Let me tell you about the Jakeman Fairies, with a little help from ChatGPT.
They are small, unseen creatures, busy as coal miners, with wings dusted in sugar crystals and voices that echo faintly like crinkling sweet wrappers. No one else can hear them, of course, except me and the Walrus. And when I say hear them, what I really mean is that the Walrus channels their messages in a voice pitched somewhere between solemn decree and sly mischief.
The Fairies run a peculiar economy. Their entire currency is Jakeman’s Throat & Chest sweets: those dark little lozenges with their medicinal sting and comforting sweetness. They have a strict system: one sweet for every pound I lose in a week. A fair rate, if you ask me. Sometimes, I manage two pounds and they rustle up two sweets. Occasionally, if the stars align and my body decides to shed four or five, the Fairies panic and the Walrus announces they’ve had to reopen the old mines, sending fairy work parties down with pickaxes and lanterns to chip at the peppermint seams.
At Christmas, the Fairies give me a starter pack: a cardboard crate, neatly tied with string, containing ten bulging bags. A festive bounty. Once I’ve had my fill and the world returns to work, the rest are packed away in their enchanted storehouse, ready to be rationed out during the year as my efforts are weighed and measured.
But they aren’t accountants alone. They’re sentimental. On my birthday, they tumble out of their cupboards, wings buzzing, and press extra sweets into my hand. On our wedding anniversaries, they work overtime, producing a few more from thin air as a toast to love and survival. And when the Walrus looks at me (sometimes proud, sometimes concerned, always amused), the Fairies seem to read his mind.
Lately, as I limp through recovery, they’ve been especially generous. Yesterday, when I braved 300 metres on crutches, my legs trembling and my ankle aching, the Fairies declared me “a big brave girl” and rewarded me with three sweets, stacked like treasure in my palm. Other days, when I am nothing but “poorly ick,” they send down sympathy rations. Small mercies, wrapped in cellophane.
Of course, it’s the Walrus. His hand slipping into the sweet drawer, his voice pretending to relay official fairy business. But we keep the game alive because it’s better that way. The Jakeman Fairies make sense of the hard days and add sparkle to the good ones. They mark out progress in sugar and laughter.
And so the Fairies live on in our hearts, and in every sticky lozenge passed from one palm to another.