| LaughingPark, a fairy story Chapter One ©2009, ©2011 by Mark Daniel, historiclafayettepark.com Once upon a time, there was a wonderful, forested knoll stretching along the road to The City. Many people and creatures lived in this forest. It was a
between all intermingled, living their individual lives in happy harmony. It was so happy, that most of the residents referred to their home's neighborhood as the laughing forest, and they named a little playground park in the forest the Laughing Park. In time, the neighborhood gradually became known as LaughingPark. This was a magical time, and stretched along for generations. Grandfathers could look at tiny little children playing around a tree, and say, with confidence, "That's Old Sam & Martha's little grandchildren--see how they tease each other? And look at the dogs they have--well-trained to a fault. Just like Sam was when he was a boy--always teasing in just that same way!" Or, one might spy two little girls playing house with their dolls at the foot of a great tree, between the roots, and exclaim, "My gosh! They look just like their grandmothers and mothers who played in the same place years ago! How the time does fly!"
And, of course, being magical, LaughingPark had more than your usual people and pets and such. There were also hobbits, gnomes, elves, and a few dwarves. And, to keep everything in perspective, there were a few trolls, but none so bad as those evil, nasty ones you read about in fairy stories. Among these forest people there also lived lots of animals: huge hoot owls and the squirrels they sometimes ate. And timid bunnies who managed to survive by being cautious enough not to get out in the open where foxes and cats and owls could catch and eat them. There were chickens living under a few porches, and raccoons who constantly plotted how to sneakily catch them on a woodpile when they weren't looking. Sometimes a majestic eagle would be spotted, circling LaughingPark while looking for a tasty treat way down below on the ground, and hoping they could snatch one of those bunnies, but just as willing to pounce on a big fat packrat. There were armadillos building tunnels and possums prowling the night streets looking for the inevitable roadkills along the road to the city. In short, LaughingPark was a complete, happy world that seemed like it would go on forever just as happily as it had done since the first residents built their cute cottages among the trees. Those cute cottages were a source of pride for many of the residents in the forest, for each was unique and each was so comfortable and so carefully placed among the trees and plants that surrounded everything. Even the birds and butterflies respected the cottages, and would flutter about each garden to add their color to the overall appearance. The hobbits of the forest could look at a particular front door, and be able to tell you instantly which among their number who had built it fifty years or seventy years previously. For the hobbits were the carpenters and builders and tradesmen who made such cottages seem like they had arrived on the backs of fairies instead of being built in place with a great deal of noise and bustle with all manner of wood and stone and metal and things. The hobbits loved their work and loved their trade and took great care of all the houses and cottages in LaughingPark. However, if this was a story of things that went on forever and never changed, and about people who never had any adventures, it would be time to write, "THE END" right here, because to say any more would be boring as can be. But this is not the end, because adventures did happen in LaughingPark all the time, if you knew where to look, and sometimes, they happened even if you weren't looking, and the adventures came chasing after you even if you didn't want one! And that's what happened one day to a young family with little children who lived on the old bearded street (named, no doubt, for the long mossy beards hanging from the trees): An adventure just stepped right into their lives and wouldn't go away. It chased them and chased them and got closer and worse and was very scary. "What a terrible adventure!" is what you'll say when you're done reading this. Unless you're a troll, because this is a scary adventure about an old, scary troll who everyone thought was harmless until one day he came out of his house and had fangs that sprayed poison and shrieked so loud, it hurt your ears! so, if you're a troll, it might seem like a fun adventure, because you--being a troll--would want to hurt people just for the fun of it. Bad Troll!!! Bad ! Bad!! This young family had two dogs whom they loved and played with and spent all their outside time traveling with around the neighborhood and training to be good guards for their children. These dogs were very intelligent, and could spot the evil lurking in the hearts of those bad trolls and wicked people who might stray off the road-to-the-city into the LaughingPark forest. When they smelled meanness, they barked loudly to let everyone know they were exposing something or someone harmful. And, of course, whatever bad-hearted creature within sight of the twin dogs would know he had been spotted and run away. So the two guard dogs learned to protect the children and loved the job they had of sounding the alarm. Many of the neighbors, when taking a walk through LaughingPark, would lean over the cute picket fence around the cottage and speak to the dogs and tell them how nice it was that they were sounding the alarm whenever they smelled evil intentions. Woof! WOOF WOOF!! said the dogs. They loved praise and smiled and tossed out their drippy tongues and wagged their tails and held their heads to have their ears scratched as a reward for their good work. They were two very happy dogs in a very happy family on a very happy street in a very happy forest called LaughingPark.
