SadElf in the Land of the GladElves

A slightly curved children’s story by Clark Humphrey

6/27/93

Beyond the mystic sea, between the Magic Islands and the Enchanted Dictatorship, there is a secret land, a very special land, the Land of the GladElves.

Here, the GladElves work in long shifts, all on their own happy jobs to make the world a happier place. There’s GiddyElf, and PerkyElf, and ProudElf, and SillyElf, and PsychoElf, and RomanticElf, and HuggyElf, and MellowElf, and SpacedOutElf, and CuteElf, and CherubicElf, and WiredElf, and RadiantElf, and LuckyElf, and BrightElf, and CheeryElf, and ExuberantElf, and FestiveElf, and MirthyElf, and NerdyElf, and FunkyElf.

Some GladElves harvest the magic reeds for Happy Toothbrushes.

Some GladElves use their Magic Glad-O-Phone to scan the world’s private phone calls, listening in for unhappy people who need the GladElves’ help.

Some GladElves prepare the Magic Happiness Potions that keep the GladElves so glad.

But the most revered GladElves work in the Mystic Ponds, raising baby whales to spread joy to the children of the world.

Every Saturday, all the GladElves love to gather at the Glad Land Theme Park. They love to sing the Glad Songs and drink the Happiness Potion together. They love to watch the baby whales swim and dive and perform all the tricks the GladElf trainers have taught them. They love to watch the baby whales dart about, playfully looking all around the pool.

But there was one GladElf who didn’t like to look at the whales having their fun. He didn’t like to drink the Magic Happiness Potion. He didn’t like to sing Glad Songs. He didn’t even like to spread happiness into the world, because he had no happiness within him.

The other GladElves called him SadElf.

He hated the name. He didn’t think he was sad, just realistic.

He thought being a GladElf was the stupidest thing in the world. He hated being short. He hated his big ears. He hated having a head that was almost as big as his body.

He hated the job assigned to him at birth by the GladElf Queen, to fix broken roof beams on all the houses in GladElf village.

He kept trying to tell the Queen that if they’d just build the houses with the proper supports, the roofs wouldn’t keep caving in. Nobody listened to him. “Our Glad Houses have always looked this way,” said his mother GiddyElf and his father ChuckleElf, “and they always will.”

He worked alone, with huge equipment. The other GladElves always told him how much they loved his work, and how happy he should be to do it. He said nothing back.

The other GladElves always tried to get him to stop being sad. Whenever he passed the GladElf Queen, she ordered him to smile. He tried, but couldn’t. The most he could do was a painful grin.

That wasn’t good enough. He was supposed to be a GladElf. He was supposed to be deliriously happy, all the time, just like all the other GladElves.

They gave him double doses of the Magic Happiness Potion. It didn’t change him. They gave him triple doses of the potion, then added more of the potion to all his food. It just made him sick.

They put him at the center of the group singalongs, where he had to sing all the GladElf Songs: “We’re Glad We’re Glad,” “Spread A Little Magic To A Lonely Soul,” even “We Love To Love To Love To Love…” SadElf couldn’t take it. He thought he was surely going to die amidst what he saw as all this phony “happiness.” But as he listened, he found he could make up his own harmonies to the songs, his own way of singing them that wasn’t so stupid. As soon as he tried to sing a song his own way, the other GladElves heard his harsh, abrasive music and made him stop. At least he got kicked out of the singalongs and didn’t have to go back.

Next, they put him through GladElf Therapy. They sat him in the middle of a room, with other GladElves sitting all around him. They asked him, over and over, why he was sad. He said he didn’t know; he just always was. They asked him why he didn’t just start being glad; he said he didn’t know how. They said to just do it. He said again that he didn’t know how.

They asked him what he thought about all the time. He said he thought about how the elves could build better houses according to common stress-support princples. How he wished he could start an army to overthrow the Enchanted Dictatorship across the stream from GladElf Village. How he wondered what made the stars shine at night, and don’t anybody try to give him a phony answer like magic stardust. How he wondered what the Baby Whales thought about. How he liked the Baby Whales because they were the only creatures in GladElf Village who didn’t try to force him to be happy. The GladElf Queen didn’t want to hear any more of this, and told SadElf he should stop talking.

After the session broke up, GiddyElf (his arranged fiancée since birth) came up to him and told him he should also try to stop thinking so much. She told him he had to think of her needs. How could they ever get married and have a family if he refused to be glad? He told her he never refused to be a stupid happy GladElf, he just couldn’t be one.

Occasionally, SadElf finished his day’s work early. He spent those afternoons by himself, far from the village, far from the Glad Baby Elves playing their Glad Games. He wrote his own SadElf Poems, that nobody else ever wanted to read. He practiced his Sad Guitar deep in Lonely Valley, the only place the other elves let him play it, where no sound ever came in or got out.

One afternoon, SadElf wandered down to the place where the Baby Whales were kept. He saw the GladElf trainers forcing them to play their Baby Whale games and tricks. He saw the whales darting their eyes about the ponds.

Suddenly, SadElf saw something. The Baby Whales weren’t moving about having fun. They were searching the ponds. They were searching every little corner of the ponds, above and below the surface of the water. Why, he wondered?

Then he saw it. Far from the trainers, one Baby Whale spotted something, and called on her brothers and sisters to come look. SadElf figured it had to be the one thing the Baby Whales were looking for all this time. SadElf ran to that side of the pond to see what it was.

It was a hole in the fence surrounding the pond. It was just big enough for a Baby Whale to jump through. He saw the first Baby Whale swim around and around, building up speed, then leap into the air, and miss the hole. The Baby Whale fell back into the pond, crying a Baby Whale cry. To the other GladElves, a Baby Whale’s cry sounded just like laughing. To SadElf, it sounded like the saddest thing he’d ever heard. He watched the Baby Whales try and try to jump through the hole in the fence, to the stream beyond that would take them far away from GladElf Village, far from their appointed destiny playing games for human children.

SadElf heard the GladElf trainers, DizzyElf and PeripateticElf, running to the side of the pond where the hole was. SadElf hid in a clump of Toothbrush Reeds as the trainers found and fixed the hole.