The Geese
written by: Michal Reibenbach
School days for gnome children are long. They finish at half past four. Aside from the usual subjects, the pupils are also taught to fight goblinoids, dodge giants, and do magic.
After school, Tulla takes a long, bumpy ride home in a gnome bus. At the last bus stop, she climbs down from the bus and plods along an overgrown path to her family’s underground house. The roof of the house is covered in green moss, and the area around the sloping steps to the solid wooden front door is covered with mushrooms.
Once home, she quickly prepares a bite to eat and then goes to her room. If she ever dares to venture out of her room in the evenings, her father, who is usually drunk, flogs her. To brighten up her dreary life, Tulla buys a dozen cute, chubby, furry fleaposes. They are adorable, creatures with large eyes set in flat faces crowned by small, floppy ears. She builds pens and hutches for them in the family’s shabby, dusty garden shed and feeds them when she arrives home from school and before going indoors.
On her way home from school, Tulla passes a lodge built on the edge of a large pond. It is the abode of an ogre family that owns a flock of boisterous, noisy geese.
One sultry Saturday, Tulla’s father buys a couple of goslings from the ogre family and strides home with them in a cardboard box.
“Come and look, I’ve brought you some goslings,” he calls out towards Tulla’s bedroom.
Curious, she rushes out of her bedroom, runs up to her father, and peeks inside the box. She is delighted upon seeing the goslings, but also suspicious. Her father is seldom kind to her.
“Why did you really buy them?”
“For you, of course, and they’ll keep the garden free of weeds.”
Tulla follows her father out into their neglected garden. In the middle of the garden, he sets about constructing a large barbed wire enclosure for the goslings, and in its center, he builds a big wooden hutch.
“From now on, these goslings are your responsibility. Buy them a sack of poultry pellets and make sure to feed them daily.”
Henceforth, after she has attended to her fleaposes, Tulla feeds her goslings, Fay and Kay. Under her care, they blossom into large, healthy, cackling geese.
It’s a chilly Sunday morning, and Tulla is with her best friend, Janie. They are sitting on the branch of the large oak tree that overlooks Tulla’s garden. Their stubby legs dangle casually down. Light streams filter through the branches above them, and birds’ songs drift through the crisp air. The garden below them is full of tangled thickets and weeds. They love climbing up trees. Trees are their haven away from troubles at home. Tulla is away from her abusive father, and Janie is away from her father, who lies unconscious in bed after suffering from a stroke. The oak tree is their favorite tree. He whispers to them, reveals all his secrets. He tells them about the birds that built nests in his branches and the couples who sat in his shade, embracing and kissing. Also, he reminisces about the gnomes who lived in the underground dwelling long before Tulla was born. He loves the little girl’s company.
Their enjoyment is cut short as their attention is drawn to Tulla’s father trudging down the flagstone garden path, full of weeds cracking through. He has a hoe slung over his shoulder. They watch him as he strides into the geese’s pen, and become spectators to a most gruesome scene when he chases the poor birds and brutally hacks at their necks.
“Stop it, stop it,” shouts Tulla, her face crumpling. She wishes she knew enough magic to make him quit.
Her father doesn’t or chooses not to hear her. Fay and Kay fight back bravely; however, they are no match for her father. Eventually, he breaks the poor creatures’ necks with his hoe and drags the dead geese by their feet out of the garden back down the path.
After witnessing such an awful atrocity, Tulla and Janie sit on the tree branch in stunned silence. Tulla feels very angry at her father.
“He’s a horrible man, I hate him, he often beats me,” she blurts out.
Janie sits silently with her head bent down. She looks so pathetic with her thin plaits dangling down, and her heavy eyelids cast down. Tulla immediately regrets what she’d admitted about her father because she can see it made Janie feel uncomfortable.
Later, after the two friends have climbed down the tree and Janie has departed, Tulla goes to confront her father with tear-swollen eyes.
“Why did you slaughter Fay and Kay? How could you have been so cruel?”
“To eat for Christmas!”
Her father rubs his stomach and beams gleefully at her.
“But you gave them to me. They were mine.” She begins to cry in great sobs.
“You have to understand, you couldn’t keep them forever, they were a nuisance.” Her mother states matter-of-factly,
“You lied when you told me they were my pets. All along, you knew they were going to be killed for Christmas.” Tulla continues to sob.
“Well, it’s over and done with now.” Her mother said dryly.