There was only one peculiar problem with the two dogs, and it caused consternation within the family. The mother and father discussed it often, and sometimes worried over this problem, and didn't know what to do. At the other end of their little meadow lived an old, retired troll who everyone knew was perfectly harmless and had outlived all the mean-spirited things that trolls usually do when they're young and strong and trying to make their mark in the world. And the problem was this: Every time this old troll came out of his house, the two dogs would commence barking as if a pair of armed robbers were breaking into the front window! The howling and barking would not stop--just get louder and more frantic the closer the old troll got to the family's picket-fenced yard and cottage. And the old troll, with that secret malicious streak that all old trolls have, no matter how good they might seem in their dotage, would walk closer and closer to the cottage and along the path next to the picket fence just to aggravate the dogs and make them bark louder. This old troll knew one thing that no one else knew about him: he was still as mean and vicious as any younger troll out in the fighting ring of the big cities, and was just pretending to be an innocent old retired "tame troll". He was plotting to do very, very mean things, and the alarmed barking of the dogs worried him--he thought his plans might become known before it was too late and he would be foiled in his plot. And what a dastardly plot it was! He determined to get rid of the dogs so no one would suspect what he was up to.... Every night, when ordinary folks were snuggling down in their beds, the old troll would go out and take another walk along the path leading to the young family's house, and make the dogs bark like crazy when they smelled his hard heart and bad sweat. The young family would come running out and the father and mother would calm the dogs as best they could and they would say, "Good Evening, Mr. Troll! I'm so sorry the dogs are noisy. Please forgive the fright they have given you." And the evil old troll would say, in a voice as nice as he could muster, "Your dogs are spoiling the meadow and ruining the night for all of us, but I'm sure you'll do the right thing by them so the rest of us don't suffer." And the children would cry and the mother would look as if an icicle slid down her back, and the father would feel the chill, too, as if a breath from the deep blackness of a winter's night had slipped up on them, even though it was a summer evening with a bright moonlit sky. And the same thing happened every other night or so for a month... Finally, one evening, the old troll came out for his nightly exercise of inflicting pain and sorrow, and while the dogs were barking loudly and howling their warning about this worst of all possible creatures, the old troll told the mother and father and children all together, "It's time. Your dogs must go. They are ruining the neighborhood. I shall act if you do not."  The old troll had repeated it often enough that the family had finally believed him when he said their dogs were ruining life for all the families in the meadow along the old bearded street in LaughingPark forest. They failed to heed the warnings from the well-trained guard dogs, and believed the nasty troll instead. How could such a terrible thing happen? They were so good hearted, they just believed only the best thoughts about their neighbors, and could not imagine one of them could be the kind of creature that would enjoy making them sad...or who might have made very bad plans to ruin their home and cottage and ensnare them in a web of lies and plots and eventually drive them from the neighborhood. Finally, the father, crying inside and barely able to put the thoughts into words, told his wife the conclusion he had reached: they could keep the dogs they loved so much and avoid risk from the troll's threats, if they had the animal doctor take the barking and the woofing and the ruffing out of their dogs forever...he could cut their throats just a little bit in just the right spot, so the dogs would live, but their voices would be silent. His wife cried. The children cried, and for three days and three nights they all cried together, while the dogs' throats began to heal from the animal doctor's surgery. And eventually, the dogs learned they were okay, but silent, and no longer did they earn the respect and good wishes of the neighbors. No longer were they scratched between the ears. Instead, whenever they looked out through the little white pickets of the fence, the would see the people who crossed the street in horror at what the family had done to the dogs. Because, naturally, most did not know of the threats from the troll, and didn't understand how the family had come to the decision to do such an unthinkable thing to their beloved pets. And life went on, but not as sunny as before--just a little tiny cloud