Stacks
It was a sunny day in the garden. There was a slight breeze. Donald the mutant haystack was wet again from the rain the previous day. He was starting to dry out. Donald enjoyed feeling the warm sunshine on his hay.
However as the weeks passed Donald started to become angry and unhappy. The rabbits who used to visit him and talk to him all day, were now avoiding him. He knew they were avoiding him because he could see them over in a neighbouring field. He shouted over to them but they ignored him. Donald didn’t like being ignored. Being ignored made Donald angry.
The birds in the garden had also started avoiding Donald. It started one day when he said to a bird who asked Donald if she could borrow a few strands of hay to line her nest for the winter. Donald would normally say yes to such a request, not today though.
“You see the brown cow over in the field. It wanders around eating grass as it pleases, fed food and water by the farmer and it gives nothing back! That cow is like you, a freeloader! What have you ever done for me?”
“You have often thanked me for the friendship I offer and the long talks we have.” replied the bird.
“You think that is a suitable payment?” Donald scoffed.
“If that’s the way you feel. I shall no longer burden you.” She flew off into the distance as a tear rolled down her beak and dropped onto the ground.
For the next few days Donald sat alone with his thoughts in a field. He knew he had upset his friend, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. Donald was more angry that he was being ignored again. What Donald had to say to people was important, and if they didn’t want to listen, he’d tell them anyway! How could they improve if he didn’t tell them how! His opinion was the most important thing in the world, how could the bird not see that?
Why had Donald grown to become so angry and self-important? You see, the farmer had forgotten about Donald. He’d been taken ill for a few months, so there was too much work for the farmer’s family to do. They left the field Donald was in as they had stored plenty of hay for the winter. As the frequent rain had soaked Donald to the core, that core had become soggy and unable to properly dry out begun to rot. It has also started to rot his brain. Where he had been happy, charming and helpful, he was now miserable, grumpy and spiteful.
No one visited Donald, he continued to rot until next autumn by which time parts of him had been blown across the fields. The misery that remained smelled foul, the farmer who was now feeling back to his old self, ploughed the field Donald was in, what was left of him was mixed into the soil.
The next spring, no crops had grown in that field. It would turn out that nothing would ever grew in that field again, such was the power of Donald’s hate and bile. It had mixed into the soil and spread, poisoning the field so not even weeds would grow. In the end, having no use for the field. The farmer sold the field and it was turned into a deluxe sewage works.
THE END
