the trees – and I’m so very delighted to meet you, Olivier. Can you ever forgive me for my quacking?’

Olivier, whose eyes were sharp and as blue as the sky when the sky is bluest, looked up at Foxy.

‘Oh, it’s not that, Foxy,’ Olivier said. ‘That’s not it at all.’

Olivier looked down at the sparkling snowflakes passing through him.

‘I wish I could tell you about myself, but besides my name, everything about the life I just had, well…’ tears welled in Olivier’s eyes again. ‘It’s all a blur. It’s like there’s a thick wall of fog, and my memories are all on the other side of it. When I look at the snowflakes falling through me, I can see brief flashes of my old life inside the crystals – but then the flakes dart off before I can make sense of anything.’ Foxy listened as Olivier told him about the book he wanted to write about his life, but couldn’t, and a small, warm smile formed on his face.

‘My boy, I’ve an idea. But first, let us you and I take a walk through the forest to my little home – it’s a stone’s throw from here. It’s a fine little place in a den beneath a large tree, right next to a waterfall. I’m quite proud of it! There’s a snug guest room waiting for you, and there’s a desk with a typewriter where you can – oh, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll explain it all there.’

Olivier looked at Foxy, and then at the winter that surrounded him, which made Foxy seem somehow more alive. Olivier also felt for the first time since awakening as a ghost in that forest something besides dreariness. He felt hopeful, and lucky to have found a friend like Foxy so soon after dying.

‘Alright, Foxy,’ Olivier said with a sigh and a grin. ‘Lead the way.’

Foxy jumped and bounced around in a circle in the snow, and his sleigh bell let out a happy little jingle. ‘Right!’ said Foxy, who did another circle for good measure. ‘Come along, Olivier!’

Foxy bounced forward between two trees and vanished from view, and a second later his head and his twinkling eyes reappeared. ‘Come along, old chap!’

Olivier stood up, slipped his notebook and pencil into his bag, and darted into the woods with his new friend as the last rays of sunset light vanished.

Foxy ran fast, turning left and right with lightning agility as he led the way through the thick forest. Foxy rushed past bushes and low-hanging branches laden with icicles, and the icicles would cling and clang together, sounding notes that, when they mingled with the jingles of Foxy’s bell, sounded almost like music.

Foxy turned, ducked behind a bushel of pine needles, and disappeared from view. Olivier followed, but Foxy’s tracks disappeared right after Olivier came around the other side of a tree.

‘Ah-hem.’ The sound came from somewhere overhead, and Olivier looked up and saw Foxy crouching atop the trunk of an enormous fallen tree, looking at something that seemed very out of place: flowers.

‘Snowdrops,’ Foxy whispered, his eyes filled with a gleeful twinkling light. There were only a few snowdrops, and they stood on the fallen trunk surrounded by snow. Then Foxy looked up, cleared his throat, and addressed Olivier.

‘Olivier, listen to me. The world may seem frozen and dead right now, but you must learn that it is only pausing – it is only resting, or inhaling, before it sounds its songs of spring and summer. And the inhale, in my humblest opinion, is the best part of any song. All the promise, all the potential, all the hope in the world lives on the inbreath. The inhale carries all the dreams of what could be in this world, and winter gives you the pause you need to see that there are no limits to what those dreams can be. Nothing is written. You dream it, and it might just be so. Then you see that the whole forest is dreaming of what could be, what will be – what must be – and you can’t help but join in the sheer frenzy of it.’ Foxy paused and grinned at Olivier. ‘There is no music without silence, old chap. ‘You may be a ghost, but music hums in you still. I can feel it.’

Foxy grinned and winked at Olivier, and Olivier got the feeling Foxy gave little speeches like this with some regularity, as if he were winter’s champion and its voice. Then, without warning, Foxy bolted off the trunk and vanished again into the forest. Olivier gripped the strap of his bag and sprinted after him. The feeling of Foxy’s speech stirred in Olivier, and when he looked around at the snow and the icicles and the trees, he felt that the frozen world around him was inhaling and was anything but dead.

Foxy stopped abruptly in his tracks at the top of a cliff. Olivier skidded to a halt, and fear shot through him at the same time that he wondered if a fall could still hurt someone who was no longer alive.

‘You think there’s no life in you now that you’re dead?’ Foxy said. ‘Just listen.’

Olivier listened. At first, he only heard the sound of he and Foxy’s breathing – but then another sound drifted into his awareness. It was a rushing sound, like a river.

‘Come,’ Foxy whispered.

