The Boy From The Forest

A Long Time Later

Vincent was a boy. Don’t ask how old he was; he was just a boy. He lived in the Hamlet of Om, which was somewhere in the Forest. In the hamlet of Om, people did not get all worked up about how old somebody was.

The women grew beans and squash in clearings, and the men hunted or scrounged for whatever there was to find. Vincent’s Father had died from a mysterious illness a few years back. His Mother had a sore foot and could not catch him unless she cornered him in the house.

Vincent and his friend, Randy, were free to wander about pretty much as they pleased.

“Hi, Randy. What do you want to do today?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go down to the creek.”

To the creek they went. There was no name for it, other than the creek. It was the only creek by the hamlet of Om, so a name was not needed.

“Hey, look at that.”

“Randy, that is a mud puppy. We see them all the time.” They were standing on the bank of the creek, looking at a rather ordinary looking little salamander. They were commonly called mud puppies.

“Vincent, I think that is really a baby alligator. Remember the traveler that came through here; he talked about alligators.”

“I heard him the same as you. He said that alligators were really big, and they would eat people. This thing is smaller than my hand.”

“But alligators live in the water, right?”

“Yes, he did say that. So what.”

“So those things have to be babies sometime. Alligators are low-slung, with a big long tail. This thing is like an alligator, except it is small. I wonder how long until it is big enough to eat people.”

“Quick hide!!”

Vincent quickly ducked behind a tree. Randy was crouched behind a bush.

“What is it?” Vincent asked his friend in a whisper.

“The women from the village. Some half-grown girls are with them. They are coming to get water.”

“They aren’t going to hurt you. You are pretty silly.”

“Oh really. The last time they caught us at the creek, they made us help carry the water back. That bucket of water was heavy!!”

Vincent from his hiding place looked at the half-grown girls. Some of them were kind of pretty. Maybe that was why Randy wanted to hide.

The two boys remained in hiding. The women filled their water pots and started back to the village.

Vincent looked about and saw that they were once again alone at the creek. “I am going for a swim; it is hot today.”

“Me too. Nothing like a swim to make you feel good.”

The boys shucked their clothes and jumped into the muddy sluggish waterway. The water level was down quite a bit from the spring flood. If you stretched your toes down, you could just touch the muddy bottom. Vincent idly explored the squishy creek bottom. The creek bottom was not firm at all.

“The bottom of the creek is all muddy.”

“Water does that to dirt.” Replied Randy in his most sage voice.

’Yeouch!!”

“Vincent, what’s the matter?”

“Something has got me!!”

“What has got you?”

“It’s got my toe. It’s probably the mother alligator. She’s mad at us for making fun of her baby.”

Randy grabbed Vincent’s arm and pulled him two feet over to the bank. “Let’s see.”

Vincent held up his left foot. On his big toe was a mussel shell. This is a sort of fresh-water clam, common to creeks, rivers, and ponds. This one was just big enough to clamp itself onto Vincent’s toe.

“Get onto the bank. I will get it off you. And it is not the mother alligator.”

Randy found a stick and poked around the mussel shell. It stayed on Vincent’s toe. Next, he put the mussel shell with Vincent’s toe inside it on a flat rock. Quicker than I can tell you about it, he picked up another rock and smashed it onto the stubborn mussel shell.

The little clam gave up its hold, its shell smashed. Vincent shouted in pain: “That hurt! Why don’t you just cut my leg off and be done with it!!”

Randy looked at Vincent with disdain. “You are nothing but a bread eater.” Then he walked away.

Later that same day.

Vincent was hobbling around the hamlet of Om. He was actually hobbling more than he needed to, but there are certain principles to be maintained. Randy was in an extended pout, and there would be no getting any sense out of him until tomorrow. But Vincent wanted to know something. Randy had called him a bread eater. What was that? What was bread?

His Mother did not know any dirty words, but she did know a bunch of chores he needed to do. No, Vincent was going to ask Old Wayne.

Old Wayne was the oldest person in the village, and probably in the entire world. What was it Aunt Loretta had said? She said that Old Wayne had lived a year for every finger and every toe you have – and start all over again, go through all your fingers and toes, a year for every one again. Vincent did not think there was a word for such a large number.

There sat Old Wayne in front of his hut. He was always trying to grab someone and tell them something. Well, now this boy wanted to know something.

“Old Wayne”

“Huh? What?”

“I want to ask you something.”

“Stand over here, that is my good ear.”

“Old Wayne, what is a breadeater? And what is bread, I know about eating.”

“Who has been talking like that to you?”

Vincent just shrugged. No sense in getting Randy in trouble. If it wasn’t for Randy, he would not know a lot of things that he did.

“So what is bread?”

“Ohhh, young man. There are many differences between those who live in the Forest and those who live in the Cultivated Lands. Their ways are not our ways. The way they talk, you cannot understand half of it.

“The land itself is different. Here, we have Forest, with open areas once in a while. You see what I mean?”

“Well, yes.” Hopefully, he would not be asked to agree that the sky is blue and dirt is dirty.

“In the Cultivated Lands, it is mostly open area. Once in a while, there will be a little bunch of trees, but not very much. And they have a King. This King, boy, he is something else. And the Queen, ain’t she something to look at. You wouldn’t know about that, would you boy?”

“Old Wayne, all I really wanted to know was…”

“They work all year long to grow a crop, then all of them go out and bring it in from the field. There is a huge lot of it, enough to feed everybody for the entire year. And the people, their arms get all brown from working in the sun all the time. Nobody in our village has brown arms. Maybe your friend Randy, but that’s because he is all dirty.”

Old Wayne thought that was pretty funny, and he sat chuckling to himself about it. Vincent quietly walked away. He was not sure how everything fit together. He had learned quite a few things, but he had no way to put it into any kind of order.