on everything in the LaughingPark forest. but people got used to it, and soon all but the little family and their closest friends forgot about it. And, the troll, of course. He never forgot about it. His power over the young family and his ability to make them do harm to themselves was like a magic elixir of joy to his black-hearted soul. He thrilled with pleasure whenever he thought about it. And he thought about it often, as it was part of his nature to like being mean and remember it over and over to enjoy again and again. And, in the meantime, he plotted with some of his troll buddies to do something really big that would rock the whole forest. Something historic! Something that would change the forest forever, and lock it into an icy freezer for all time, unchanging and stagnant and frigid and lifeless. And those pesky dogs were no longer going to warn the residents of the meadow of the terrible thoughts the old troll kept in his black heart. Day and night, for three years, the old troll worked at his plot. Afternoons and weekends, when folks were out playing in their yards and spreading the joy they had, he visited many of the families and cottages and denizens of LaughingPark. He would introduce himself, and play the part of friendly neighbor, and tell stories about how nice it would be to have LaughingPark frozen and protected from the changes that people heard about happening to other villages throughout the world--changes they didn't understand, but which seemed strange and possibly unwelcome, the way he described it. What the people did not know, as he collected their names, and made friendly small talk, was that the changes he described in such negative ways were the very changes that happen every day in their own LaughingPark forest: the new nests built by the birds, the front porches folks added to their cottages, with the help of the hobbits and dwarves. The addition of bedrooms for growing families, and little add-on guest homes for returning grandparents to live close by and all the other little changes that add up to making the cottages and meadows and places of LaughingPark keep up with the generations and the lives of the residents who created the whole neighborhood out of the original forest that once was there. So that finally, as people talked about what the troll said, they came to believe that changes could be bad and introduce worrisome things they would not be able to get rid of, even though they couldn't think of what these things might possibly be, when pressed for an answer. They came to feel the fear the old troll wanted them to fear, and they let him take their names and put together a list of people who supported freezing LaughingPark in ice for all time to keep out the changes that might come.
Now, a few of these folks, being more thoughtful and careful than perhaps a harried young family worried about making ends meet and whether the bunnies in the garden were eating too many carrots, began to question what the troll was doing, and he told them their questions were groundless, because if they wanted to make changes to their own homes, he would be in charge, and of course, they would be able to do what they wanted. It was just those "other" people who couldn't do anything unless he said so. And these more thoughtful people took him at his word, and never thought to question just who the "other" people might be, and never realized that to the people in the next meadow, they were "other" people. And if you connected all the dots, there were no people in all of LaughingPark who were not "other" people to someone else, so they were all going to be locked into ice and frozen for all time with no permission from anyone to do anything. And no one asked if having to get permission was a good thing or a bad thing. They just didn't think that far ahead. And, finally, one day, the old troll had everyone's name on his list and a bunch of very important-looking (but nearly blank) forms which had everyone's address and which seemed to have official seals (if you didn't read too closely), and took the whole package to the King's ministers. And the old troll knew the ministers he visited very well. He knew them very well, indeed. Because if there is one thing trolls know about it is power. They love it and they know who else likes it, and they know who wants it with a ravenous hunger that trolls can smell a mile away. And the king's bad ministers always do what trolls ask for, if the troll lets them have part of the power. And that's why they're bad--they sell their power for more power. And so the village in the forest called LaughingPark was about to be frozen, because the old troll provided a list of names from people who he had talked to as long as three years before and told them a bunch of lies, and people didn't know what he meant or wanted. And they didn't know what he was going to do. Continued....click here to see chapter 2: "Two Witches Brewing".... home |
