The Tale of the Ogre's Demise

"The Terrible Tale of the Grand High Ogre's Demise"

Once upon a time, but not so very long ago, in a land known as the Back Yard, there lived a happy conglomeration of creatures.  They were the luckiest animals in the neighborhood because they feasted on the finest neighborhood grass every night, right there in the Back Yard.  It grew in thick clumps of soft, emerald green, right outside the Kitchen Door.

The rabbits quietly munched the copious clumps of clover while the chipmunks skipped and chased each other all around the yard.  Early in the day, crows gathered and held their loud meetings about where was best to scavenge for food that day, or which areas of the yard had the best stores of nuts, hid poorly by the stupid squirrels that lived around the area.

The animals were always to be seen in the yard at various times of day… but if anyone looked extra closely, they would be able to see that the chipmunks were the only ones brave enough to get very close to the Kitchen Door.

It was said all around the quiet little neighborhood that an ogre lived in that corner house, the one with the best grass in the area.  But it wasn’t just any ogre – it was the Grand High Ogre, the most fearsome one ever to walk the earth.  There were tales, old ones, long told over the years, tales that the great-great-grandparents of the animals used to tell their young on dark, windy nights, that the Ogre was once human, but that anger and a general hatred for the world turned him into the monster he had become.  It began slowly, from inside of him, revealing itself as indigestion of cold pizza and cheeses at first.  Then it started to show on the outside, until the poor man no longer resembled anything like the human he once was.

More’s the pity for the kind-hearted folks who lived with the Ogre.  The animals who lived all around the house – the deer who guiltily stole quick evening snacks of the pine trees, the chipmunks who had dug a confusing and labyrinthine series of tunnels beneath the foundation of the house (centuries old), the carpenter bees who bore holes in the delicious wooden siding, even the stupid squirrels who stole their winter homes in the shallow attic of the house – all made sure to light a candle and say a prayer for those poor souls who had to endure the harsh hardness of the Ogre day in and day out.

But before long, the animals decided that they could stand the injustice no longer.  So they decided to go to Trevor.

Unbeknownst to the kind-hearted humans inside the house, there was a network of Gremlins that also lived around their home.  They were related to the Little Green Men who had once lived there, and often hosted the Leprechauns during the St. Patrick’s Day festivities, especially when it snowed.  (Now, the Gremlins and Leprechauns were usually very good at keeping inconspicuous and invisible around the humans, but there was one St. Patrick’s Day that almost caused a breech of the whole operation: a poor sickly Leprechaun, by the name of Lewellyn, had a stout while on medication, and had slipped deliriously out into the snow, leaving a very plain set of green footprints all around the house, and then fell promptly to sleep in a pile of snow – right in front of the Kitchen Door!  The rest of the Gremlins and Leprechauns spent all that morning trying to find Lewellyn and hide his trail.  But they’re still quite sure that the humans have not yet forgotten the event.) 

Trevor, a garden gnome who escaped from the screaming and stuck-up neighbors just beyond the Back Yard, had established himself as the leader of the Gremlins.  He was older and wiser, and had a snowy white beard that all the Gremlins envied.  And so they respected him and accepted him as leader.

“Honestly, Trevor, he was screaming about the Communists again.  I don’t know for how much longer these humans can stand it!”  It was rather late at night and the animals were gathered at an emergency Back Yard meeting in and around the big plastic house in the Back Yard (with the deer standing outside and peeking in through the windows.)  “Chip III has already followed Chip II’s and Chip I’s example and run away.”  It was Jekyll the blue jay talking.  He’d been around for a few years and could remember all these folks.  “I know the rabbits have been talking of leaving.  And George,” he said, turning to a roly-poly red chipmunk, “I have to say; I just don’t know how you can stand it.” 

George only shrugged and burped and said, “They give me nuts.”

“Well, that’s what I, II, and III all said.  But they had their fill.  You just wait.  I know you’ll go crazy, too.”  A smaller, younger chipmunk was talking.  He was sitting in the meeting hall next to a second young chipmunk.

“That’s why we live way out in the pile of wood in the woods,” she was saying. 
“There’s no way you’ll ever catch us eating his peanuts.  I don’t care how nice the other humans are, though I do pity them.”  The first chipmunk nodded his consent.
 
