Disclaimer: I beg your humble pardon, Professor, but I've taken some liberties with your characters, mainly Frodo Baggins. If it's any consolation, I think Frodo sounds infinitely better than the original name. **snickers** We're all glad you didn't stick to 'Bingo.'
***
So, this is it.
Thirty-three.
Funny - I don't feel any older.
I'll give it a day or so.
But, after all, I'm only a day older than I was yesterday.
Why should it feel any different?
I keep expecting it to hit me - I'm thirty-three. I'm thirty-three! I - am - an - adult!
Does it matter that much?
Why, yes, I suppose so. I've - well, what?
I've... ripened, I suppose, like a tomato on a vine.
No, not quite. I don't think I'm quite ripe yet.
Perhaps I've just flowered, or budded - or I have green tomatoes at last, and time will ripen them.
Look at you, Frodo: thirty-three at last, and making yourself out to be a tomato plant.
That's child's play.
Yet, I'm just a day older than a child, just a day out of my tweens.
Still imagining...still dreaming...
Bilbo still dreams. He and his great joke!
Dear Bilbo...
Why did he leave?
I know he liked - likes - causing a stir...
But he's left me with nowhere to go.
Did Gandalf have to leave, too?
Who's left?
I can't ask Merry or Fatty what to do or how to act - how would they know?
Fatty's only Sam's age, and Merry's younger still.
Dear Merry, who helped me when I was too flustered even to remember his surname...
That was rather stupid of me. Poor Merry didn't take offense, bless him. "That was an insult," indeed.
I'll need to be more careful when I speak.
I'm an adult now.
I wonder if Merry will feel the same when he comes of age.
Well, he won't have Bilbo's antics to worry him, but he'll have more to live up to.
Think - he'll be Master of Buckland when his father dies!
-No, I won't think of death.
Oh, how I miss them...
What would happen to me if they were still alive?
I'd never have met Elves, I suppose.
Oh, Mother!
No. No tears.
I've cried enough.
I'm an adult.
I don't need to cry.
-Oh, I don't care.
. . .
Tears...
Are tears rain or dew?
Both and neither and everything and nothing...
What nonsense I'm talking!
I should be - well, acting like an adult.
But how does one act when one is fully-grown?
How do birds learn to fly?
Their mother pushes them out of the nest.
Who will push me out?
Mother...
. . .
I've shed too many tears for a grown-up hobbit.
Well, whoever said adults can't cry?
I don't know.
I never thought about it before.
I never had to.
I'm like a baby bird on the edge of the nest.
The ground is so far down-
-And what if my wings aren't strong enough?
Who will push me out?
I don't want to fall, but I can't go back.
I think I'll stay here - halfway between everything.
Someday, maybe, I'll go over the edge.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I'll be a child.
I'll weep for my parents - for my mother and father.
Tomorrow, maybe, I'll be ready.
But not tonight.
Just one more night...
. . .
© SoF 2002