Even wombats feel a little down sometimes. They get lonely sometimes. They suffer the odd setback. Our pudgy, plucky protagonist has endured a thing or two recently and he's a little sad.

Bottled, bounced, blown up, bruised and bothered, the wombat's walking slowly right about now, his face turned to the ground. "Maybe I'm wrong to waste my time", he mutters. "Maybe I should find a new line of work."

"Maybe I should dig holes and live underground like all the other wombats", he says to himself. "These grand spectacles I devise, plan out so carefully, never seem to come to fruition. Something always seems to go wrong".

He glances at his notes and then glumly stuffs them into his pocket. "All these calculations, all the preparation, and yet I seem to always fall short of my goal, the Grandest Spectacle of All".

"Sometimes I wish that just ONCE, something would go right for me. Maybe then I'd have the strength to go on. But no."

I've never seen this particular wombat quite so sad. Here's what he says next:

"I always have such Big Dreams. I want to create the Event that brings the jungle to it's feet in wonder, to entertain, to instruct, to amaze the citizenry"

"I must be foolish to think that I, a mere marsupial, could ever achieve such a lofty goal. I only ever end up looking like a fool, or a fuzzy gray streak across the sky. Who am I to have these Big Dreams? I'm just bub. I'm nobody special"

"I'm going to give up my Big Dreams and live like a proper wombat", he resolves.

Sometimes, when we've hit bottom and we feel As Sad As Can Be, a dove flies down from the sky and lands on a branch of a tree nearby. I'm sure it's happened to you. She flies down from the sky and sees you feeling down and feels a little down herself, because that's how doves are.

But it's hard to keep a dove down. They're naturally airborne creatures and down is not in their nature. Doves are naturally happy, and happy is what they want you to be. So when you're not, they get a little down too, but only for an instant.

And then they're happy again.

And sometimes, when you're walking in the rain on a day as gray as the wombat's fuzz, and maybe, just maybe, a tear is falling from your eye because in all this rain, nobody would be able to tell, and when you're feeling all cloudy and rainy inside, a bright ray of sunlight breaks through the clouds and shines on YOU. Just you.

That's what it's like when the dove on the branch turns her happy smile on you.

Near the wombat, on a branch of a tree, sits the dove, lovingly listening to the laments of the lugubrious one:

"I'm just giving up. I'm going to dig a hole in the ground and crawl inside. The Great Spectacle is beyond the reach of such a creature as myself"

The Bird of Peace turns a tender smile on the troubled thing. "Oh no, bub", she coos. The sound of her voice is like a hug from your mom. You can't be completely blue when a dove says your name.

"You can do it, you can achieve your Big Dreams. I know you can, I've seen you do it," she says in a voice that takes the stress from your soul and the sting from your heart.

"SEEN me do it?" wonders wombat wearily, "I've only ever failed!"

Doves are very patient. Even when wombats are weary. "You just don't see it, do you?" she asks, smiling kindly on the quadruped who Just Doesn't See it. "You DO achieve your dream of the Grand Spectacle each time you try".

She goes on.

"You want to make everybody take notice. You want them to be amazed. But each time you fire yourself from a cannon or fly a motorized unicycle through a flaming hoop, every eye in the jungle is on YOU. Just you."

"I know what you're thinking. Sure, you end up in a bottle or spinning like a top in a pointy hat, but that's exactly what makes you Special, my special friend. That's what makes your spectacles so Spectacular. Because they are specifically yours. Because you are Specifically you."

"Flying, as I do, across the jungle canopy, one gets to hear a lot of things. I couldn't tell you how many times I've heard somebody say that the jungle is a much more exciting and adventurous place since the wombat arrived."

"Really?" whispers the wombat, wondering against wonder, wishing against wish, hoping against hope that What She Sez is True.

"Yes," she whispers back. "Really".

Sometimes when you're Down as Down Can Be, a ray of sunlight on a cloudy, rainy day is all you need. Especially when that ray of sunlight shines on YOU. Just you.

"Maybe all I really need is a greater muzzle velocity", mutters the wombat as he snatches his notepad from his pocket and scribbles furiously. "I'd REALLY get their attention if I landed, encased in a titanium sphere, in a vat of molten lava in the middle of a meteor storm." He wanders off.

The Dove looks after the scribbling scientist for a long long time. At last she smiles patiently to herself. Then she takes off into the sky, passing through the trees, the canopy of the jungle into the sky that not many in the jungle other than she herself can see, ever really do see.

Flying high above, she looks down and thinks to herself, "my, from way up here, the jungle is a very small place indeed".

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