“Don’t expect me to eat them because I’m not going to,” shrieks Tulla.
She angrily storms out of the room, kicking the door shut.
Ever since that day, Tulla has suffered from a recurring nightmare in which she is the one being pursued. In the nightmares, at the very moment when her father is about to strike her with his hoe, she wakes up in a terrified panic.
The freezing days of winter have arrived, and as Tulla walks home from school, dusk is already falling; by the time she arrives at the garden shed, even her shadow is swallowed up by the darkness. From outside, she can hear her fleaposes squealing loudly. Going inside the shed, it’s pitch black, so she switches on the torch she always brings along. When she shines the beam into her pet’s large enclosure, she recoils in shock upon catching sight of the mutilated bodies of some of her pets. Pieces of skin, fur, and bones are scattered over the blood-drenched straw of their pen. Her heart beats like a trapped animal. She stands still, flooded with sadness.
After the initial trauma has sunk in, Tulla rallies around. She finds pieces of newspaper in the shed and does her best to pick up the morbid remains and remove them. She feels so sorry for the surviving fleaposes and can’t begin to imagine how frightened they must be. As she feeds them carrots and dried pellets, she tries to work out in her tormented mind.
“Who or what has attacked them? Maybe a cat or a rat?”
She also suspects her father after he’d massacred her geese. It’s so baffling. She hopes it’s a one-time occurrence. It’s too much to bear.
Much to her dismay, she is daily faced with the same nauseating scene of one or two more mutilated fleapose bodies.
Endeavoring to protect her pets from further harm, Tulla fixes the garden shed door with a padlock. However, when she arrives at the shed the following day, she discovers that the padlock has been forced open, and once again, two of her pets have been brutally butchered. The whole thing is so utterly vile and bewildering. She doesn’t understand how someone can do such monstrous acts.
One Friday afternoon, some school lessons are canceled; consequently, Tulla arrives home early while it’s still light. She decides to use this chance, and maybe she’ll discover who is killing her pets. With this in mind, Tulla hides in wait under the branches of a large Rhododendron bush that grows beside the garden shed. As she crotches on her heels and waits, daylight begins to fade, but her eyes adjust to the gloom. Up in the sky, the moon is veiled by dark clouds. Cold air numbs her face and creeps under her clothes. After a while, much to her astonishment, she spies the shadowy figure of the little ogre boy who lives down at the lodge running up the path toward the garden shed.
She springs to her feet and runs up to him.
“Why are you killing all my pets?” she yells.
“Because your father killed our geese.”
He turns tail and dashes back out of the garden.
“You’re crazy,” Tulla screams at his retreating figure.
She enters the shed and, with a heavy heart, feeds her two remaining fleaposes.
On Friday evenings, Tulla is permitted to eat supper with her parents in the kitchen. The kitchen table is a little wobbly. The floor is covered with gray linoleum, which is cracked in several places. Above the fireplace hangs a weird abstract picture with a broken frame. She uses this chance to tackle her father.
“I’ve finally discovered who’s been butchering all my animals. It’s the little ogre boy from the lodge. He did it in revenge because you killed the geese, which his father sold to you.” She said in a broken voice.
“That boy isn’t quite right in his head. He won’t let his father kill any of their geese,” said her mother.
“Why isn’t he right in his head?” Tulla is confused.
“Because his father beats him all the time.”
“Why?”
“His mother is sick with cancer, and his father is under a lot of stress.” Her mother gives a slight shrug.
“But it’s not the little boy’s fault that his mother is sick, and it’s cruel of his father to beat him. Maybe those geese are his only friends?” Said Tulla. Eyes flaring.
“Maybe?” Said her mother.
Tulla sits in silence. Her brain is troubled by tangled thoughts.
“I know what it’s like to have an abusive father, and on top of that, his mother is dying. Perhaps he loves his geese as much as I loved my fleaposes? No wonder the little ogre boy was so angry. Although forgiving a person who has hurt me profoundly is difficult, I think I will have to. Every evening before climbing into bed, I kneel beside it, clasp my hands together, and recite the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer ends with….And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the faith, and the glory. Forever and ever. Amen.
That means that I must control my resentful feelings and find a way to forgive the ogre boy. Tomorrow, on my way home from school, I’ll knock on his door, explain that I’m no longer angry at him, and ask if he wants to join Janie and me when we go tree climbing on Saturdays. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll introduce him to our friend, the old oak tree, and then maybe he won’t be so sad?”
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