Search for the Sunlight

Basil S. Treewood wiped the cold drips from his stubbly pine needle chin and rocked slowly back and forth in his old elm chair. It was a struggle for him just to remain conscious.

The crushing depression that he suffered, due mainly to the lack of sunlight, made even the most basic of physical movements a chore. With the passing of each insufferable day his mind, body and spirit grew steadily weaker.

How long ago was it since his grandfather left the forest? He couldn’t remember exactly, but he knew that it was more than a hundred years.

The very notion made him sit upright. The dawning that such an alarming length of time had somehow slipped by unnoticed made him shiver, but his anxiety was short lived, for within minutes of the thought entering his head, his dull soggy mind reverted back to its usual state of lethargy and he lobbed another marshmelon into the icy lagoon.

Suddenly, in a flurry of dead twigs and dried leaves, Harry and Herbert F. Treewood - the Hawthorn brothers from next door - burst through the hedge like an avalanche, shattering both the silence and the fence surrounding Basil’s plot.

“Morning, Baz,” the brothers announced in unison, dusting themselves down, neither the least bit concerned at the damage they had caused.

Their boisterous entrance gave Basil such a fright that he fell from his chair and landed, face down, on top of the open sack of marshmelons that lay by his feet.

“What’s good about it?” he grumped, picking himself up from the ground. “It’s just like every other rotten morning. Damp, grey and miserable. The only difference being, that this morning, you two have destroyed my fence and half frightened me to death in the process!” He wiped the sticky melon gum from his face and set off huffily across the muddy lawn in the direction of his house.

“I’ve had enough!” he stamped, muttering and ranting to himself along the way.

“Precisely!” Herbert called after him. “We’ve all had enough. That’s what we have come to discuss!”

He turned to his brother for support and prompted him with his elbow. The sharp, unexpected prod made Harry jump, arousing him momentarily from his dreamy twilight state. “Y-Yes, we’ve got a plan,” he stammered. “We need to talk!”

Cold, wet and grumpy, Basil climbed the stairs that led to his front door, but before he entered the house, he stopped. A plan, he thought .What kind of a plan?

With his curiosity aroused, he turned slowly to face his shabby little Hawthorn friends, and with a loud sigh and a sideways nod of his head, he beckoned them both inside.