November 22nd, 2005
Welcome back to Metaphor Mountain.
We join our menagerie of characters in media res (so to speak). In particular, we come across Grumpy Bear just as he is busy finishing the digging out of the entrance to his new home.
He was previously living in a mud hole, and although it was a home of sorts, he knew he could probably find better lodgings elsewhere. So he looked around, and eventually found his way into the forest. It was there that he found a comfortable cave in a rocky wall that rose from the ground and stretched high into the sky to form the peak of Metaphor Mountain. The cave was just the right size for his bulk and some room besides, but not so big that he could get lost or feel as though he were swallowed up by a large space. Bears may like to move around, but they are never happy with being completely unrestricted and so free that they can move anywhere they like at any time they want. Bears—especially grumpy ones—like a little resistance in their life. (But before you decide to provide a little resistance to the next Grumpy Bear that wanders into your life, be warned: They like the resistance because they like knocking it down.)
Anyhow, Grumpy Bear was busy swatting big chunks of sod and vegetation out of a sloping ramp down to the entrance of his new cave. He stood on all fours facing the rocky wall, and shoveled the muck and foliage between his legs and behind him. Hundreds of kilos of rocks, branches, mud & mire, and sand went flying out behind him, landing far away. Unfortunately, some of the muck was landing on the entrance holes and air vents to a rabbit warren.
Now, the rabbits of Metaphor Mountain are not the timid frightened little beasts that most rabbits in other lands are, but even so they had some compunction about sending a representative to request a quick stop to the mess-making.
"He is big!" said one rabbit.
"He is grumpy!" said another.
"He is a bear!" said a third.
And in unison all three cried, "He is a big grumpy bear!"
But, soon, other voices spoke up: "But this is Metaphor Mountain. The M41 is clear: We are safe from violence."
"Yeah, we only fight with words here."
"We are safe! Grumpy Bear can't hurt us!"
And pretty soon, they all built up enough indignation at having the ongoing assault of forest-floor mud and detritus landing on their warren that they decided to send an emissary. Indeed, Rafi Rabbit—the warren mayor himself—left the safety of the tunnels, dodged the onslaught of falling dirt and sand and flora, and eventually made his way over to Grumpy Bear.
"Hey bear!" said Rafi Rabbit, "This digging does not concern me, but your choice of where to put the stuff that formerly occupied that hole there is making life untenable for us rabbits. In short, you're burying our warren entrances and breathing holes."
Grumpy Bear stopped and turned to Rafi Rabbit. He studied Rafi Rabbit for a moment, almost as though estimating the length of time his hunger could be assuaged by making a snack of the little furry creature. But then he sat down facing Rafi Rabbit and instead said, "Rafi Rabbit, it is not a 'choice' that I made. I simply wanted all of this crap dug up and put out of the way so I could have easier access to my new home here. I gave no thought to where it was landing."
"Well you've made a mess over at our warren!"
"Perhaps I could come and clean it up for you."
Rafi Rabbit was taken aback by such an offer. He was suspicious, but continued to remind himself about the M4. Even though he had suspicions, he finally said, "OK, bear. This is acceptable. Come with me."
"I haven't finished digging my entrance hole yet."
"But you said you'd clean up the mess you made."
"I will, of course, but-"
"Then let's go now."
So Grumpy Bear followed Rafi Rabbit back to the warren. When they got there, some rabbits had already emerged from the warren because the mud had stopped falling on them, and because they wanted to inspect the damage. They got frightened when they saw Grumpy Bear, and ran back into their holes.
"Hmm ... I scared them," said Grumpy Bear.
"Never mind that!" admonished Rafi Rabbit, "Here is the mess you made. You can help us by cleaning it up. Here ... here ... and here ..." As he said this, he pointed to different areas that had been affected.
"Yes, I see the mess I made."
"... and here ... here ... oh, and here. And don't forget here and here."
"I see the mess," said Grumpy Bear as he began cleaning up the fallen rocks, plant matter, and sand.
"You clean up here," said Rafi Rabbit, "And I'll send someone out to check on your progress in a while."
So Grumpy Bear continued cleaning up the rest of the mess while Rafi went back down into the warren to confer with his fellow rabbits.
