The Dollmäns and the Semmelfalter

A Polio Fairy Tale by

Polios are friendly, honest and lovable creatures, they are difficult to find these days because people never really knew how to deal with them and they believed they need to prevent them from multiplying. Polios are not born as such, they are born just like any other human baby welcoming life by screaming. It is only the tiny weeny polio viruses which are invisible to the bare eye who in their worldwide search can recognize at once which of the newly born little humans can be granted the life of a polio. The first cry of a newly born tells them whether the baby is a candidate for polio or not . If so they make great efforts to get hold of this newcomer as fast as possible. The younger, happier and the more original the new being is the greater the chance to make him a real polio, or sometimes even a king polio. The time needed for the viruses to change a child into a polio appears cruel and dangerous to the people. Once the development has come to an end people look at these new creatures with pity and as they don’t know any different they classify them in the catagory of the “disabled” . And as disability is something very negative highly intelligent scientists have been trying for years to destroy the activities of the viruses and to find out how to fight and kill them.

But even today the very little viruses manage every now and then to outwit the humans and to create new polios. King polios however, these sharp-minded, clever and intelligent creatures in their tiny, crippled and - from the human point of view - useless bodies, are impossible to be created any more because most viruses are detected and destroyed before they can finish their destructive work.

The king polio, that means a fully fletched and convinced polio, starts his day in a happy mood, enjoys every minute and only does what gives him pleasure. If male or female, king polios are not jealous, they are happy for their fellow polios and also their fellow humans, they are very sensitive and open for everything. In short they are the most peaceful people on earth.

But, they have enemies, too:

The Dollmäns

Big , strong birds dressed in black plumes, huge claws and mighty beaks. They love polios – but only to chase, to catch, to tear them up and to devour them bit by bit. All the time they are in search of the royal polios that have become a rare and appetizing prey, and once they have found one they never let go of him. With penetrating, horrible screeches they let their fellow creatures know about the presence of a king polio and make them hurry as fast as they can. Hopping from branch to branch or pretending not to be interested, they hobble alongside fields and roads so they can keep close to their victim waiting for a convenient moment to attack them. They know too well that a polio is relatively helpless against any type of attack as the polio would never ever hurt anybody. Thus it is very easy for them to shadow a polio which they have spotted and as soon as he is alone, to kill him with their sharp claws and the steel-hard beak in order to tear the tender flesh from his bones and to satisfy their hunger for royal polios

But there are also Dollmäns with white plumage, but they are well disposed towards polios They live by the sea and feed mainly on small fish and other seafood. As soon as they know there is a king polio nearby, they chase away the evil, black beasts and protect their little friends so they may move around quite safely. As the majority of the king polios do not live by the seaside and cannot therefore be watched by the good white Dollmäns they are not of any particular help to the polios. The polios live far away from the lovely sea wind, from the roaring waves and the gorgeous sandy beaches and their protective white guardians, and the peaceful polios live in constant fear of the black horrors. They cannot speak about their deathly fears to anybody as nobody would believe them. Only king polios know these dangerous enemies which to non-polios are black birds only and do not pose any danger to their lives. The polios would only be laughed at, and that was the most horrible thing that a nice little but self-confident king polio could cope with . Therefore he remains silent and keeps finding new excuses to by-pass the road on which he sees or suspects to see the enemies.

One day there was a little infinitely content, carefree and happy king polio lying in the meadow by the side of a wood and was enjoying the warm evening sunshine. He had asked a friendly human to put him down at this spot wanting to be alone with himself and nature. Everything was so imminently peaceful, with crickets chirping merrily , with children’s laughter in the distance sounding like music accompanied with the woodpecker pounding the occasional beat . What a lovely concert of remote "hahaha, hi, hi, hi - thump thump - hahaha, hi, hi, hi - thump thump - hahaha, grahhh, grahhh, graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh... .. "

But what was that?

The king polio’s blood almost froze in his veins. Now he could see him, just on the branch of the tree above, glowering at him with evil, greedy eyes . And once again the monster gave this horrible, bone-penetrating screech. And then another monster hopped through the meadow towards him - no, not one - three, four of those feathered ghastly, gigantic creatures moving towards him and in the trees they multiplied with horrible speed. To jump up and run away would have been the only salvation for the polio – but that was what he could not do.. The thin, weak, and crippled legs were not capable, because a polio has very little muscle strength and a king polio none at all . The little arms were just as helpless and unable to chase away anything or anybody. The children's laughter had faded away, not a soul was in sight. Even the woodpecker had ceased his pounding. All the king polio could see were those greedy eyes, which gave away clearly what was about to happen. And all he heard was this blood-thirsty, horrible screeching.

But then – a very gentle breeze and a barely audible, faint, high-sounding tone seemed to touch the king polio gently and soothingly. And at that very moment, the Dollmäns flapped their wings all at the same time. He was sure as hell they would pounce on him but instead they escaped into all directions as if stung by a tarantula. The little king polio could not understand what he was experiencing. For this quiet, bright-sounding breeze had become visible, a tiny being waggling in the air which reminded him of a roll not quite cut in two. Like the speed of light the creature got bigger and bigger ,huge and gigantic and snatched the escaping Dollmäns with the two cut-open parts of the bread roll. How many of these vicious beasts had been swallowed up by this breeze of air which became minute and tiny as fast as it had increased before, the observer couldn’t tell. It might have been 5, or 25, whichever, none of these murderous creatures could be seen any more .

The heart of the rescued king polio pounded wildly. This experience was indescribable, unbelievable, incredible. But he would not confide this experience to anybody, as nobody would believe him. The being that he had just encountered and been rescued by had been degraded long, long ago to a fairytale creature , labeled a mythical being or a phantom.

But the king polio realised that the legendary protector and savior of the king polio actually did exist : the Semmelfalter !

IMPORTANT:

The Semmelfalter, there is no Latin (nor English) name for it, it is an ancient being, invisible to all humans on this earth. Nobody should believe he exists, nobody should talk about him. Only then will he continue to help in dangerous situations.

Since I have a very special relationship with the king polio who has made this experience I may – with the special approval of the Semmelfalter - , tell this story only to YOU. Please keep it to yourself, please do not believe me and please don’t tell anybody else ! Otherwise, the few King polios that are still around, will lose their protectors.

Thank you !

Copyright: ( knortl99@hotmail.com )