nature

Is it Good?

‘Here.’ This tiny creature is stalking through a jungle. He sees the tall branches and waving leaves on one side, and notices the huge tumbling vines on the other side. They do not look safe to him.

Ahead are silly umbrellas. They have pointy-looking hats and seem to be the perfect spot to stop under if it’s raining. They look safe.

A vegie patch with “not very pleasant” additions

The huge waving “trees” have been planted on purpose, as has the tumbling vine. To be fair, the beautiful plant beside him has been planted as well, but that has been put there to be looked at and not touched.

‘And what are these very large soft pebble-like things for,’ thinks the tiny creature to himself. ‘They don’t smell “bad” exactly, but they don’t smell particularly good either.’ He pokes at one with his tiny stick and it crumbles apart. Immediately the sand beneath it looks “happier”, if sand could look happy.

‘Interesting,’ thinks the tiny creature. ‘But, I am getting wet and I would like to take shelter. Perhaps I should get one of those umbrella looking things.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ says a voice from inside him, and it makes him jump.

‘What?’ he squeaks. ‘Why?’

‘Those umbrella looking things, as you call them, are not very pleasant at all. They should not be there, and they should not be touched.’ And a large hand reaches down and removes the umbrellas from the soil, although we really can’t call it soil. Not yet, anyway.

‘I’ve eaten umbrellas before,’ thinks the small creature. ‘They were just fine to eat. Why can’t I take shelter under these ones?’

‘They are not what you think they are,’ says the inner voice, and despite him knowing the voice is there, the small creature jumps again.

‘They don’t look well,’ he mutters under his breath. ‘They have no juiciness to them. They are thin and frail. I do not think I will get any kind of safety from trying to shelter myself under these umbrellas.’ And, the closer he looks at them, the more he is afraid. These umbrellas are decidedly not healthy and, although it is strange they have appeared in the garden (here we raise an eyebrow at those crumbling pebble-like things) they are not to be eaten. Not at all.

‘I am getting very wet from this rain though,’ thinks the tiny creature to himself. ‘Where will I take shelter?’

‘Look at the big leaves where the vines are tumbling,’ says the inner voice.

‘They don’t look safe?’

‘They are very safe. Eventually they will give us beautiful big gourds called “Honeydew”.’

‘They will?’

‘Yes indeed. But, you will have to wait until they are ready. You can’t eat them now, and you can’t eat the leaves.’

‘Why can’t I,’ the tiny creature demands, and he begins to jump up and down with frustration.

‘Because, if you eat them now, what will you take cover under when it rains again?’

It sounds to the tiny creature that this inner voice is smiling at him. He begins to grin. He can’t help it. This inner voice is making him giggle and he knows it is right.

‘Fine then,’ he says, and kicks at one of the pebbles. It crumbles apart and sinks into the soil. ‘What is this stuff?’

‘Do you really want to know?’ The voice sounds even more amused.

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ The tiny creature jumps on another pebble and it disintegrates. ‘They are funny looking pebbles, and I think I like them. What are they?’ He decides to roll in one. The smell is not that bad, but it’s not that good either.

The voice he has been listening to is really starting to laugh now. It is so overwhelming to him he starts laughing as well, and he doesn’t know why. He likes this voice, but he is not going to ask it again what these weird looking pebble things are. He wonders if it tastes better than it smells. Maybe he should try it?

‘I wouldn’t do that either,’ the voice advises. ‘It’s not really a “thing”. Not with that type of stuff anyway.’

‘Well.’ The little creature shrugs. ‘You never told me what it was, so I’m gonna do what I like in it.’

‘Oki-dokey then,’ the voice says. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

The voice begins to fade and the tiny creature starts to wonder. The voice had not told him the stuff was bad, but it had not told him it was good either. The creature starts to think of how it is helping the soil, and how things are growing because it is there. There is only one thing that might achieve this, that he knows of, and he jumps up as quickly as he can, and starts to brush it off.

‘What is it?’ he calls to the slowly departing voice. ‘What type is it? Will it hurt me?’

‘It won’t hurt you.’ The voice slowly returns. ‘It’s really very mild. That’s why you need so much of it.’

‘Okay. So, what is it again? Just so I’m sure.’

‘Sheep shit,’ says the voice and the little creature finds this so funny, that he has kicked it, and rolled in it, and thrown it around, that he begins to laugh out loud.

‘And, what am I,’ he asks, although it is already dawning on him that he is rather important, in the scheme of things. He wouldn’t usually go after poo like this, he would normally go after something a little more ‘greasy’.

‘A dung beetle,’ says the voice. ‘You are a dung beetle. And, no you could not eat my plants.’

The Enjoyment of Rain

When I first stepped outside this morning I could hear the water gurgling down the pipes and into the gutters. This started me thinking whether it had been raining.

It is the middle of summer, here in Western Australia, and where I live it is not the usual time for rain. I am wearing a t-shirt and it’s warm. Occasionally, we will get mornings like this, and those are the mornings one may wish to dance in the rain.

‘Hmm,’ I thought. ‘The atmosphere around my home seems slightly misty. Perhaps it rained a little earlier and I’m simply hearing the after-effects.’