He addressed them and said, "Grumpy Bear is topside right now cleaning up the mess he made, but I want you, Rini Rabbit," —he indicated a little girl rabbit with cute pink tail—"to go up there and make sure he is doing a proper job." (Then he added so only she could hear, "Then come see me when you are done.")
So Rini climbed up and out of the warren just as Grumpy Bear was finishing up his cleaning.
"You missed a spot there, bear," she said, pointing to a boulder that had rested on the floor of the forest for millennia.
"That is not my mess," Grumpy Bear said.
"It needs to be moved. You're supposed to be helping us, not making our lives more difficult."
So Grumpy Bear leaned forward, lifted his mighty paw, flexed the massive muscles in his shoulder and arm and swatted the boulder deep into the forest. "Anything else?" he growled.
"Yes, there are some piles of dirt over there that we left when we built the warren. You can move the dirt away from the entrances, so that we have an unobstructed view of predators approaching."
Grumpy Bear was about to complain, but Rini Rabbit ducked back down into the warren. 'Well,' he thought, 'I'll do this one thing and then go back to working on my home. This, after all, is how good neighbors are made.' So he began breaking down the rain-hardened piles of dirt. Once he had large enough handfuls, he collected it up in his paws and carried it away deeper into the forest.
He was nearly complete when Rafi Rabbit came out of the warren. "Oh no!" cried Rafi Rabbit. "You oaf! You've torn down our rain barriers! We'll all get soaking wet the next time it rains! Go put those piles back ... and in exactly the way you found them!"
"Rafi Rabbit, " Grumpy Bear began, "I was told by-"
"Hurry! It could rain at any moment!"
Grumpy Bear looked at the sky through the canopy of trees. Blue without a single cloud. But he shrugged his shoulders and started collecting dirt to rebuild the rain barriers. All of the dirt he had dispersed on the forest floor was collected up (and he made sure to pick out any extra leaves and rocks that were not originally part of the dirt piles) and it was made back into the hills of dirt to protect the warren from flooding.
As he continued to rebuild the piles, two more rabbits came out of the warren and said, "Rafi wanted us to show you where we need extra rain protection."
"You want me to build extra dirt hills? Ones that weren't there before I took down these piles here?"
"Well, not really hills. No. But we need more rain protection than we've had."
Grumpy Bear stopped moving dirt for a moment and turned to face them. "What do you want then?"
They squirmed a little, and one of them finally said, "Well, we're still all working through this, you know. We don't have all the answers."
"Well I need to know what kind of rain protection you want—how can I build something if I don't know what you want?"
The rabbits started quivering. "Don't shout at us please, we are just telling you what Rafi said. Build anything, it doesn't matter."
"OK, OK," said Grumpy Bear. "But please tell Rafi that in future if he wants something to come and ask me himself."
The two rabbits disappeared and Grumpy Bear continued re-building the piles of dirt, while thinking about what he would do to create rain protection for the other areas of the warren. But before he could finish, Rini Rabbit came up again and said, "Bear, Rafi is just too busy to come talk to you himself, but he wants to know how long this is all going to take. He is worried about rains."
"Well, Rini Rabbit, I was thinking of building rills along this side of the warren, and then digging a small drainage trench along this-"
"Sure, whatever. The details are your business. When you're done that, you can go find that boulder you threw away."
"What? Why? What should I do with it?" Grumpy Bear growled.
Rini froze and put on a slightly surprised and slightly upset expression on her face. "Um, excuse me, bear, but in case you have forgotten, you are the one that made this mess!"
Grumpy Bear was about to retort, but realised there was nothing he could say in his defence. It was true he had done everything himself. He could not say that he was not responsible because he was acting under orders, so he said nothing. Rini, satisfied that she made her point, gave him one more long hard look, then disappeared down the rabbit hole into the warren.
So Grumpy Bear got back to work. He made the piles of dirt into rain barriers, he built rills and drainage trenches around the other parts of the warren, and he went off into the forest to retrieve the rock that he had earlier swatted away from the warren.
