It Was An Old Old Story

 

            The sun was just starting to come up. He was just starting to wake up. He could see just a little light inside the cave where he and his family slept. This was pleasant and cozy, to drowse there under the extra large quilt in the big wooden bed with Ramona, who snored delicately next to him.
            But he began to perceive a discordant sound. Rick was honking his horn. Not just once, but several times, in a little pattern he liked to do.
            Ralph sighed and sat up.
            This honking was a signal between them. It meant Rick wanted Ralph to come meet him at the station. Rick didn’t attempt to locate Ralph and knock on his cave door. He knew about the alternate nature of things in Ralph’s domain, the Great Forest. He’d never find that door unless brought to it.
            Ralph nudged Ramona and said quietly, “Rick wants me. I’ll go see what it is, so he’ll stop that honking.”
            “This early? Wow. OK. See you later,” said Ramona, also quietly. Blue stirred, but settled again and Ralph slipped out of the door, shutting it carefully behind himself.
            The forest was damp and dim and cool as he made his way up the path to the ranger station parking lot. And, indeed, there was Rick in the driver’s seat of his Forest Service truck beeping out paradiddles.
            “Rick, are you alright? Good morning. I’m here,” said Ralph. “What’s up?”
            Rick stopped honking and piled out of his vehicle. He stretched and grinned.
            “I’ve arranged a meeting. Dexter is in there. You remember him. He’s a little worried about who you are, and I thought who better to handle his questions than the man himself,” said Rick. “I bought two of those Smørkages in town last night, to entice you with! Dexter is making coffee!”
            “Sure. Let’s do it,” grinned Ralph.
            Inside the office there were two chairs facing Rick’s desk. One was that big old oak chair for Ralph, and the other was a regular office chair. The office appeared to unoccupied, but they could hear Dexter in the kitchen nook getting mugs and sugar and cream ready on a tray.
            “We’re out here, Dexter,” Rick said, so they didn’t have another fainting episode when Dexter showed up with the coffee tray.
            The two cakes were on the desk already with some little plates and a knife.
            Ralph and Rick sat and waited.
            Soon slender redheaded Ranger Dexter Morten came out of the kitchen with the tray. He sort of kept his eyes down. He set the tray down on the desk and took his seat next to Ralph’s left side.
            Outside the windows, the sun was coming up for real, and the forest was awakening.
            “Dexter, I’d like you to meet my friend Ralph here,” said Rick.
            All 150lbs of Dexter gathered his courage and looked up. “Hi..,” he said.
            All 700lbs, approximately because he’s never been actually weighed, and 9’ of Ralph sat there looking as friendly as he could manage. But, it’s always a bit of a shock to meet Ralph nearby. He held still and didn’t make any sudden movements.
            Then, “Hello, Ranger. Good to see you this morning!” said Ralph in his low rumbly voice.
            “Nice to meet you too,” said Dexter, “Sorry about that first meeting.”
            “Nah, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have walked up on you like that,” said Ralph, agreeably. “Rick said you have some questions.”
            “Let’s have coffee and cake first,” said Rick.
            Rick had both sugar and cream in his. Dexter just put a lot of sugar in his. Ralph had his black. That’s the only way he knew to have coffee. He was starting to think about cream and sugar though.
            Rick cut all the sections of the Smørkage apart for convenience, and they all had a very pleasant, but sticky, half hour eating cake and drinking coffee and talking about nearly nothing.
            “Now, Dexter,” said Ralph, “I’m all ears. Ask away!”
            “Well, now that we’ve met and eaten together, this is going to sound rude,” said Dexter, “but what are you? Are you a big hairy man, a human, or are you a talking animal of some kind? I mean, right now, you seem as human as anyone, just look different.
            “I never believed that you existed. I suppose that’s why I fainted before. I’m trying to make sense of it, and I can’t by myself.”
            Ralph pushed his big chair back from the desk and crossed his right foot over his left knee, lacing his fingers together over his belly.
            “Maybe,” he said, “I can answer you with an old story my mother told me. I’m sure she got it from her mother, and onward back into the mysterious, dim, past. This is what we Forest Keepers believe, though it is probably a myth. But myths are just shortened history, you know?”
            “I think so,” said Dexter.
            “It goes something like this,” said Ralph.
            “Long ago, before cities and kings and all of that, all mankind lived together all over the world in every type of situation you could think of, in forests, or prairies, on beaches, or wherever. They hunted and fished for food. There was no farming, but they had the fruits of the earth when they could get them, berries and such.
            “There were no houses, machines, books, or anything modern and made by the hands of man at all.
            “One day, someone like the guy the Natives of this land call Coyote came bearing the gifts of technology. He showed people how to build houses and make gardens. He showed them how to keep animals for captive prey He showed them how to write down their words too.
            “This caused a great division among all mankind. Some, charmed by technology, forgot the ways of the forest and the rivers and the mountains. Some, fewer, stayed in the forests and the mountains. Those who made houses and farms and books became softer and smoother as time went on, and even smaller! After centuries, the Forest Keepers and the Techno People looked like two different creatures. But once upon a time, it  had not been so.”
            Ralph sat quietly for a bit, then he said, “That’s the trouble with myths, isn’t it? No way to know on what level it’s literally true, or if it’s all a poetic take on what really happened. What do you think, Dexter? Does that sound like a reasonable myth?”
            “It’s like a fable,” said Dexter. “The story is broken down into little easy chunks. I suppose a scholar would say, if that was the case, that it showed extreme adaptation. But, at the root of it we are both mankind.”
                “I always thought the story left out an awful lot about history,” said Ralph. “Even I, a Forest Keeper, knows more about history than that. But the story kind of works.”
            “It works for me, Ralph. It answers my question. That’s good enough for me,” said Dexter. “I am rather relieved to know that you’re not some kind of giant talking monkey!”
            “I’m happy to have helped,” said Ralph. “Rick, thanks for the coffee and cake! But I’m beginning to think about breakfast down at the Home Clearing. Ramona will be looking for me, so I better skedaddle!
            “Hey, Dexter, let’s all get together, Rick too, one of these days at my place. OK? Ramona would love to have you over too. I’ll get her to pick a day and all of that!” And with that, Ralph was out of the door, across the parking lot, and down into the forest. He slipped out like a huge Ninja and was gone.
            “Wow,” said Dexter, the Forest Service trainee.
            “Yep!” said Rick. “You see why it’s better if we just don’t know a doggone thing about any Bigfoots in our forest.”

🍀