A Jungle Fairytale

“Freaaack” resounded through the jungle, bouncing off rocks and boulders, whistling past sensitive eardrums, causing ears to prick and twitch.

Job done, Harry the Hadeda Ibis laboriously launched his heavy body from the top of the pine tree and flapped his wings lugubriously, aiming for a pocket of trees some distance away.  The great news had to be shared throughout the forest as soon as possible, and he was just the bird for the job.  His raucous, jarring call, sounding like a very rude exclamation, was sure to get the attention of all. 

Today, the Thai Prime Minister had agreed to introduce a ban on ivory trading.  International pressure had built up to a powerful head of steam - the final straw was when a collective of actors and film stars threw their make up into the ring, refusing to make any more movies until the creepy little corner pharmacies closed down.

Not, the minister thought, that she was too worried about a shortage of Merchant and Ivory films in her local DVD store, but when Jean Claude van Damme, the ‘muscles from Brussels’ locked the door to his private gym, and announced that he was going to stop training and set his car on autopilot, continuously revolving slowly around the infamous golden arches of the drive thru burger joint, eating to bursting point, she knew that the time for action had come.

The idea of his taut and oiled torso stretched over a belly bulging with fat and the emergence of moobs on what was, in her eyes, perfection, brought her to tears and action faster than the thousands of smelly greenies camped on her lawn. Chanting bunny huggers she could ignore, but Claude...

Meanwhile, the jungle drums boomed the happy news, finally reaching the somewhat oversized ears of Nelly, matriarch of the hidden herd.  The very last elephants in Africa had fled into hiding some time ago, fearing for their tusks and their lives.  Of course, as time went on, the absence of the herds was noted in the jungle – trees sprang up and grew unchecked, and the sun loving grass under the canopy shrivelled and died for lack of light. 

Marula’s dropped from the trees and lay on the ground, rotting.  The glut of fermented fruit turned entire troops of baboons, gorillas and chimps into alcoholics, and let me tell you, the sight of a hung over Silverback, wearing the babelaas from hell, is not a pretty one.  Baby apes were neglected, ungroomed and hungry, as their parents lolled about on the branches in drunken stupors, or worse, made complete idiots of themselves trying to dance on the treetops, or brawling in the clearings.

Dung Beetles, bereft of the nutritious meals left for them by Nelly and her cohorts, resorted to munching monkey pellets.  Unfortunately, the poor Dung Beetle actually needed the special nelle-phant mix;  ape pooh, rich in the fermented fructose processed from the glut of marulas, upset the little beetle’s sensitive digestion, and was, in fact, totally useless for laying her eggs in – without the binding benefits of grass, the sloppy remains just didn’t do the job, and the eggs rotted away. 

Worse than overgrown trees, no grass, drunken monkeys and mountains of sewerage left lying about, with no beetles to roll it away, was the water situation.  The sweet little Suni antelope really needed Nelly and her crew to gash away at the mud and sand, drawing the underground water to the surface.

Once the big ou’s had their fill, she was able to tiptoe down and delicately sip at the moisture left for her.  Now, she was so thirsty, her beautiful eyes were unable to produce any tears to roll gently down her petite cheeks.

Nelly stared thoughtfully across the treetops.  The long reaches of her memory banks dimly recalled the path home, to the luscious palm trees that she loved to push over and the crunchy long grass that always got stuck in her teeth.

Should she lead the family home after all this time?  What if the bush telegraph was slow to reach the greedy butchers who caused all the trouble?  Lovingly, she looked over at Keyring, the newest member of the herd.  Just two days old, still wobbly on his pink pads, her heart would break if anything happened to him...

Suddenly, her olfactory sensors recalled the sweet smell of marulas, and her gastric juices rumbled in her tummy.  “Pack your trunks, we’re going home,” she announced.  Proving that the  popular Facebook page, Mums who do Wine is right after all - an old girl will go anywhere for a tipple or two.

This piece contains many deliberate (and some not-so-deliberate!) mistakes, put in specially to challenge the younger reader.  And note that Roger the Rhino and his relatives chose to remain in the witness protection scheme – a ban on Rhino horn based medication is not on the cards yet.)

First published in Live Lightly Times Vol 3 Issue 2 April 2013)