Time and Its Avoidance

Time and Its Avoidance

It is not funny to wake up from a long sleep to find yourself in a haunted forest. So, after having a good laugh, I asked the nearest tree how the forest could claim to be haunted. It gave a little cough before answering, “I’ll answer your question with an answer. Is it not true that you can see the trees for the wood?”

“Well, no,” I replied. “If all these trees would get out of the way, I might be able to see the wood. But, as it is, the forest is as clear to me as an enigma on its seventh birthday.”

“That’s what tends to happen when you don’t enunciate your sayings,” said the tree. “Look at it this way.” It then bent over until standing on its head and waved its roots in the air.

Unable to handle such obvious good sense, I turned away and began to walk off through the forest. The trees assisted by marching in the opposite direction. The irony of such an apt response (it was March, after all) struck me quite forcefully and I fell headlong. “Head” because my head led the way, “long” because I had managed to fall into an abyss that someone had left lying around.

My eventual landing was quite tedious and I wasted several hours in counting the bruises I had accumulated on the way down. “All’s well that ends swellings,” I told myself, forgetting for a moment the tree’s advice on sayings.

“One takes one’s lumps where one can find them,” opined a passing hedgehog.

“Oh look,” I said to no one in particular (any protagonist in a storm, I always say), “A talking hedgehog.”

The hedgehog sneered. “What else would you expect in a haunted forest?”


Prompt: Using one of the following prompts, write 250-750 words of a nonsense story about a day you spent at a: zoo, circus, garden, or haunted forest.

For examples of what I mean by "utter nonsense," read several entries in "My Day" . Here are two. "Sleeping like a log..." and "Burger King" I'm looking for that sort of nonsense about how your day at one of the above locations went.

Written for "The Whatever Contest." "The Whatever Contest -- Closed for Now" 

Word Count: 293