The Hunt: A satirical folktale

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The Hunt: A satirical folktale

They met in the dead of night at midnight, on the Winter Solstice, during the time of a great conjunction of two celestial bodies, creating a bright light in the sky, as this was the great meeting signifier they had agreed upon all those eons ago. Every 800 years or so, when the joining of the two planets is brightest, representatives from all forms of the animal and plantae kingdoms convene in the arctic circle. They discuss a great many things. Lately, however, for the past 2000 years the endeavors of the “human” had become increasingly more and more a topic of concern.
At first this council of the animal and plantae Kingdoms, and Mother Nature herself, found the human intriguing, even endearing, in its odd ways of clothing itself, uttering strange tongues, and ever so set on creating new things the animalia and plantae could not even fathom dreaming of. In the beginning, they watched man’s evolution with curiosity, doting on it like a lioness would her young. But the human became fiercer, forgot his healthy fear and respect of nature, filling his ego with false pretenses of mastering nature. Some societies of men kept their connection with nature longer than others, but alas, eventually the savage man, dressed in leather boots and feathers, swinging around silly blades and deafening gunpowder contraptions, came to conquer the entire globe, and the good ones either converted or died out.
Metal and machines, grime and smog, coins and green came to take over the Earth. Overproduction, wasted products, and hoarded resources soon followed, and even later still, warring, bullets and bombs, and blood spattering over meaningless differences in ideologies interrupted nature’s way of existence. Many members of the human species themselves were subjected to misery by the few who ruled. What kind of monstrous creatures would live this way? Trash their home and subject their own to pain out of spite?
It was time the Kingdom of animalia and plantae put a stop to this evil, a tumor rooting itself in the tissues of their beloved Mother Earth. It was time for the eradication of the human race, and they all knew it.
As the animals of all different shapes and sizes, furs, and scales, and plantae of varying stalks and leaves, sat and rooted themselves around the stone wall, cut smooth in a circle for them all to sit around in, they gossiped amongst themselves as they waited for their Lady Mother Nature to appear. If one of the human kind were to observe this ceremonious meeting of nature, their ears would be overwhelmed with the cacophony of growls, yaps, and chittering of the animals, and the creaking, snapping, and rustling of the plants.
Some of the members of the council had wanted this for a while now, ever since man learned how to set sail and populate the world, some still even during the time man first learned how to use tools. (For instance the tiger was hungry for vengeance for the way the human hunted them down for fashion and sport, as well as the rhino and elephant for merely only a piece of their ivory, and the descendants of mammoths who were hunted to extinction). They saw the danger of the human even then, when he first learned how to create fire, something alien and frightening to them. How could one species wield so much power? And yet many others were very fond of the human and his innovative ways. (The vulture very much appreciated the human’s hunting and their carelessness in leaving carcasses to waste. It made allocation of food all the more easier. Or the house cat found it amusing to toy with the humans that came under their influence, feigning powerlessness to them. Others held less nefarious connections towards the human, like the hummingbird who entreated itself to feeders some humans liked to put out on their lawns).
It pained them to know this would be the inevitable decision, but they knew it must be done. It was time for the animalia to shed their cloaks of pretended weakness and primitivity, and for the plantae, their roots and harmlessness. They would roam the Earth once more, and turn the tables on the humans: put them in cages to live and die as a way to farm them to replenish the soil of the plantae, fed until they’re fat for the carnivorous to be fed, run down by the more violent species as game, their skins shorn off to keep warm, as well as for fashion. No human could poach, deforest, or pollute the wonderful natural world of Earth again. It was only fair for the humans to meet the same fate they’d subjected the natural world to in cold blood. The lions and zebras could never forgive the capturing of their young to be jailed in zoos. The trees could never forgive the wasteful deforestation and slash and burn of the Amazons. The polar bear could never forgive the melting of their ice caps and glaciers.
As the animalia and plantae’s anger almost became too much for them, stirring up a fire in their souls, the calming green light many admire of the North came to rest over them. Their Lady Mother Nature was here.
