Birth tales · No.777
Plip, plip, plip
That night the village sky was unusually quiet. Wobby sat at the corner of the page as always, watching the sky through sleepy eyes.
Plip. A drop of ink fell. Wobby reached for a number tag, and then, plip. Another drop. And plip. One more.
The three drops looked at each other on the paper, inched closer and closer, and melted into one. So this folk turned out a little rounder than the other beans in the village.
Wobby wrote a 7 on the tag. But three drops kept nagging at Wobby’s mind, so Wobby wrote another 7, and then one more. That is how No.777 got its number.
They say one of the three drops never quite woke up. So No.777 always keeps one eye open and one eye closed. It is not a wink. Half of No.777 is still dreaming.
The mouth stays in a firm straight line, but every now and then the mustache twitches. The villagers call that “No.777 laughing.”
The ponytail is tied with yarn left over from the scribble sweater, so it curls just like a sweater sleeve.
Today, too, No.777 watches the village with one eye, and a dream with the other.