Ocean Greens
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The little green man had been in a foul mood for several days now. The world seemed to be conspiring against him, and he was not sure what he could do about it.
It started with the dragon thing that had appeared on the horizon one day after he had finished building his house. It was a large, blue-green thing with huge bat wings and long tail fins. He thought of it as a dragon, but it didn’t breathe fire or have scales or anything like that.
Instead, it had big teeth that were almost like shark’s teeth, and it used them to eat all sorts of things. His wife said she would cook some of those things and feed them to her husband so that he could see how tasty they really were. She said there wasn’t much point in being able to grow your own food if you couldn’t actually eat any of it.
He tried to talk his wife into letting him try out a bit of dragon meat first before serving it up to their children, but she wouldn’t hear of such an idea. “They are monsters,” she told him. “If I’m going to kill something, I want it to be alive.”
“But they’re dragons!” he argued. “And you can get meat from them! We could make our lives easier by eating them instead of hunting and fishing for every single meal we need!”
She just shook her head. “Not my family.”
Then, two days later, they got a letter from a place called the Ministry of Agriculture asking if he could please send someone over to help deal with a problem they’d encountered. The problem turned out to be that the Ministry of Agriculture had grown too large, and it needed more people to take care of its affairs.
They offered him a job as a regional administrator, which sounded very exciting at first. Then, when he asked what sort of duties this job entailed, he found out that most of it involved dealing with pests—like rats and snakes, and spiders, which were apparently considered pests because they ate crops.
Apparently, it was also considered a pest to let animals run wild where they weren’t supposed to go. If a farmer wanted to keep chickens in his yard, then the chicken should stay there and not wander off to start laying eggs somewhere else.
In other words, it was considered a pest to let nature do whatever nature did without interfering with it. That was fine with the little green man since he liked nature, and he was happy to allow natural processes to continue unhindered.
But then he noticed that the same rules didn’t apply to the little red men who lived down south along the coast. Those guys made no effort to protect themselves from disease and parasites, and they often left their trash behind wherever they went. As far as the little green man was concerned, it was a good thing these guys didn’t live closer, or he might have to exterminate them himself.
His wife said she didn’t mind the idea of killing pests, so long as the killer wasn’t one of their kids. She even suggested that he could use their youngest child, but the little green man refused to kill anyone except in self-defense, and he had to admit that killing pests probably fell under self-defense.
As the days passed, he began to realize that there were quite a few things about life in Green Forest that he would miss once he moved away. For instance, he enjoyed watching the sun rise each morning and seeing the stars at night. He loved the way the breeze smelled and how soft the grass felt beneath his feet.
He liked to watch the clouds roll by and see the colors of the leaves change throughout the year. And, best of all, he loved watching the little red men playing ball in the town square. Every time he saw them play, he wished he could join them.
It reminded him of the games he played as a boy growing up in the village, although the only ball game they ever played was a sort of round dance with sticks. These little red men seemed to enjoy tossing around balls and hitting them back and forth with each other.
It looked like fun, and he wondered why nobody ever bothered to teach him how to throw a ball. Maybe he’d ask the little red men to show him how it was done next time they came to visit.
On top of everything else, the little red men also seemed to be very fond of dancing and music. Sometimes he could hear them singing while he sat on the front porch sipping his tea and staring off into the distance. Their songs always sounded sad, but he never heard anybody crying.
So, maybe they weren’t sad. Maybe they were just singing sad songs. Either way, he was glad he didn’t know them well enough to hear what they were singing about.
Finally, the day came when he packed his bags and set out to find his new home. After walking for several miles, he found a river flowing through the countryside. A small boat lay tied to a tree near the shore. There were no paddles, and he couldn’t figure out how to row it, but he decided to give it a try anyway.
His first attempt failed miserably, and the boat floated away downstream before he could pull it back onto dry land. However, he finally managed to catch the boat and bring it back to the shore. Now, if he could just learn how to paddle properly, he thought he might actually be able to manage to move someplace besides standing still.
It took him three more tries before he learned how to paddle effectively, but eventually, he managed to turn the craft around and head upstream. When he arrived at his destination, he was surprised to discover that it was a big city full of tall buildings and lots of people bustling around everywhere.
The little green man’s eyes grew wide in wonderment as he walked the streets. It was amazing how many people there were. Most of them wore clothes made out of colorful cloth, and they carried wooden buckets and shovels slung across their backs.
They talked and laughed among themselves as they worked, but none of them paid any attention to the little green man as he strolled past. He realized that he was nothing more than a stranger to everyone here. He hadn’t even brought any money with him, so he figured that he must look poor.
The little green man started to feel uncomfortable. All of these people knew each other and had known each other forever. What if he met someone important? Or worse yet, what if he ran into one of the little red men? Would they recognize him or would they think he was one of them?
He suddenly wanted to go back to Green Forest, where everybody knew who he really was, but he knew he couldn’t afford to do that. Not only did he need the money, but he also needed a place to stay. That meant finding a job. As soon as possible, he went looking for work, which turned out to be harder than he expected.
In the end, he wound up getting hired at the local factory, where he spent every day cutting pieces from wood and gluing them together. He hated the smell of glue and the loud noises coming from the machines, but he tried not to let it bother him too much because he needed the money.
Besides, he was grateful to have something to keep him busy after he lost the house. He knew that he would probably spend the rest of his life working at this factory until he retired. It wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but at least it kept him busy and gave him plenty of time to think about things.
He often thought about the little red men and wondered what happened to them after he left. Did they miss him? Did they ever come back to Green Forest? Why didn’t they say anything about it? Were they mad at him for leaving? He knew that he should have said goodbye and explained himself better.
If he had just told them that he had to leave, they might have understood and been more sympathetic. But then again, maybe they wouldn’t have cared. Maybe they just thought he was an ordinary human being and didn’t care whether he stayed or went. Who knows? He had no idea, and it was too late now.
He continued to live his life without ever talking to anyone else about his strange experiences. Instead, he spent most of his time alone thinking about things like why he was different than all of the others and why the little red men chose him over them.
He imagined what it would be like if he could talk to them, but he never dared ask anybody about it. The truth was, he liked being the little green man. It made him special and different, and he loved being different. Even though nobody else understood what was going on inside his head, he was happy living by himself.
He knew that someday he might meet another person who shared his feelings, but he wasn’t sure he ever would. For now, he enjoyed being alone.
The End