She descended from the green light, a beacon in the night to calm the unrest the council members of animalia and plantae felt. She spoke to them in a soothing, melodic lull. Any outsider supposedly watching this extraordinary, ridiculous event (namely, a human) would be transfixed to his spot, mesmerized by the Lady’s earthly beauty. She was bathed in a pale yellow light, clothed in bright emerald greens and deep purples, reflecting the Northern Lights she descended from. Ivy encircled her shoulders and twined down to her fingers.
All the Plantae and animalia bowed their heads to her. “Our Lady,” they murmured, in their corresponding sounds. From the center of their stone monument, she told them her will. “For years, we have been sympathetic to the human and his condition. But we can afford this
mercy no more,” She decried gravely. The council members murmured in agreement. “I have warmed the atmospheres of Earth, failed their crops, and sent them a great many, increasingly extreme storms, that have killed many. Yet, no matter the warnings I send, the humans do not heed them. It is with a heavy heart, I condemn the human to death, mass extinction, and eradication. They will be brought to the same injustices they have done unto you. This is the final verdict.” The council bristled with anticipation. They were ready. “Go now, and do what you must do. We must save our home,” and with that, wordlessly, the Lady ascended back to the heavens, in her green light. The humans would soon meet their end.
****************************************************************************** ******** Dog left the council meeting with a heavy heart. He stepped through the blue spiral of energy that allowed them all to travel to this sacred meeting place. He did not want to condemn the humans to such an awful fate. But alas his task was set before him. He must hunt down and tag humans to be eradicated. At least he only had to find them and didn’t have to carry out the deed, he consoled himself. (A howl to alert the tigers and lions, who were all too happy to volunteer to be the executioners, would do the trick.) Humans had never done any harm to him. In fact, he once lived with a wonderful family of four, who spoiled him with food from their plates, long walks, and chew toys. He prayed he would never find them and have to report them to the executioners and gatherers. He hoped they were already dead, from famine and not this recently declared crusade. Part of him wondered if he would even be able to bring himself to report them if he saw them; to condemn them to their end and keep loyal to the natural community. He pushed this treasonous thought out of his mind. He had a hunt to tend to.
Many days later, perhaps adding up to a couple years after the council meeting, Dog was in pursuit of a man, one of the many straggling survivors of the Lady’s warnings and the crusade. Humans have, since the meeting, been dispersed and reduced to small groups, pathetic compared to their once great cities of amassed people.
From the smell of his target, Dog could tell he was a stocky, chubby man. He could smell the fear on him, as well as a hint of guilt. The tracks told him everything. This man was once a powerful CEO, a man of greed and wealth who did nothing to help his people; raped the materials of the Earth. This man Dog was not in the least bit sorry to be hunting. He could even have killed him himself if he had to.
After a fair amount of sniffing into the night, Dog found him, up a dead tree, gripping the decaying boughs in fright. He was lucky the tree was dead. If it were alive, it would have shook him from its branches, condemning him to a death from high heights. Dog howled to signal the executioners to come. The man knew they were coming, from Dog’s howl, and he whimpered and cried. His patheticness gave off a putrid scent, and Dog carried along, onto his next assignment. The Lady transmissioned new scents to Dog to track down after each assignment. This next one smelled familiar somehow.
It was not Dog’s old family, he was sure of that. He knew their scents like the back of his tail. The tall, handsome father’s smell of pine and fresh mildew. The pretty, petite Mother’s sweet perfume, that smelled of vanilla and roses. The oldest daughter’s pheromone of cinnamon and ambrosia, and the youngest’s of baby powder and innocence. Last dog saw them, the mother was pregnant, soon to add to their family of four. Dog’s nose told him then that it was to be a
boy. He would smell of garlic and sweat. He dreaded each new assignment would be one of their smells.
