THE WASTED FOREST

A salutary warning...

There was a hushed silence forged from horror and dismay in the forest. It was palpable like the scum off a septic tank might be palpable and put the kind of taste in everyone's mouth in much the same way as rotten bananas might.

Edwina Eaglet had been raped and murdered. There was no less pleasant way to put it. Edwina, the sweet and delightful and the tiniest bit precocious eaglet had been savagely attacked in the very centre of the forest, and left to die by her tormentor in unbearable agony. Everyone in the forest, from the smallest mole and its blind eyes to the prickliest hedgehog and his erratic temper, was shocked and everyone decided there and then that all the other youngsters should be warned.

There were two schools in that particular forest and Madame Tiggy, headmistress of the first school, gathered all the youngsters in the school hall and, when it was so quiet you could have heard the tiniest pin drop, she addressed them.

“There is evil abroad,” she began, and cleared her throat. She knew that she needed to make what she had to say more memorable than anything her young charges had heard before and she knew deep inside her wise old heart that stories hold more sway than bald facts. So she started to tell a story.

“In the beginning,” she said, “Long before any of us were born, there was a wonderful wizard who waved his magic wand and made the world come to life. And because he was such a wonderful wizard he had a bitter foe, another, more feeble, wizard who lurked in dark places and did little bits of mean mischief whenever he could. Now, children, the good wizard was called Yod, and he spent all of eternity pursuing the evil wizard, and one day, when the first two woodland creatures were born he set them a task. He told them that there was evil in the world but that they would be safe from it so long as they didn't nibble the forbidden nut. The woodland creatures, being absolutely brand new, shook and shivered and made the whole forest vibrate with their shivering and shaking and swore many an oath that they would never, on any account, nibble the forbidden nut. Why should they want to, anyway, when there were so many more luscious and tempting nuts growing in huge abundance in the forest?

“But there was one feeble creature amongst them, a female creature, pale and wan and simple-minded, and she did eat of the forbidden nut and in that instant the whole tribe of them, from squirrels to rabbits to little dormice, were thrown out of that forest into the wild deserts in the land of Nowhere. And that is where they stayed until the evil wizard found them, and he grabbed one of them to himself and did the most wicked things to her and left her for dead. And he might do it again, for he is more evil than thunderstorms and more dangerous than tsunamis. And we must be vigilant, children, and keep a look out for the evil wizard, and if we see him we must destroy him!”

That, then, was the lesson taught by Madame Tiggy, and everyone thought it was warm and wonderful and enlightening, and everyone praised her for it.

In the second school Master Piggy also had the task of warning the youngsters in his care, and he, too, decided to tell a story in order to enforce his message of danger and murder. But it was either because he lacked the imagination to invent, on the spur of the moment, a whole fantasy or because he thought it wouldn't be quite right to fill his pupils' heads with nonsense, that he told them the story of life as he understood it.

“There has been life for many millions of years,” he began, “and during that time there have been slow and wonderful changes to the creatures of the woodland. Why, and you may not believe this but it is true, there was a time before the hedgehog grew his spikes and the rat his tail! There was a time when Mr Mole could see quite clearly with 20/20 vision and Mrs Nightingale couldn't sing! But our marvellous forest is so ancient that it has allowed time for the various creatures to change little bit by little bit as they needed to in order to adapt to this or that little variation in life in the forest.

“And it so happened that one of the changes was to the mind of one or two creatures. It made them mad. It made them insane. It made them do evil and horrible and unforgivable things. It made them into outcasts and these outcasts lurk, even to this day, and are ready to pounce on ordinary and decent loveable youngsters like yourselves. So be wary, my children. Be wary of the wrong-doers, the outcasts, for they are the downside of the glorious evolution that had led us to this place and time!”

The youngsters from both schools learned their lesson well, and the years passed. They grew up and had youngsters of their own, and passed the lesson on, for they knew there was danger in the forest, not from their own experience or by instinct but because they had been told. The lessons had been powerful and the stories became entrenched in the various families of the vast woodland.

And one day, many, many years later, the offspring of the offspring of the youngsters at the First school met, by chance, the offspring of the offspring of the youngsters of the Second school, and being young and free and talkative, they started discussing things. At first all went well until someone in the first group mentioned Yod and someone in the second group giggled and asked if this Yod was an outcast, for they had been taught all about outcasts.

And there was a quarrel, the first real quarrel in that forest. Fists and paws and claws and teeth and fangs crashed together and a great deal of blood was spilt and in the end the two groups, bedraggled, returned to their homes and explained to their parents what had happened.

“What?” cried one of the good folk of the First Group. “They have no knowledge of Yod? They are so dreadfully ignorant? Then we must invent nuclear weapons and obliterate them from the woodlands, for that is, indeed, what Yod would want!”

Then, “What?” cried one of the good folk of the Second Group. “They have no concept of how we truly got to be here in this forest, and how we evolved to be what we are? Then we must invent nuclear weapons and obliterate them from the woodlands, and do it in the name of Truth!”

And so the years passed and certain inventions were made and finally war was declared ... and all because, long ago, two wise teachers had tried to warn about evil in their own ways, and stories had been passed down all the long years since then, and as a consequence all life must end.

And it did in that forest. On an hour in a day that dawned there was a mighty explosion that rocked the Universe and everything, life and thoughts and hopes and dreams, all perished in a mighty bang.

© Peter Rogerson 13.05.10, edited 03.01 21

Reviews

[Dave Brown]

That forest is right behind me and I keep wondering when that explosion will take place
On the lighter side it reminds me of being a young boy playing in the woods, when I and my friends would hide there to sneak a cigarette, and of having been discovered by the neighbor's daughter who ran home to rat on us to her parents

[Peter Rogerson]

Many of my more treasured memories come from when I was a young boy in shorts.