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(From the Cub Club Bedtime Stories collection)
One upon a time, there were three Big humans. These three Big humans were from very different classes, but one thing they had in common was that they all hated the wolf. Their Big holy books even compared the wolf to death and torture.
Every time these Big humans fail at something collectively, they blame the poor little wolf. And after a few thousand years of failure, they have had enough of trying to co-exist with him. So they set about building three different kinds of artificial environments to live in – Big environments that will be wolf-free.
The first Big human builds his Big house out of straw. To do this, he alters the flow of a river and irrigates some geometrically-arranged rows of GMO straw plants. He also scrapes a Big human posse together and terrorizes some other smaller humans into slavery to work the straw. The slave-built house is beautiful and functional with its symmetrical cone shape.
But a week later, a windstorm blows it down. And then the dry straw catches fire and burns. Wind and sun. The survivors curse the wolf and regroup.
The second Big human – a bit more aggressive and ruthless than the first – decides to use more invasive technology to build an even BIGGER artificial environment. Rather than harvesting straw, he has an entire forest cleared (next to the river that was diverted) and uses all the survivors of the first house – slaves and non-slaves alike – as slaves to build his own Big human house out of wood and wood products.
For the first few months, it looks like this new-and-improved BIGGER house has won against its arch-enemy – nature (the wolf). But then winter comes, and the winds whip through the treeless forest at a higher speed than ever and knock down the termite-eroded structure in a few days. This time, the collapsing wooden structure kills all its inhabitants – Big and small.
Finally, the third and BIGGEST human – a former serial-killer turned cult leader – claims he has the ultimate solution to the wolf problem.
He quickly goes about finding some new slaves to work the riverbed that is now dried up because of the change of ground cover. He has these terrified workers dredge up all the clay and kiln-bake it into bricks.
Over the course of five back-breaking months, the slaves build the third Big human a strong and gigantic mansion made of brick, carved stone, and human-remains-reinforced cement. It is such a strong structure that it receives architecture and engineering awards. And as hard as they try, the loathsome wind simply can’t blow it down and the nasty termites are unable to eat its structure.
Five years later, the riverbed from which the bricks have been dredged overflows and the resulting flood drowns all the humans who have survived the other ecological catastrophes. And that’s why we Polar Bears write the stories now.
Amen.
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qatzel ok 