The weasel, the worm & the fox

Once upon a time there was a great forest where all the animals lived together as a family. But one day three loathsome creatures, a weasel, a worm, and a fox came to live in the forest and decided to make the other animals believe that their lives could only get better if they elected a king. Now this new king happened to be a physically repulsive beast of undetermined species with white fur and orange skin, the color of which served as a warning to the beast’s weak-minded, frightened disciples: Beware the beast’s anger and be warned that no sign of disrespect or questioning of the beast’s authority would be tolerated, lest their fate be sealed by the orange beast’s venomous reprisal.

Now the weasel, the worm and the fox were of small minds incapable of complex thought, with brains so small that any ideas not spoken by their dim-witted king could not be comprehended. And the agony of trying to understand the ideas of others caused them to convulse in agony and thrash out in anger.

For they believed the orange skinned beast to be superior to all others; only it knew the truth while all others lied. And whenever the beast snarled from its white cave its followers gathered to hear the beast warn that others who wanted to enter the forest and make it their home must be stopped, because they didn’t look like they did or believe what they did. The beast said that these invaders were evil and brought disease and murder into their forest. And the beast’s shaking worshippers cowered and trembled before it and believed whatever the beast told them because it said so, and that was reason enough.

And so, their devotion to the beast-king grew each day, until there was no longer any need to think for themselves, or any need to live by the ideals that once governed the forest and made it greater than all the other forests of the earth. And they resolved to abandon the values and beliefs handed down to them when the forest was first born, because they believed that the beast-king knew better than those who came before it. In time their spines grew soft and bent from bowing to the orange-skinned beast and cleaning the filth from its paws.

But the other animals who lived in the forest refused to call the beast their king because it was selfish and cruel. It thought only of itself which was not the obligation of a king. A king should be wise and compassionate, and work to make life better for all within the forest, not only those who praised it and worshipped it as one would a god.

And so, the animals who saw that the orange-skinned beast wanted only to benefit itself gathered to stop it from growing more powerful and from destroying what was good in the forest. They worked to remove it from the white cave in which it lived with its two slow-witted sons where they all fed on the bones of those who betrayed them.

But their insolence angered the beast, and it snarled once more to demand that its unquestioning and submissive subjects should come to the white cave, and they crawled again to sit at its feet, where the beast commanded them to rise in anger and avenge it and ordered them to silence the voices of those who opposed it.

Now there was at this time a wise and respected council of forest elders who were approached by the orange beast’s slaves to suppress the will of those who would unseat the beast from the white cave. But the wise council condemned their effort and declared their attempt to silence the will of the other animals as foolish and dangerous.

This only made the beast angrier, and it snarled once more to demand its followers obey its orders.

And as they continued to genuflect before the orange-skinned beast and obey its every command, the forest soon became so different from what once made it noble and grand that a great wall had to be built to separate one animal from another.

And as the years passed, the children of the animals heard tales of a great forest that once was, and they asked why it was great no more. And they were taught to blame the animals on the other side of the wall, and the children learned to hate them as their parents did.