In spite of his young age, Rudolph was not a happy reindeer. He did not wag his tail like other reindeer his age, nor did he join their silly games. His demeanor was brooding, his lips rarely cracked a smile, and his silence was like the silence before thunder. No, boys and girls, Rudolph was not a happy reindeer at all. In fact, Rudolph was an angry young reindeer.
Why was he angry?
“Well, what do you got?” he quipped when his pesky friends and family would pester him about it, and off he would trot to be by himself in the forest glades.
The truth was, he was angry about many things, but he was particularly angry at the way humans were destroying the forest with their machines, and he was also angry at his own kind for letting it happen.
So Rudolph spent his days and nights thinking up ways he could annoy humans and reindeer alike. He visited the humans’ homes and made a mess of things. Then he would bleat about the terrible state of the forest to anyone who cared to listen. Which almost nobody did, but to him, their indifference didn’t matter. He would annoy them all the same until they opened their eyes and saw what was happening around them.
One misty morning, Rudolph was walking through the forest on his way to the glades, where he was hoping to catch a few blades of light. As he neared the edge of the forest, he saw two humans. A man and a woman. The pair, who were both clad in red, stood beside a tree.
“It’s these ones, right here,” said the man kneeling over the gnarled roots. “I recognize them because they have a red cap, white spots, and these gills right here.”
“Are you sure it’s not going to make us sick?” said the woman. “I’ve never seen this kind before, and people say they’ve seen strange lights hovering over this area.”
“Ho ho! People say many things. Do not worry, my little plum. They’re perfectly safe. They’ll just make us a bit drowsy and more creative. More aware of ourselves and our place in the scheme of things.”
“Okay,” said the woman, “but I don’t want to end up like cousin Isobelle wearing funny hats and living by herself.”
“Of course not, my sweet cotton candy. Ho! Ho! Ho!”
The two humans prattled on as humans are wont to do. The man used a blade to pry something off the ground, and then he handed it to the woman, who put it in a basket dangling from her arm.
When they were done, the two enigmatic figures walked across the glade and disappeared in the mist.
Tentatively, Rudolph made his way towards the spot where the pair had been. He saw several small red toadstools cradled in the roots of the old tree. A few of them had been cut by the humans, but the smaller ones had been left intact.
Rudolph approached the mysterious fungus, leaned forward, and sniffed the caps.
Ick! They had a funny smell, like soil and rotten wood. What would humans want to do with them? He already suspected the answer. For everything that humans picked from the forest, they put in their mouths. So it was not a far-fetched idea that they’d also ate these weird little toadstools.
He took a deep breath, and mustering courage, he nibbled on a toadstool. Mm! It wasn’t too bad. Like stale grass. He took another nibble, and another until he had eaten the whole patch.
Truth be told, Rudolph wasn’t a fan of these toadstools. They did not taste great, and only reminded him that he had yet to eat breakfast.
He meandered towards the middle of the glade, where the grass was soft and the tiny purple, red, and yellow flowers dotted the shoreline of a gurgling brook. He lay down, hoping that the mist would soon dissipate, and the sun would brighten the day.
With eyes closed, he lost track of time and fell into a sort of slumber. He could hear the murmuring stream and a cascade of colours began to undulate behind his eyes. He breathed in deeply and with each breath he took, the cool mist rushed into his nostrils. The freshness of the air invigorated him and cleared his mind. He realized there was no separation between himself and the mist. He was one with the mist that whirled around him. Mysterious shapes appeared in the eddies and whorls. Reindeer shapes. Human shapes. They merged and transformed into each other.
And then he felt himself floating through the air. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his nose was glowing red! Its light soon burned off the mist and bathed him in sunshine.
As he rose in the air, he saw the human houses in the distance, the smoke rising from the top of them, and the vast forest around them. He realized that humans had no choice but to make houses and roads. Just like his kind had no choice but to eat lichen, leaves, and shrubs. Reindeer and humans were not all that different. They were just trying to survive and be happy. At that moment, he was filled with a sense of compassion, and he resolved to be a friend of humans to help them see and understand the same way he had seen and understood.
Title: Raising Rudolph
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