Felicity – A Philosophical Fable [Chapter 5]
There was no way to tell how much Mimi understood. According to lore, a Felicity was a simple-minded being. But little was known with certainty.
No one knew where they came from. No one really knew what they were. Or why they were. That the Felicity was rare was a given. In fact, there were those who didn’t even believe the creatures existed. Now or ever. Not one had been discovered in centuries. The last Felicity anyone had heard of lived nearly a thousand years ago. And even that was not beyond doubt.
They may have existed in abundance in times past. Or they may have always been as rare as they were now. Being entirely anecdotal, the lore was often inconsistent. Some people believed that periods of abundance alternated with periods of scarcity, while others said that it was random.
However, there were a few things that were generally held. A Felicity was female and looked much like an ordinary woman except that she tended to be more petite. She lived at most seventy or eighty years, not counting the years prior to capture. Moreover, she spent about a third of her short life in a state called “sleep.”
A sleeping Felicity may appear to be simply lying down with her eyes closed, but there’s much more to sleep than that. In sleep, a Felicity is unaware of anything going on around her. Nor is she thinking about anything. She is as unaware of herself as she is of her surroundings. A loud noise or a nudge will bring her out of this state, usually with a start. But if left undisturbed she will come out of it naturally after a while.
Sleep is apparently essential for the Felicity. She will usually know when she is about to enter the state and will seek privacy. A room should be provided for her. This room should be kept cool. The Felicity prefers a cooler temperature and will retreat to this room when she feels overheated.
The mysterious creatures did have the capacity for speech. Though by all accounts they seldom made use of it. It was commonly believed that this reticence was due to their low intelligence. However it was also possible that their characteristic silence was unrelated to their intellectual shortcomings. The only thing that was agreed upon was that they were disinclined to speak. So far, Mimi was no exception.
And then there was the one truly undeniable fact. Nothing was more deadly than a captive Felicity. Not even the tigers who prowled the outer region. A Felicity who wanted to escape would destroy anyone in her path.
There was no way to tell how much Mimi understood, but she appeared to be content in her new home. And that was fortunate. Very fortunate.