To check this theory, I looked at the sand and I looked at the fence, but could not see any evidence there had been rain. The downpipes continued to gurgle (as they do while I’m writing this).

‘If there is water coming down those pipes, it must have been raining at some point, so why can’t I see it,’ I thought to myself. I decided to step out from under the roof of my tiny patio, and onto the sand of my backyard. Immediately it could be felt, a warm glossing liquid over my skin. The soft, almost invisible to the naked eye, gentle light rain upon my face and hair felt like someone spritzing me, but without the sound of the spritzer, the someone, or the harsh squirt I might feel on my face.

‘So,’ I nod to myself now. ‘This is awesome. I quite like it.’

As I think, and look around, and hear the giggling and glugging of the drainpipes begin to quieten, and see the cat on the wall at the back fence, I know he and the other creatures up with me this morning are all enjoying the gentleness of this warm and sweet gift of rain, as small as it may be.

I believe the cat has gotten over it, though. He’s currently digging another hole to Bermuda.

I’ll explain the Bermuda theory in another post perhaps. Today, we simply enjoy the experience of rain.

What is a fairy tale?

‘Doing this properly or not, are we?’

My translation is too rough for you. You can’t do this thing and I cannot help you.

The small green frog has nestled himself within the zucchini bushes and frets about what he will do next to escape the cat.

Zucchini plant in our garden.

The cat is merely a small white and black moggie who considers himself a saviour to humans. He is rather proud of himself – which is very catlike and normal for cats.

‘Do I need saving from a frog,’ thinks the human. ‘There really are not enough of them around for me to be saved from them. Perhaps you should reconsider the circumstances of el cato.’

The circumstances of el cato were deliberately falsified by other human beings. We do not return to that horrible place. He thinks this often and it has been agreed the cat’s “mother” had been right all along. He sees a large and heavy ball by a wall, coloured to resemble waves on water or electricity (which are really quite similar). It was a pond the princess had been playing beside in the original story by the brothers Grimm or was that Hans Christian Anderson? This is the purpose of the frog and the “maid” – to share these stories with new thinking and similarities that show how the blending is done.

An old float repurposed as a garden ornament. It is very heavy as it has water inside and we are not sure how the water got in there.

The frog can hear this from under the large leaves of the zucchini plant. ‘What about me,’ he burps quietly to himself. ‘Do I need saving, or can I just dig myself a hole?’

There are many questions floating around in the small garden of the family. The frog suggests the people mama do not go out to the back fence because a kangaroo child is also listening in.

They have all watched the child of the small brown kangaroo follow his mother back and forth along the hot street. Some have seen how she gets stuck when a route she used one morning is blocked the following morning and she must feed her child by a fence with no openings she can discern. Some think they should be fed, although this is not the way of the kangaroo. All she needs to find her offspring (and here the frog would grin as his mouth is wide and the perfect shape to perform such an act) is some narrow-leaved plants with lovely sweet pieces that sit just under the soil.

‘That is all I need as well,’ thinks the frog. ‘Just some plants that are damp enough I can find some insects to eat. I am very good at hunting insects.’

‘How is the translation going,’ questions the female bird. ‘Am I getting this right again?’

‘Understanding and doing is not the… damn it,’ says the frog around an insect whose legs are long and crunchy. ‘Then count me as I jump, for I would rather be a bearer of good news.’

Pleading with me will not work, for I did not put him here.

Can we see him yet, though? Is he rounded and full with new information? Can he see the light of day? Must he always be such a pain in the arse, or will the mother realise he is dreaming again?

Does she even know my Hame, thinks the kangaroo child, for he has learnt at least one language other than his own in recent years.

The mother looks up from her position at the table. ‘They are spying,’ she thinks to herself, and she is right, for they have been trying to write with her this whole time.

They do not wish to be horrible, thinks the frog, but they do not know why she thinks they are friendly.

‘I do not believe she ever thought they were friendly,’ the cat yells from the back door. ‘Oh whoops, I didn’t realise it was open,’ he thinks as the person stares down at him with vague irritation. Ducking his head to apologise for his own small thinking, he clicks and clacks his way down a dark corridor to where he knows a large and comfortable sleeping place awaits. ‘This is the only place that is friendly, and this is where I am staying. These are my people, and I am a cat.’

He thinks loudly out the window and a kangaroo child is frightened by his noisiness. 

‘Bugger off, I said.’

The little beast is dumbfounded. How did such a big thought come out of such a small cat? The cat smiles to himself. He has been training with humans, and learnt how to borrow their voices to make his own thinking louder. He leaps onto the mattress and gazes at the man who talks in his sleep.

‘This one continues to surprise me with these thoughts,’ says the wannabe demon of his large human counterpart. ‘Where is that frog again?’ He jumps off the bed.

The frog sneaks off with a plip and a plop to find himself a hole in the sand. He just wants to live another day and get some new ideas.

‘This one is too much for frogs,’ he thinks. ‘She doesn’t like me at all.’

He would be dumbfounded to know he was right.

A “recalibration” (retelling) of The Frog Prince, with dashes of Rapunzel. Spoken with Grimm determination in an Australian accent.

C.S Capewell.