“And we’re doing all we can, cawing and cawing early in the morning,” put in a crow, standing with a couple of others on the ledge of the red, plastic door.  “We’re trying to drive him crazy, only I fear we’re doing the same to the other poor souls.”  The gang of big, glossy black crows all cawed in agreement.

“Oliver, what say you?” Trevor asked, turning to one of the windows to face a sleek, handsome woodpecker.  (The mourning doves in the corner all hooted adoringly.)

“Well, I’ve been trying to peck away at the siding again, but all those windows confuse me and I can never guess which one is his.  Plus they just put up new siding with fresh paint, and it tastes just awful.”

“Well quit your whining and keep at it.  These humans are suffering much more than that.  I think you can endure a little bit of a sour breakfast for them.”

“Oh all right.”

“So what can we do?” Jekyll concluded to Trevor.  “These are all gallant attempts and sacrifices, truly.  But I feel much more needs to be done.”

“What exactly do you suggest, Jekyll?  Run the house down?  Where are the other humans going to go?  We must think of them through all this.”  Trevor was exasperated.  He was worn out with all of this postulating, and the animals could tell he was really very sorry that there seemed to be nothing more they could do.

All that night, all of the animals remained in the house and thought and thought and thought, and planned and re-planned, and hypothesized and dramatized, but at the end of the day, they had thought of nothing.

Finally, just as the animals were about to give it all up for lost, a small Gremlin made a nearly inaudible squeak, and the entire company turned to him.  His quiet, quivery voice somehow found its way to every ear present: “I have an idea.”

* * *
It was getting along toward the autumn of the year, and the creatures of the Back Yard were not faring well.  They really had to hand it to the humans for sticking with it for so long.  Trevor was often heard to say in an awestruck tone: “They are an example to us all.”

The two little rabbits that usually had their dinner in the Back Yard finally had all they could stand and relocated to the Front Yard.  They were sorry to have to leave all that delicious clover behind, but it was getting to the point that they could no longer enjoy even that, what with all of the foul and hateful language that came out from the Kitchen Door.  But they could not reconcile moving without leaving some small thing for the poor humans.

At one Back Yard meeting, they presented their token of some unknown and covered structure. 

“We call it,”

“The ‘Rabbot’.”  And off came the drape that covered the structure, and what was to be seen but a slightly larger looking rabbit.

The meeting group stared, agape, but the two rabbits stood calmly and explained:

“It looks like a rabbit –“

“It eats like a rabbit –“

“It even scrunches its nose like a rabbit –“

“But it’s not a rabbit!”

“It’s a robot.”

“Thus, ‘Rabbot’.”

A collective gasp of dawning comprehension swept across the room.

“It can plunk itself right in the Back Yard, and all the while it looks to be eating, we can watch and see what’s all going on.”  They pointed to a screen attached to the wall in the back of the room.

“But there’s more!”  The first rabbit held up a remote control and showed the group the largest button.  “We can mute the sound!”

Cheers sounded all around and the meeting group erupted into thunderous applause. 

Trevor came up to them and clapped both of them on the back.  “Bravo!  Well done!  You have certainly earned your retirement to the Front Yard.”

And so, every night, the Rabbot was seen eating its dinner, just like all the other rabbits, and the Gremlins were able to keep tabs on the Ogre’s behavior and the plight of the humans thanks to the cameras in the Rabbot’s eyes.  But most importantly, they could gauge, by what was going on through the Kitchen Door, when would be the most opportune time to set the plan moving. (The rains that had been falling, however, had for a while caused some shorts in the Rabbot’s system, because the creature sometimes appeared to freeze in the midst of eating, as if it forgot what it was doing.  But a maintenance crew of flees got it back to operating correctly.)

Then one day the animals of the Back Yard felt a change in the weather: the wind had shifted, and it carried the faintest smell of snow.  Immediately, Jekyll gathered the animals and the Gremlins for an emergency meeting.  It was time for Phase I of the Plan.  Trevor gave a resounding speech, and then everyone bowed their heads in a prayer for the humans; while this Plan was meant to deliver them once and for all from their suffering, they had yet to endure the Ogre’s wrath.  For the animals did not mean to go easy on him.

They waited for the first day that was cold enough for a fire.  The little Gremlin whose brilliant mind hatched the whole thing was given the honor of beginning Phase I.  He made sure to drink plenty of liquids all day long and not budge until he could hardly move.  Then he sneaked into the garage and relieved himself on the pile of wood that was all set and ready for burning.  By the time the Ogre got to it to start a fire in the wood-burning stove, the wood was too damp to catch fire.  It only emitted a thick, grey smoke, and gave off a putrid stench, contaminating the den the Ogre occupied. 

