The Twenty-Third Reply - Eight Years Prior

Dear Sonia, my fondest and farthest friend, 

I must say, I wholeheartedly endorse your decision to be childless - it is one I have made for myself with some conviction. Our reasons might be rather different, your desire not to sire any until your husband demonstrates enough stability in his person to deserve an heir, compared to my simple acknowledgement that I could hardly imagine caring for another being, particularly one so vulnerable and prone to self-destruction; but I support both nonetheless. 

I have an intellectual admiration for children, despite their obvious and frustrating shortcomings. I do not enjoy how sticky every surface they come into contact with becomes, nor do I appreciate the near-constant state of emotional distress. However, I greatly admire the aptly-named sense of childlike wonder; that eclectic ability to perceive the world beyond its ordinary nature, beyond those measures which we, as adults, come to take for granted. 

I recall distinctly the occasion where I, as a young girl, believed with my whole heart that I had stumbled across the egg of a Dragon - one of those Hesstil beasts of legend. I located, upon the banks of the Fennes river, a stone so spherical it must have been made by design, or the product of something magical, hardly able to fit into my small palms. I brought it home to show off, first to the collar of my home, Susan, who greatly indulged my sense of wonder. She told me the story of the great Andlash dragon, Luklleiwiellaten, who legend insists was a great tyrant of the skies and mountains before some old hero slew him. Susan suggested my stone, the egg, might even house his great grandchild. 

My mother quickly doused such imagination. She brought with her a large mallet, set the stone upon a large boulder, and split it asunder. I believe I must’ve cried at this sight, my young mind convinced she’d just slain my newfound aerial friend. Not so, she displayed to me that it was solid, through and through, a gorgeous and marbled stone of which I’d rarely seen the likes of before. She told me that one does not need to believe in mythology to still find something marvelous - that the natural, ordinary world is fascinating enough. I resented the lesson at the time; but now, I believe I find it rather comforting. Everything has its proper place, everything is explainable, if you can deduce and complete the complicated web of interactions between natural phenomena. A Detective, for the natural world. Or, as the more learned would simply call it - a scientist. 

A self-professed scholar and imagined naturalist, 

Cordelia Jones