The scent of fire isn’t something you can get rid of easily. It’s ashy essence coats the back of your throat and manages to stay there for quite some time. I stood there looking out from my window at the grim site below, the land was illuminated in reds and oranges and a cloud of grey smoke hung over it. It was stunning to see but the story it portrayed was a dark one.
My father and brothers muffled laughter distorted by their masks drifted towards the window as they burnt down half the forest and bought down trees that had stood long before us. An entire world, gone in the matter of few hours. The animals shrieked in fear and ran, protesting in a language only they could understand.
The fire illuminated my mother’s silhouette as she stood by watching silently.
…
My eyes felt itchy as I blinked away the tears after having the hundredth argument of the day with my father, I sat huddled in the dining room chair watching them cut down yet another tree.
“You should really stop doing this every time we move you know? It doesn’t help anyone.”
My mother spoke nonchalantly as she prepared lunch, “What do you think is going to happen? If it isn’t us then it’ll be someone else removing those trees,” she gestured with the knife as she continued, “At least we are providing something to the people, giving them food.”
“At what cost? We aren’t giving them food; we are giving them an excuse while we take what we want. We are using the land to grow our money!” I argued.
“That’s enough Olivia. Go to your room!” My mother said sharply.
Huffing in anger I got up and left but ignoring her words I decided to go for a walk. I just needed to be away from all of this otherwise I’d surely go insane. I meandered around uselessly for a while with no particular place to go in my mind when I felt a set of eyes watching me, I slowed down and looked around casually, nothing.
Feeling uneasy I decided to turn back, I was new in this area anyways and I didn’t think the locals would be keen in helping me out considering what my father was doing. So, I started to make my way back home through the woods. I was almost home when a sudden rustle of bushes managed to startle me. With a gasp I turned around. It was a deer!
I almost laughed out with relief, a deer!
“Hi there pretty fella.” I cooed as I walked towards him gently not wanting to spook him away, but he didn’t seem scared, if anything he stood still while staring at me steadily, almost statue like. Now mildly disturbed I stopped approaching it, we both just stood there watching each other. Trying to get it to trust me, I reached out with my hand when another rustle startled me. The deer just stood there, motionless.
I hesitantly turned away from it to see what made the noise, it was a rabbit and just like that a few more rustles and some more animals! I was now thoroughly creeped out, I was surrounded by animals, rabbit’s, deer’s, fox’s and many more.
They all like the deer just stood there motionlessly watching me, scared I moved backwards slowly, not wanting to startle them and get attacked but they didn’t even seem to notice, they looked frozen.
A little distance away I broke into a run and made a mad dash to the house and didn’t stop till I saw the house. Chest heaving with exertion I put my hands over my knees and tried to catch my breath, the sweat trickled from my brows and hung on to my eyelids and I blinked them away as I tried to make sense of what had happened. Why would any animal behave in this manner?
It didn’t seem natural. They looked lifeless and unfeeling; dead.
Shuddering I pushed away the thought, of course they seemed like that! They were traumatized, we had burnt down their homes! This made perfect sense to me, I just had to get dad to see this now. This would prove to him how much of what he was doing was affecting the animals.
With a determined mind I strode towards my father.
…
My father’s broad shoulder strained with exertion as he worked to bring down another tree, I waited till he noticed me and put down his axe.
“What is it, Olivia?” he asked impatiently.
“Dad, I know this is going to sound weird, but you have to come with me to see this.” I said in a rush.
“See what?” he asked as he once again reached for his axe looking for all intents and purpose ready to ignore me.
“Dad, please just give me few minutes, that’s all.” I pleaded.
“Alright,” he sighed and continued, “But just few minutes. I don’t have the time for your protests today.”
Feeling elated I quickly dragged him with me to the little clearing where the animals had gathered but to my surprise it was completely empty!
“What…?” I gaped at the empty spot, “Bu… but they were right here!” I continued to look around. My father was staring at me blankly.
“Who were right here?” he asked.
“The animals!” I replied.
“The animals?” he echoed, looking at me as though I had lost my mind.
“Dad, really! There were all these animals just standing here creepily and looking at me, I swear! They were there because we burnt down their homes! They looked mad at us dad! I saw it!” I ran out of breath as I tried to explain quickly.
My dad looked stunned for a moment and then, “Olivia even for you this is a bit absurd. Creepy animals? Really?” he scoffed and started to turn back.
“Dad no, please listen.” I pleaded.
“That’s enough Olivia! I have put up with this long enough. At first, I thought it was a phase but now it’s getting out of hand. Now let me be clear, either you change, or I’ll be forced to make other arrangement. Do you understand?” he said firmly, his voice brooking no further arguments.
“Yes.” I whispered in a hollow voice.
“Good.” He grunted and left, leaving me alone in the clearing.
…
I stood there for a while, lost in thought. They were there, I definitely saw those animals but then what happened?! Could they have simply vanished into thin air? Was I hallucinating? Nothing made sense. All the answers led to more questions, and it was obvious I wasn’t going to get any help from my family.
Shaking my head to clear these thoughts I continued my solitary walk back home. Something was happening, and it wasn’t anything good.
…
Over the next few weeks, the number of weird incidents didn’t become any lesser, if anything things became much worse. It was like looking at a car crash; it was horrible, but I couldn’t look away.
It started with the bugs.
Every single crop that we planted was decimated by bugs and there were so many of them too. The rice and maize were hollowed out by the caterpillars and the bollworms carved out the tomatoes.
The grapes, chilis and corn didn’t make it either.
I could hear my father yell and curse from across the field.
It didn’t stop there. Next came the birds.
They came in droves, for moment I thought it was a cloud but the way it moved; an attack made with precision. Partridges, hawks, and weavers dove down and claimed what the worms left behind. Our scarecrow looked more like a doll.
After a while it seemed as though we had planted nothing. Done nothing.
My mother sobbed as my brothers cursed.
“It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright. Your father knows what to do.” She kept repeating over and over again but he seemed just as clueless as us. Maybe this was her way of shutting herself away from the truth.
I stood watching them all. Somehow, I felt this wasn’t going to end here. And I was right, that’s when our animals turned against us.