This assignment though, was not them, to be sure. Nevertheless, the familiarity unsettled him. It smelled of lavender and aloe vera hand cream. A scent often equated with old, aged femininity. Dog followed along the path. He should be able to spot his target at any moment now. It was usually pretty easy. Every organism of nature was on the hunt to eradicate the human. Any living plant would send a whisper off its leaves to the hunt, indicating a human was close by. Some humans had figured this out and went to places where nothing grew, which also made it easy for them to spot, as there was not much to hide them. Dog’s area of hunt was somewhere where great trees used to reside, but humans cut many of them down, and the rest unrooted themselves from the soil and fled. Dark dirt and dead logs, lifeless humus and boulders were all that remained of this habitat.
At last Dog happened upon her. She was taking shelter within a large, hollow, dead log, trembling from fear and cold. With her fluffy grey hair and small bunioned feet, Dog recognized her. She was his family’s elderly neighbor. She was always a cranky old woman, caring about nothing but her garden and knitting. The family was fond of her however. Underneath that crotchety attitude, Dog supposed she cared for them very much as well, as she often gifted them cookies in the winter, or a watermelon from her garden in the summer.
Dog never cared much for her, as whenever she invited the family over, he had to stay outside, so as to not muddy her white furniture, or shed his hair on the carpet. Despite this though, he pitied her current state. She spotted him and locked eyes with him, pleading to not report her. Dog dipped his nose in apology. I must.
As Dog lifted his muzzle to the sky, about to let out the call, a rustling to his left pricked his ear. “Don’t!” A little voice cried. Dog turned and he faltered. Before him he saw the youngest daughter, once four now eight. Her brown hair was matted to her head, her clothes tattered, but her eyes burned with determination. “She’s with us!” She pointed to the old woman. The older sister’s head popped out of a cave made of stone, as if to pull her younger sister back into hiding, but it was now too late. The older sister gave Dog a look of despair. She knew her sister had doomed them. A little boy, following the younger sister, no older than the age of three or four, waddled out from the stone outcropping. The unborn baby boy, Dog realized.
As if the boy recognized Dog too, although Dog had no idea how, as he had been unborn last he smelled him, the boy waddled over to Dog and hugged him, at the horror of the older sister. “M-M-Max,” The boy blubbered. Dog had forgotten his old name the family called him by. Dog froze. As Dog wondered how in the world the little boy could’ve known who he was, the younger sister stomped over to Dog, unafraid and threw a square of white at Dog. It fluttered before him, in between his two front legs. He looked at it, and his ill-colored eyesight could make out a photograph,of a time that seemed long ago. The father and mother smiled, the mother’s hand on her bulging belly, and Dog wondered why they weren’t with their children. Below, in the photo, the two daughters kneeled on the floor and in between them was Dog himself.
After all these years. After everything that happened. After Dog abandoned them, they still had this photo, they still held onto this time where Dog knew their love. And they told the stories to the brother, who knew none of the memories. Yet he approached Dog with only love. If dogs could cry, Dog would’ve drowned in a puddle of his own tears. The event he feared most was upon him.
Dog didn’t know what to do. He looked back and forth, to and fro, between the four people he saw before him. He had to make a decision. Before he could stop himself, he spoke.
“There is an old space facility, 15 or so miles from here. Go, grab anyone you can and take them there. There is a metal bird that will shoot you beyond the sky, and you can escape. You can be free of the futures of Earth. I will meet you there. Follow my droppings.” Dog turned away without another word. He could not believe what he had done, but it was too late now. He trudged along leaving his trail as he promised.
************************************************************************ ********* Dog waited at the mouth of the abandoned bunker for four days, anxious for his humans to find him. He was never good at patience. He recalled the times he would be alone in the house, when his humans went to school or work. It always seemed like an eternity to him as he waited for them to return. Then, as he thought he could wait no longer, when the deafening silence of patience could’ve killed him, he would hear the telltale noise of tires on pavement, and car lights reflecting off the windows. He’d bark happily, wag his tale with glee, and jump on the door to watch his family trudge up the door steps. They always greeted him with pats and “oh good dog we missed you!” Dog used to yap in return.
This reunion would not be like that.