A few days later, the relentless Gremlins began Phase II.  What began as a series of seemingly harmless little pranks turned into a battle against impending insanity on the Ogre’s part.  First, in the dead of night while the household slept, the Gremlins sneaked into the Ogre’s den and mixed his pipe tobacco with pepper.  The Ogre sneezed for three days straight, screaming and cussing and working up such a fit of aggravation that he finally stuffed his nose with popcorn to stop it.  The Gremlins, watching it all through the eyes of the Rabbot, laughed for weeks afterward.

They let a few days pass before striking again.  Then one afternoon, after the Ogre quickly stepped out of the den to relieve himself, a Gremlin who was staked out in the corner of the room behind some storage boxes (and rather uncomfortably close to a big black spider), dashed out and swiped one of the Ogre’s most prized possessions: a heavy, golden ring.  It wasn’t until a day or two had passed that the Ogre realized it was missing.  He got magnificently angry and screamed and cussed some things about losing his memory.  The animals and the Gremlins were somewhat anxious as to the safety of the humans with the Ogre in such a state, but as far as they could tell, no physical damage came to them.  This was getting dangerous, but Trevor had to admit they were making progress.

Then, late one afternoon, before the Ogre had a chance to cool off from losing the golden ring, the Gremlins had some of the deer take Jekyll, George, and another chipmunk to an inconspicuous payphone.  They dialed the house number, waited for the Ogre to pick up, and then hung up the phone.  They did this on and off for an hour, slowly driving the monster crazy.  Then at dinner that same night, as the family sat at the table eating an oven-cooked meal while a second course finished cooking in the oven, a Gremlin kept turning off the oven, jumping up to hit the button (taught so by the rabbits) just as the ogre was sitting.  Now, he was still annoyed by the phone calling only a short time earlier, and this prospect of a fickle oven and a cold dinner just about pushed him over the edge.

The humans all the while kept a remarkably low profile.  They had had years of practice.  But they were a little frightened about what was happening to the Ogre.  Could he really be going insane?  Not that they cared at all.

Finally, it was time for Phase III.  The day was just like any other, with the women of the house out at work, the youngest at school, and the middle at the gym.  The Ogre was enjoying a calm afternoon of no responsibility.  It wasn’t yet time for the pesky telemarketers to call (although the Ogre jumped at any high-pitched sound that came from the TV); the itchiness in his nose had long since stopped; but he was still rather annoyed at having lost his golden ring.  Other than that, all seemed just fine.

The Gremlins, however, were busy getting ready, adrenaline rushing through their miniscule veins: this was it!  The Final Battle!  The Last Straw.  They all positioned themselves in various corners and vents and generally shadowy places around the house, and when the Ogre was as comfortable as he could get, they all began to whisper ever so softly.  At first the Ogre didn’t hear anything over the TV.  But at a signal from Trevor – the cawing of the crows – the voices began to slowly grow louder.

The Ogre only heard a faint buzzing at first and feared a return of the carpenter bees.  When he saw nothing of the sort around the eaves of the house, he began to worry a little.  Where was the sound coming from?  Then he began to distinguish certain words – terrible, hurtful, ugly words.  He stopped his ears with his hands, but the noise only became louder.  Such words!  Who would ever say such things?  He stormed up to the bathroom and tried to stuff cotton and tissue and even towels into his ears, but the noises persisted.  At a complete loss as to what to do, he spun around and around and batted at his ears, creating a thundering roar, attempting to drown out the sound, but the voices could still be heard!

And then finally he stopped – and looked up – and saw his reflection in the mirror – and then he saw his own mouth moving.

The words were coming from his own mouth!

And for one glisteningly crystal clear moment in a lifetime of noise and screaming and hatred – he understood.  And then he ran, screaming, for the hills and disappeared into a thick, dark forest.  No one ever saw him again.

That night there was great celebration in the Back Yard.  The animals were treated to a magnificent feast (shared covertly with the Gremlins).  And within the house, (which was full to bursting point with all sorts of people) for the first time in years, there was light and laughter and love and music and singing.  Everyone was happy and smiling.  And free.

And they all lived peacefully and happily ever after, for a very long, long time.

The end.