Foxy hopped over the side of the cliff. Olivier let out a little yelp, reached out to try and grab his friend, but Foxy fell too fast. Terrified, Olivier got down on his knees and peered over the cliff’s edge.

There, right in front of him, their noses almost touching, was Foxy’s grinning face. Foxy had leapt down to a little ledge that Olivier had not seen, and next to the ledge was a giant mass of ice that seemed to emerge straight from the rock itself before shooting out into the air and then diving down into the dark forest below. Olivier climbed down to the ledge and watched as the wall of ice in front of him on the ledge reflected his rosy sparkles.

The rushing sound from before grew louder.

‘Look,’ whispered Foxy.

Olivier looked at where Foxy pointed and saw it: a window in the ice. The rushing sound came from the window, and as Olivier inched forward, he saw a torrent of rushing water flowing through the ice mass.

‘What is that?’

‘That,’ Foxy whispered, ‘is a frozen waterfall, with a soul that stirs mightily.’

Olivier said nothing. He stepped forward, and, cautiously, he reached a hand through the window made of ice. He stuck his hand into the rushing water, and he felt a chill form in his outstretched arm.

‘Come along, we’re almost there,’ said Foxy, who again hopped over the cliff’s edge. Olivier looked over the edge and saw Foxy hopping from one small ledge to another on a narrow path that zigzagged down the cliff and which at turns ducked behind the frozen waterfall.

Olivier followed, and when he reached the bottom of the cliff he peered into the forest and saw a warm yellow light coming from an old lantern hanging from a giant root that arched upwards and then downwards. Beneath the root was a little red wooden door, and next to the door was a green mailbox with the word ‘Foxy’s’ painted on it in simple golden letters. Foxy stood grinning in front of the door, arms folded in a self-satisfied kind of way.

‘Welcome home, Olivier,’ said Foxy, who put his paw on the big golden door handle, opened the door, and vanished inside. Olivier saw a friendly light glowing from inside, and he stood there watching it. He knew not why, but Foxy’s ‘Welcome home’ had the same foreign feeling to it as when Foxy had asked Olivier his name. ‘Home,’ he whispered to himself. The snow fell very heavily now, and Olivier could see the rosy light his snowflake memories cast on the powder all around him. Then Foxy poked his head out of the doorway.

‘Come along, friend!’ Foxy called as his sleigh bell let out a little jingle.

‘Coming!’

Olivier, grinning, followed Foxy into his home.

The first thing Olivier saw after he closed the door to Foxy’s home was an old upright piano and a little table next to the piano that held stacks of paper covered with music note scribbles and what looked like lyrics. The piano stood right next to a small library overflowing with books, and in the middle of the library there was a small desk holding an overly-large typewriter. Olivier got the feeling that Foxy, whose voice seemed to sing whenever he spoke, spent a lot of time drifting between the piano and the library.

Olivier turned his head and spotted Foxy, who was already wearing an apron and dashing about in an open kitchen where there was a big wooden table with a green checkered tablecloth. The table stood in front of a very large fireplace, and dried herbs hanging from strings lent the kitchen an air of spring. Carefully-labeled jars filled with all kinds of preserved goods filled shelves in the kitchen, and Foxy took down some of the jars, popped them open, and dropped their contents into a large pot sitting atop a cast-iron range that stood next to the fireplace.

‘Come in, come in!’ Foxy called over his shoulder. ‘Take a seat, stew’ll be ready in a shake.’

Olivier stepped into the kitchen and sat at the big table, which was covered with all kinds of homemade food. Right in front of him was a basket filled with fresh bread, a saucer with goat cheese, and a plate that held a large chunk of honeycomb. Olivier tore off a piece of bread, spread it with cheese and honeycomb, took a bite, and to his great delight discovered he could still eat and taste things. He closed his eyes as the cheese and honey sang quiet songs to him of sunny days, green meadows, and flowers.

Olivier opened his eyes and saw an old-looking sword hanging above the fireplace. Under the sword a little plaque read ‘Presented to Foxy, for leading the whole forest realm to victory in the second War of the Rats. May there never be a third.’

‘I would never leave that old thing hanging there,’ Foxy said, as if sensing Olivier’s gaze. ‘War’s never right, not ever, but so many of my dearest friends stood by me in that struggle for our home, and I can never forget how all of them – even the ones who believed war was to be avoided unless absolutely necessary – rallied with me when I drew that blade, even though our chances seemed impossible.’ Foxy’s voice grew a little quieter. ‘Friends like that are hard to come by these days.’

