Bridget Carvertoy and the Sorrow Forest

Bridget Carvertoy and the Great Sorrow Forest


Far out in the Pacific Ocean there is a small island covered almost entirely by a large forest called the Great Sorrow Forest.

While you might think it's an ugly place, just because of its name, it’s actually quite beautiful. The trees are covered with deep green and blue leaves and full of tasty fruit, the bushes and shrubs on the ground are bright red and covered with many-colored flowers and berries, and the animals that live there are playful and fuzzy.

Why is it called the Great Sorrow Forest? Because it's full of sorrow trees and sorrow plants. As you know, these are plants and trees that are fed not with water and sunshine, like normal plants and trees, but are fed with sadness. When the people nearby are happy, the plants and trees get smaller and their leaves turn brown. When the people nearby are sad, such as when there is not enough food or the winter lasts too long, these plants and trees grow bigger and get more colorful.

The people on this island are some of the unhappiest people you have ever met. Since they are so unhappy, very few people go to visit their island and this makes them even sadder. Which, though it seems odd, means the trees and plants on their island grow bigger and brighter. That is why the Great Sorrow Forest nearly covers the entire island and is so beautiful.

One day, a lumberjack named Jim Jacklumber decided to cut down all the trees in the Great Sorrow Forest. He thought this would make the people there happier.

He took his axe and started chopping at the first tree on the very edge of the forest. It was a medium sized tree, no taller than a telephone pole. It had bright green and blue leaves and yellow and green fruit, which looked and tasted just like the pear you ate the other day, but are not pears.

The people in the village heard the chopping and came out of their houses to watch Jim Jacklumber chop down the tree. At first, they were happy that Jim Jacklumber was cutting down the sorrow tree (which made the leaves on the tree start to turn brown), but as soon as the tree hit the ground and they realized that the tree was dead (which made the leaves turn even browner), they all suddenly became very sad (which made the all the trees in the Great Sorrow Forest grow a little bigger and turn a little greener, except the dead tree, of course, which still got browner. Which made everyone even sadder.)

Jim Jacklumber, however, cut down another tree, which made the people grow sadder still and the trees grow even bigger and greener. The people became so sad, in fact, that new trees started popping up all around them. One popped up right at Jim Jacklumber’s feet, which made him throw down his axe and say, “This is ridiculous! The more I cut, the sadder you people get and the bigger the Great Sorrow Forest grows! I give up!” He then walked to the shore of the island, which was not far from there, hopped into a sailboat and sailed away never to be seen by the island people again. This actually made the people even sadder, since they liked Jim Jacklumber, which, as you know, made the Great Sorrow Forest grow even bigger and greener.

The next day, a little girl named Bridget Carvertoy who was exactly as old as you are – even with the same birthday – cut off a piece of one of the trees that Jim Jacklumber chopped down and, being very careful, she carved a spinning top out of it.

Now no one had ever made a toy from a sorrow tree before, so this was the first ever wooden sorrow toy. She was very happy when she finished the spinning top and was excited to give it a try. She wrapped the cord all the way around it, pulled quickly and the top … simply fell over on its side. She tried it again and … same thing. It fell over on its side.

“This makes no sense,” said Bridget Carvertoy, “I did everything right. I carved it to look like a top. I wrapped the cord around it the right way. I pulled it just right. The top should spin.”

She tried it one more time and … it fell over on its side.

This made her very sad, as you would imagine. After doing all that work to carve a toy spinning top, wrap the cord around it and pull, and the spinning top refused to spin. She was so sad, she started crying! Big tears poured from her eyes. And what do you know, but suddenly, the spinning top stood up and started spinning. All by itself.

As soon as she noticed it, her tears stopped flowing and, well, I’m sure you expect this now, the top stopped spinning and fell over on its side. Which made her sad. Which made the top perk up and start spinning again. Which made her happy. Which made the top fall over on its side. But Bridget Carvertoy did not start crying again. Suddenly, she started laughing very loudly (which made the top do nothing) and she exclaimed, “I’ve made a top that only spins when kids are sad!”

Bridget Carvertoy made nine more tops and gave one to each of her nine friends. Whenever they were sad, the tops would start spinning which made them happy and then, of course, the tops would stop spinning, but her friends remained happy knowing they had spinning tops to cheer them up whenever they were sad.

This gave Bridget Carvertoy a big idea. She would make sorrow toys from the trees in the Great Sorrow Forest. But since it made people too sad when trees were cut down, she would only use wood from trees that fell over by themselves. Since it was such a large forest there were plenty of trees that fell down on their own from which she could make toys.

She made wooden boats that only sailed when children were sad, no matter how much wind there was. She made wooden choo-choo trains that only moved when children were sad. No matter how hard the children pushed them, if the children were happy, the trains simply would not move forward. She made wooden puzzles that you could not put together unless you were sad and then they came together quite easily. She carved wooden propeller toys that no matter how much you spun them would simply fall to the ground like sticks, that is, if you were happy. If you were sad, they flew up into the air all by themselves. And the list of the sorrow toys she made is longer than this story, so if I keep naming them you would never know what happens next.

Once she had made all these toys, she (and her mother and father) opened a store called Bridget Carvertoy’s Carved Sorrow Toys Toy Shop.

The best thing about Bridget Carvertoy’s Carved Sorrow Toys Toy Shop is when a happy child walks it, it’s like any other toy shop, where the toys simply sit on the shelves doing nothing. But when a sad child walks into the store, the toys all start spinning and flying and choo-choo training, which makes the child happy … at which point all the toys stop spinning and flying and choo-choo training and go back to simply sitting on the shelves and doing nothing at all … like normal toys.

Bridget Carvertoy’s Carved Sorrow Toys Toy Shop, which has too long of a name for me to keep saying, so I will simply call it Bridget’s Toy Shop from now on, was quite the attraction. Meaning, people came from all over the world to visit Bridget’s Toy Shop and see the Great Sorrow Forest.

But this was a big problem! Do you remember why the people on the island were so sad? It was because so few people came to visit them. Now that so many people were visiting, they started becoming happier and happier, which, as you might expect, made the Great Sorrow Forest browner and smaller. This meant there were fewer and fewer trees, and even fewer falling down on their own so Bridget had less and less wood she could use to make into toys. Soon, all this happiness was going to mean the end of the Great Sorrow Forest and Bridget’s Toy Shop as well.

Just thinking about this makes me sad … and very, very confused!

Bridget knew she had to do something and there was only one thing she could do. She moved her toy shop to a different small island, just far enough away that all the happiness on her island would not make the Great Sorrow Forest any smaller or browner, but close enough that any unhappy people from the island could easily visit the people who came to the shop and become happy.

It was a very delicate balance. That is, a balance between happy people and Bridget’s sorrow toys and sad people and the Great Sorrow Forest. It’s also very, very confusing to think about … and more than just a little satirical.

Anyway, if you are ever far out in the Pacific Ocean you should visit Bridget Carvertoy’s Carved Sorrow Toys Toy Shop and the Great Sorrow Forest. Especially if you are sad, since helping the forest grow and watching the sorrow toys spinning and flying and choo-choo training all by themselves will make you happy. At which point they will all suddenly stop. Just like this story does.

The End.