they passed a dark wood of tall straight trees, with thin sharp leaves that looked like the ravelled copper wire which motley wove into spinning answers. and there they met a little man.

he wore clothes the colour of day, spinning sunlight into sugary threads that trapped them like webs. when it saw what they were, it smiled them a beautiful smile.

where are you going ? it asked them past the smile.

we seek the singer of dreams, the maker of wonders.
we seek the kabukicuckoo, said pu.

it smiled and freed them and walked with them a while -- and so for a time they were three: pu, motley and the happy it. as they walked together, pu and motley discovered a wonderful thing:
the happy it never stopped smiling.

finally, they reached a clearing in the dark wood where shafts of sunlight shone upon pillars that seemed themselves to be spun of light. exclaiming with delight, pu and motley rushed up to the pillars to see them clearly. then they suddenly stopped -- horror frozen on their faces. for when they drew close, they saw eyes within the pillars -- eyes filled with an anguish of pain and dread and anger -- and all of them were fixed upon the happy it.

the two friends followed the eyes and, in the light of the clearing, they understood another thing:
the happy it didn't stop smiling because it couldn't.
 
 

when i lived among the people , the happy it said around its smile, i found nothing that could make me smile in the things that made them laugh, so i never laughed.
because i knew i was different, i tried to avoid everyone -- but such apartness was frowned upon in our close community. they said it was not right for me to wish always to be alone, and made me join them as they went about their doings.

then a strange thing happened -
because i never smiled, they became uncomfortable.
at first, some began to go about with sad faces. later on, many wore bleak expressions. finally, they all grew angry. they did not think it was right that the attitude of a single person should so affect the many.

i tried to speak with them, explain that i had never tried to force anyone to feel as i did about anything. but they would not listen. they wanted me to be like them: to laugh when they laughed and show sorrow only when they were sad.

be like us, they said.

i am not, i replied.

laugh, they said.

but, i said, i cannot.

then smile, they said, and i told them that i did not know how.

we will show you how, they answered.
they took their knives and they carved the lips from my face and gave me this...

and so they were happy.
for a time.
but soon -- very soon -- they began to feel uneasy.
this is worse, they said. now, when we are angry, you smile. even when we weep, you smile.
i said nothing. i only smiled.

one day, some of the people came to me as i walked smiling in the dark, smiling at no one and at nothing. they kicked me and spat at me and beat me until they finally broke something inside of me. i cried out at the pain of that breaking, but still i smiled. tears fell from my eyes, but still i smiled.

the singer found me, cleaned my cuts and salved my bruises. but no song could take the smile from me nor fix the thing inside me that was broken. it touched my smile and shaking its head - whether in laughter or sorrow, i do not know - flew away.

i returned to the people.

for a while, no one looked at me or spoke to me.
finally, they became angry.
they should have blamed themselves for they had carved the smile on my face. instead they blamed me.

it's your fault, they said. you and that eternal smile, that smile without purpose or reason.
they said they could take no more.
they sent me away so that they would not have to look at me and, all the time, wonder what thoughts lay behind the smile they had given me.

so i went away... smiling.
 
 

i came to live here.
i smiled at the trees and i smiled at the sun. and then one day, i took strands of the sun's light and learned to spin them into webs.
i set the webs out as snares and i caught them, one by one - all those who made me what i am.
one by one, i spun them into their shrouds of light.
it took me a very long time.

but here they are. they cannot move, they cannot speak. but i left their eyes free so they can see me smile -- forever -- the smile they gave me.
 

the tale came to an end. so did the forest. and there the happy it remained, waving at them from the edge of the strange wood -- and smiling.
as the two friends walked away they shivered every now and again at what was nothing, they told themselves, but the chill from the forest.

inside pu's head, the kabukicuckoo sang a song cold as stones on a mountaintop, as water frozen into layers of deep blue ice, as a heart shrouded in dark winter.