Foxy then started humming a little tune. Olivier did not ask, but it sounded like a tune you might sing if you wanted to inspire people when chances seemed impossible. Standing there alone at the stove, it looked like Foxy was singing to the boiling pot – singing along with its pops and gurgles and spurts. Foxy lifted a wooden spoon, tasted his stew, then clanged the edge of the pot with the spoon. ‘Done!’ Foxy said, and Olivier thought in that moment that Foxy’s whole home – and, in a way, the entire forest realm that surrounded them – was a kind of instrument that Foxy loved to play. Foxy’s piano, Olivier mused, did not end after its 88 keys – it extended and transformed into the kitchen where Foxy was busy humming and making music that took the form of smells and tastes instead of just sounds.

Foxy hoisted the pot off the stove, brought it to the table, and ladled a serving into a bowl that he gave to Olivier.

‘Mole’s Stew,’ Foxy said. ‘That’s the recipe’s name – Mole’s Stew. Named after my closest neighbor, Mr. Mole, who when summer comes there’s no-one better than him at finding the choicest potatoes hereabouts. When he pops over and I ask him what he’ll have to eat, he says ‘my stew,’ and we always have a good chuckle.’

Foxy served himself, poured both of them some hot spiced wine, lit some candles, and the two set to work on their meals. Foxy regaled Olivier with stories from all corners of the forest, including the misadventures of Mr. Mole and a river rat Olivier got the feeling had served alongside Foxy in the war.

‘When spring comes, I’ll take you down to the river that the waterfall feeds, and I’ll take you around in my boat and introduce you to all the forest folk. I especially want you to meet Emily – my dear honeybee friend who, when she’s not busy gathering pollen to make the honey you just ate, is a fellow writer. She writes all the news of the forest. Everyone loves her column because she can get fly to places most of us can’t, and so writes about the world from a truly unique perspective.’

Foxy told a story about how Emily once flew up high so she could take multiple photos of a single snowflake as it fell from the sky, and how she got so caught up in the task that she didn’t see the ground coming at her, and she landed headfirst into some powder and got stuck there with her little legs flailing in the air. Foxy keeled over in his chair laughing, and Olivier grinned at the thought of a honeybee chasing a snowflake with a little bee-sized camera.

‘Oh, but the column she wrote after we plucked her out of the powder,’ said Foxy, who jumped up and fetched a thin volume from his bookshelf. ‘She called it ‘The Short Happy Life of a Snowflake,’ and she goes on and on about how snowflakes burst forth into the world, dance like it’s their last dance and then, without complaint, settle upon the earth, never to fly again – and that the joy of their brief show in the sky will always live on ‘in ways written and unwritten.’ Those are her words. ‘Written and unwritten.’ Just lovely.’

Foxy grinned and looked back at the article before placing it back on the shelf.

‘I actually wrote a ditty inspired by Emily’s piece,’ Foxy said. ‘I called it ‘Waltz of the Snowflake.’’

Foxy fished a piece of paper from the pile of music sitting on the little desk besides the piano, sat down, and played and sang his song. Olivier closed his eyes, and the notes and lyrics carried him on a journey filled with twists, turns, corkscrews, and, above all, joy, before a gentle ending told with gentle and happy chords.

Foxy finished the song, and looked over at Olivier, who sat there spellbound. Whether he was spellbound by the sound of Foxy’s voice, by what Foxy was reading, or something else, Olivier could not tell, but he did know that it felt as though he’d lived his own entire happy life alongside Foxy in just the past few hours, just like Emily’s snowflake.

Foxy then looked over Olivier’s shoulder, and out a window above the kitchen sink. The snow fell so heavily now that the night seemed more filled with snowflakes than with air. Foxy smiled lovingly. ‘Come along with me, old chap. It’s time for us to discover the tale of Olivier.’

Foxy stood up, fetched a big green army coat out of a trunk near the front door, took up and lit a lantern, and opened the door and stepped out into the raging wind and snow.

Olivier followed very close behind Foxy. The snow now fell and blew so heavily and so wildly that if it weren’t for the immense light emanating from the thousands of sparking snowflakes that now filled Olivier at any given moment, the two would’ve lost one another. Despite the conditions, Olivier knew exactly where Foxy was leading them: back to the frozen waterfall.

Foxy stopped, and, without saying anything, motioned to a part of the ice mass that was as smooth as glass. Olivier stepped forward and saw his reflection there in the ice. His countless snowflakes reflected their rosy light, and Olivier shined so brightly that he resembled a pink star.

Olivier watched as his short life flashed before his eyes.