The Wild Forest

I have always liked the spring and summer, and although a little winter is okay, I cannot live with the fire of life in my soul if the days continually drop below zero and the snow makes it hard to even look out of your window. Nope, winter isn’t for me. On the other hand, a Rhode Island summer in my eyes is an experience one likely would never forget. That reminds me of the time when I was camping out in our woods…..

I was a pretty big boy for ten and the woods were my second home. Actually they were closer to my first home. I would spend hours amongst them and they would bring me joy just from sleeping in the fresh open air and dozing to the soothing melodies of a bubbling brook. No, nothing could ever take the place of the outdoors in my heart. That particular night I had been meditating on the curiosities of dreams. I wouldn’t say that I was frightened, but my mind was working at a rate that otherwise I would have found tiring and not exactly desirable for sleep. Now, no one can really explain what dreams are, but at that time in my life I had decided that they weren’t just ideas that your mind came up with. Why did people just give up the ghost when asleep? Well, I was convinced of the fact that if you died in your dreams that was it for you. Now, I did allow that it would be ten times harder to die in a dream then in this waking life, but I still thought that it must happen.

Unfortunately, these were the thoughts which had decided to frequent my mind and somehow I found the whole business a little, well, nerve-wracking. At this point you may be thinking of me as an easily-frightened kitten, but if you have ever decided to sleep alone, deep in the woods, you may see why things that are otherwise normal can suddenly become a nightmare. This was the case with me. I could not sleep no matter how many frogs I counted in my mind, so I came to the fear-inspired conclusion that I would go back to the house to finish the night. I had no belongings with me except my sleeping bag and the ten-shot repeating rifle which I had acquired for the night from my father. I won’t say he forbade me to use it; I just decided not to take the chance of asking. I struck out for the house with a determined stride, heading through the woods at a steady walk. By this time the night had got the better of me, and I was consequently shaking in my leather boots. I’m ashamed to say that my rifle was a little too ready for use, and now I wonder where all my common sense had gone. By this time I figured that I must be close to home, but the house just didn’t appear. Now my legs were really shaking, and my imagination put me twenty miles from the nearest civilization. As I grew more worried I picked up my pace until I was fairly flying along – until I tripped on that cursed rock. As I picked myself up I swore an oath that I would never sleep in the wild woods again, if I ever got out of them alive. The fall had made me realize that my best chance was to take it easy and not to panic. So I settled down into a steady walk, trying to ignore the menacing dark all the while. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I found myself swimming in the brook. I scrambled out straight away and the shivers which wracked my body were now from more than just fear. The night air was very cool, and my urgency to find my way home created the need to run once more. But this time I watched where I was going as best I could, by bending over and peering at the ground before my feet. Suddenly I came in contact with something extremely hard and I saw stars. I lay there just gazing at the big dipper, wondering what to do. That is where I awoke the next morning. I arose and examined my surroundings. An extreme wave of both embarrassment and relief flooded over me as I gazed at my beautiful house.

In the years to come, I would break my oath never to sleep in the wild woods again; because, as I grew older the woody three acre lot behind my house didn’t ever look quite as wild as that night when I was ten.

- Fictional tale by Ben

The Boy, the Man, and the Gout

The young boy watched his grandfather squeal with pain from the gout that had plagued him for almost a century (his grandfather was very old, and he had got the disease at age three).
After watching and listening to his grandfather for about thirty-two minutes and sixteen seconds, Gordy, as the boy was known, spoke. "Grawndfawtheh," he said, for he had an English accent which will not be written into what he said for the rest of the story,"why are you squealing like a pig?"

The squeals stopped abruptly, and the old man peered over his miniscule spectacles. "How dare you address your elders thus, eh? Who do you think I am? Saint Peter?"

Gordy didn’t understand what Saint Peter had to do with anything, and he said so.

"Saint Peter never had the gout," his grandfather said very slowly, as if to make the wisdom of the statement seep into his young descendant like milk seeps into bread when one is making French—or freedom—toast. "If I were Saint Peter, I would not have the gout, and therefore I would not squeal." With that, he leaned back his head and resumed his squealing with a fervor.
Gordy sighed, and looked out the window to see if there was anything worth seeing out in the wide open world. Of course, there is always something worth seeing, but at this point, Gordy didn’t see anything he considered to be of interest. Sighing heavily, he leaned back his head and—to his surprise—squealed! His hand rushed almost involuntarily to his mouth, and he stared at his grandfather with wide open eyes. His grandfather had stopped squealing, and was returning his grandson’s gaze.

"Aha, the pig got your tongue?" he asked with scintillating eyes, and laughed uproariously at his own "joke."

Gordy’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits, and he exclaimed in a loud voice, "Alas, dear Grandfather, with your loosely-given words you have deeply wronged the very soul of my being, and my actions toward you shall not be compassionate and long-suffering as they once were. I know you have meant little harm—and little harm have you done—but my heart by your careless words has been steeled toward you. Look now into my eyes; does their cold, spectral gaze not send an icy shiver up your spine? If not, I pray thee, art thou yet human? For no man has ever before stood to equal my gaze."

Gordy’s grandfather was understandably startled by this eloquent and extremely melodramatic stream of words which passionately flowed from his grandson’s mouth. Gordy was almost equally amazed and collapsed sobbing into a ball before his grandfather had a chance to compare spectral gazes with him.

"My dear, dear boy!" cried the elderly man, who jumped up to go to his histerical grandson, but, remembering his gout, sat down again quickly. "What ever is the matter? Would Alexander the Great have cried like that if he was in your present situation, eh?"

The boy looked up and grinned. "Yes!" He curled up again and continued to sob.

"Alright then, how about William Wilberforce, eh?"

Gordy, who was a great fan of history, sat up, blew his nose, wiped his face, smiled slightly, and asked, "Who was Mr. Wilberforce, grandfather?"

The grandfather was relieved to have brought an end to Gordy’s tirade, so he explained quickly that William Wilberforce put an end to slavery in the great and hopefully everlasting (for this was in 1905) British Empire, of which he and every other self-respecting English subject who had any brains at all was proud to be a not-insignificant part of, eh? He then had a twinge in his right foot, and squealed for about three seconds. Then he stopped and asked, "Am I bothering you?"

Gordy said, "No, I think it runs in the family to have a strange habit of squealing. Didn’t I just do it a minute ago?"His grandfather was glad, and he squealed happily for the rest of the day (except during meals, naturally), and Gordy (having learned that everyone squeals sometimes, and why not now?) even joined him in a duet occasionally. And they lived happily together for weeks and weeks (after which their landlord kicked them out and they became beggars, who squealed so loudly while they begged, that they never had any money until they were hired by the London Opera Company, where they were both employed for a good number of years. After that they lived happily ever after for the rest of their lives.)

The End

-- Aaron

Commencement of a Classic

This blog is a joint venture of two great friends who are extremely intelligent writers as well. We hope you enjoy the following stories etc etc.