There Was A Wicked Messenger

 

      It was still spring in the vast deep forest. Ralph had been hunting deer, but now he was returning home with his buck draped over his left arm. Ramona was handy with a knife, so he was carrying it home to her. It has been a grand afternoon, a great chase, and Ralph was very pleased with his buck.
            He traveled the path that led down to his truly imposing fallen log headquarters. As he walked he began to notice a change in the atmosphere. Gone was his careless happy mood. He began to sense foreboding. Foreboding is pretty alien to Ralph, so he was pretty surprised by it. His steps slowed. He took note of his surroundings more seriously.
            Something was sitting on his log.
            Something was twice his height!
            “Fee Fie Fo Fum,” said the giant, without much originality, but with a lot of referential baggage.
            Ralph saw that this giant was between himself and all that was home and love. He sensed that a test was coming. He laid his deer on the forest floor, so as to have both hands free in case he needed both hands.
            “Do you have a name,” asked Ralph. “And why do I find you here?”
            “I am called Monstrous! You find me here because this day you will die here,” said the giant. His greenish skin shone dully in the afternoon light under the mighty trees. He had a snaky head of viny locks of some kind of tangled hair. He had a surly and coarse looking countenance, with a wide sneering mouth, and a big lumpy nose. His eyes were pale blue, almost white. A nasty looking customer!
            Now, Ralph was pretty good with a fairy tale and passing good with game theory. He thought about this big threatening lunk for a few moments. He smiled.
            “I shall call you Diminished. Nor shall I die this day,” said Ralph, in his most denigrating voice. “You shall be diminished here today!”
            A horrific bellow rent the air. It told of pain, rage and a great thwarting. Diminished threw up his hands, grabbing his head like an actor in a headache pill commercial. His skin turned gray. Bones grated together as he shrank to half of the size he had been when he first appeared on Ralph’s log. His nose became long and pointed. His locks of hair vanished, he was bald, and his head was lumpy. He grew a hump in his back, covered in black warts.
            “Not so pretty now, are ya,” said Ralph, laughing.
            The has-been giant’s voice was nasal, he coughed a couple of times, juicily, and said, “blab, blab as fast as you can. I’m still your death, forest man. I’ll gut you here, with my bare hands. No childhood’s drivel can withstand me!” His wicked little black eyes attempted to stab into Ralph’s heart. It hurt him to look there, so he squinted and screamed again, rubbing his eyes.
            Ralph looked around old Diminished. Down the path he could see Ramona working around her fire. He knew that Twigg was somewhere near, and little Cherry floated near her mother. He remembered his dear friend, Maeve. He thought of Bob and Berry, and even Uncle Bob! His heart grew even stronger.
            “You have no power of death over me, Vanquished, for so you are,” pronounced Ralph, no longer laughing, for the devilish prank had gone on long enough.
            Vanquished cried out in a tremulous strangled voice, all braggadocio gone. Once more his bones ground upon each other. He withered, and stank, like nasty toes. He looked for all the world like a naked pink vampire bat. He writhed in the air, suspended over the great log.
            “I loathe you, Ralph, with all the power of my black heart….” Vanquished shrieked in agony of soul, or whatever passes for soul in such creatures.
            “You shall be called Gone,” said Ralph, with finality.
            The mighty Raven, Maeve, dropped out of the sky like a sort of avenging avian bomb. She grabbed the pinkish bat by its nasty little neck, severing the head. The severed parts fell down through the air and vanished before touching the clean ground of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.
            “That was disgusting,” said Maeve, rather forcefully. “Ew. I wonder if Ramona has any garlic I can chew on?
            “Where did that thing come from?” said Maeve.
            Ralph picked up his deer, and said, “you should have seen it a few minutes ago!”
            Then Ralph, with his good friend, Maeve, headed on down to the fire circle to help around the fire and the cooking and everything else nice.
            “Anything exciting happen today?” said Ramona when she saw him appear with the deer and Maeve.
            “Not much, Dear Love, but I’ll tell the tale during dinner,” said Ralph.
            “It’s a deal,” she said. 

       Ralph carried in some more deadfall for the fire and it was a fine evening, with roasted venison for dinner.

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