Storytime 1: The Forest

Once upon a time in a land of Fabrication: The town and the Forest

Far away in a village,
On the edge of a forest,
At the age of becoming a man,
Every child is sent with
A white iv'ry dagger
To the woods to survive, if they can.

One such child did approach
Their own trial of the forest;
A thing they were coming to dread -
They had seen, in their childhood
Three strong, healthy sisters
Dissapear, to be presumed as dead.

How they begged! How they cried!
But my sisters have died!
Why must I go and venture alone?
Still the town just replied:
It is part of our lives
To go forth and confront the unknown.

Far away in a village
At the edge of a forest
Lived a child: Young, frightened, and pale.
Still they go to the woods
With their white iv'ry dagger,
firm and sure that they're going to fail.

- The end of this story is still unsung. It is true, the child found no death among the trees; foolish though it seemed to hope, what they found instead was a community of all the 'lost' children, children who had found the heartless rituals of their homeland to be callous and careless and cruel. And while cruelty could be measured against reason and growth, throwing good children to their potential deaths merely as a test struck them as pointless.

The child found their sisters there, healthy and strong, and ready to welcome the next poor soul thrown to the woods to a camraderie of community and mutual growth and freedom from inane and impersonal laws. But I do not know if that child stayed with their sisters, or if they turned around and returned to what was familiar, predictable, and sure to hail them a hero for their survival, to a life where they would also needlessly send children to what they would be sure was their own demise.

Would they forget their sisters in the forest? Or simply think that, having not been warned themselves, why should anyone else be warned? What was the lesson here? I do not know. I will not know, I think, not for some time.

But I like to think they chose their family, in the end.