At last Dog saw figures at the horizon of his vision, dark silhouettes with the setting sun. He could make out 12 blobs in front of him, a ragtag group of bent over bipeds, worn from their journey. Dog couldn’t help himself, he felt his tail prick and wag.
He didn’t dare yap though, for fear of giving away their location. He beckoned to the approaching humans. “In there,” he spoke softly, pointing his nose to the bunker. “Quickly now inside,” Dog prodded them along with his snout. He didn’t dare take the time to pause and study them. As the last one disappeared inside, and Dog took one last scan of the outside, he followed them into the bunker.
The humans were awestruck by the large aircraft sitting before them, dormant. Dog hoped one of them knew how to use it. The humans all looked at each other expectantly, as if they were thinking the same. A man stepped forward, his arm around a woman with shaggy blond hair, and wide blue eyes. A curl of dark hair found its home in front of his eyes, and a slender nose took up prominence on his face. A beauty mark beside his lip danced as he spoke “My wife, Sheila and I, were pilots once. I’m sure we can figure this bird out,” He smiled tiredly at his wife. She nodded without confidence.
“Hurry,” Dog urged. He beckoned for everyone to board the ship.
A noise, a vibration, pricked at Dog’s hearing. Someone was outside of the bunker. No, a many someone’s. Dog’s tail faltered between his legs in fear. They were here. Someone has found Dog out, and with him his humans. “You all need to leave,” Dog growled. “You must leave Earth at once. For good,” Dog turned to leave.
“Where are you going?”
Dog turned back. It was the older sister. He saw the fear in her eyes. She knew, she
always knew how to read Dog best. She knew danger was near. An understanding set between them. The sister nodded. Dog knew she’d take care of them all. She was always so brave, so mature for her age.
The sister rushed everyone onto the ship. Before closing the hatch, she tearfully stooped down to Dog and hugged him goodbye. “Thank you,” She whispered. A tear fell from her eye onto Dog’s nose. It smelled of salt, and heartbreak. Dog watched as she stared out at him, sliding out of his view as the ship’s hatch closed. A rumble from within the ship shook the bunker. Dog knew they’d get out of here. They’d be safe. That was all that mattered to him.
He could hear the snarls of the animals he betrayed. He began his walk to the gauntlet, to buy his humans some time.
Dog sadly noted that the Mother and Father were not among the 12 humans that escaped in the ship. Dog could only assume that they were dead. At least now, soon, in facing his crimes against the Kingdom of nature, he might see them again.
He could see shadows on the walls now, coming towards him, the growls getting louder. His time on Earth was ticking down to mere seconds now. He braced himself for the violence that would soon be upon him. He was about to fight, him alone against many. As they marched towards him, anger in their eyes, Dog recreated an image of the old photo the younger sister threw at him days ago. He would die fighting with their memory in his eyes.
************************************************************************ ***************** The humans left the atmosphere with a bang, and the older sister mourned, both the loss of her home and of Dog.
In time, the humans adapted quickly to their new life, as humans tend to do. They breathed oxygen by electrolysis, sustained themselves on artificial plant farms, and tried to make the best of their metal home. With nowhere to set off to, no planet within reach of their mortal lives, they simply continued to orbit the Earth, punished and exiled from the planet that once housed them.
Some had offspring, but it wasn’t enough to carry on the human race. The irony. Most of them would’ve thought their kind would go out with a bang, nuclear weapons destroying everything. But the end of the human race was more like a whisper, a candle being silently blown out in the fury of a storm. A single rain droplet among many joining others in a lake.
And Earth? It flourished once again, as it did before the dawn of the homo sapiens. The animals and plantae lived once again in their balanced cycles of harmony and discord. Lady Mother Nature calmed the weathers again, the temperature back to normal. The virus of the human was gone, so there was no need to heat Earth into a fever. Vines and fungus grew up and around the old structures of concrete and buildings of glass. Headstones within graveyards became broken and weathered by lichen and ice. It was like humans had never been there at all. Gone, without a trace.