Mediana Stan

It all started with a child of course; till Mircea the Little came on this earth, even the one in the poems, I couldn’t write anything for children, I thought I could never do this, and moreover, I looked upon it as something not serious… But watching Mircea the Little for so long, waiting for him to be born, in a cradle hanged by a big rundown shed, and watching the sun, being under the impression that it was spinning around me on the field behind the house, I felt things were changing, and this is how “Cock-a-doodle-doo – Dwarfy” was born. I couldn’t find a crazier title, more childish and more unusual than this one. It is then when I saw how hard it is to write for children.

-That’s why all the authors are complaining, to show off.

-I think the words and ideas were dancing like mice, then, under the clear moon, on the field, and I couldn’t catch them and set them in their place unless I did lots of running around first…

-... Running around after mice with caps or after words?...

-Both… While running like this I found… many meanings to the words: “The child is sleeping!” Everybody in the house becomes solemn, walks on eggshells, everything freezes when the child falls asleep and comes to life when he wakes up, as in a fairy-tale; with children we always have to stay between fairy-tale and reality… I think this is a key for our life as well, this maintaining, this in-between…

-What happens when he sleeps?

-He laughs during his sleep… A huge blue snail climbs slowly the arched edge of the bed, lets his horns come out and feel the air, the child touches one horn and it retracts, a little mouse stops with its stolen cheese and opens a book left on the floor.

-That’s why they caught the thief-little mouse?

-Maybe, the book engaged him for a little while and it was enough… it’s none other that Cock-a-doodle-doo – Dwarfy. In his dream, the child gets out of the crib, joins the little mouse, reads and laughs, turns the pages and out of the book jump out skating mice, frozen lakes, huge tulips, cradles, fairies and snow castles, cats with red, hot fur as paprika, how could they not laugh? Another question that comes to my mind then, is: what is his destiny? Is it true that Fates come to him and predestine something that is impossible for him to change? Here is where we go beyond that in-between and take a step deep into the story…