When he returned, Rafi was outside inspecting his work. "Oh, uh, just put the boulder down there for now, bear. Then come here. There are a couple of issues with the work you've done here: These little hills you made? They aren't the same style as those piles of dirt. I want them all to look the same. Plus, those new piles aren't pounded down and hard-packed. You've got to find some way to get them back exactly the way they were. And these little drainage trenches?" Rafi Rabbit chuckled a little, then continued: "You dug drainage around these holes, but what about the rest of the holes? What did you think we were going to do in the next rainstorm? Huddle close to these three holes and stay away from the rest of the warren?" He chuckled again. "You need to think about these things, OK? And finally, bear, I want you to flatten the top of this boulder."
"Huh? I can't do that! I wouldn't know how! Besides-"
"It should be theoretically possible to use a smaller rock to chip away at the top until it is flat and large enough for me to stand on. I want to be able to stand on it, you see, because I want to orate to the rest of the rabbits. And I have plans for you for the future where you will dig a large underground amphitheatre and put the rock in it, then cover it over again. Then I will be able to orate rain or shine."
Without hesitation, Grumpy Bear picked up the boulder and lifted it above his head and turned to face Rafi Rabbit.
"No, no!" Rafi Rabbit said, completely unafraid, "I want it over there!" And with that he disappeared down the rabbit hole, and back into the warren.
Grumpy Bear put the rock down where Rafi Rabbit had indicated, then turned and sat down on it. 'What have I got myself into?' he wondered. 'I thought I could be a responsible neighbor, but look at the mess I'm in! Maybe I should just leave now. They won't ever be friendly neighbors, will they? Oh boy ...'
Just then, Regis Rabbit came out of a hole with a clipboard. "OK, bear, it says here that you spent 14 minutes away from the warren retrieving that boulder. Was all that time spent getting the boulder and bringing it back? We calculate that it should have taken no more than 9 minutes to recover it. So we took the liberty of marking that extra five minutes as a break. Which brings up two problems: One, you need to let us know when you are taking breaks so that we can mark it down and keep track of them. Two, I can't help but notice you are sitting down right now, indicating that you are taking another break already. You can sit this one out, but for the future I want you to remember that you only get one break every four hours, not two breaks—even if they are small ones. Finally, we need an estimate on how long the work you've been tasked with is going to take so that we can start making longer-term plans for your time.'
With this, Grumpy Bear rose on his hind legs and roared so loudly that Regis Rabbit was propelled back two metres by the enourmous force of it. The trees shook from the volume of air that Grumpy Bear moved, and bits of twigs and leaves fell from the trees and onto the back of Regis Rabbit as he scrambled back into his rabbit hole. And still Grumpy Bear screamed until there were no birds left in the trees for hundreds of metres around, and all the loose objects had scattered away from him in all directions. Finally, when his lungs were empty, and when he was too tired to continue bellowing, Grumpy Bear closed his mouth, and ambled away from the warren back towards his bear cave.
Too exhausted to do any more digging, he left the rest of the excavation of the cave to another day, and instead went inside to sleep. But sleep was a long time coming because he was so upset about not being able to help the rabbits to their full expectations. In fact, he tossed and turned for hours and hours, and finally settled down enough to slide into a fitful sleep.
But he was shortly awoken by Morley the Messenger Mouse.
"You are being served these official papers, please sign here. You are also receiving this official letter from the Metaphor Mountain Council. Please sign here. Oh, and this one comes Postage Due: You owe me $2.75. What? No tip? OK, OK! Sorry! I'm leaving now."
Document 1
William A. Weasel Esq. (Metaphor Mountain Bar number 6660123) 80386 Suxtubeyu Dr. Upper Crust, Met. Mount., OU812 Attorneys for Plaintiffs METAPHOR MOUNTAIN COURT FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF FOREST THE RABBITS ) No. __________ ) Plaintiffs, ) COMPLAINT ) v. ) ) MR. GRUMPY BEAR ) ) ) Defendant. ) ) NATURE OF THE ACTION 1. WHEREAS, the Defendant did negligently damage the area on and about the Plaintiffs' warren while conducting construction on his own home. The Defendant, while clearing dirt from the entranceway to his house carelessly allowed dirt, sand, mud, plant matter, and other foliage to obscure the entranceways and ventilation shafts to the Plaintiffs' home. 2. WHEREAS, the Defendant did contract to perform duties including the following: - Repair of damage incurred as described in (1) above - Construction of rain prevention devices - Renovation to Oration Rock but did not perform all of said duties as contracted. 3. WHEREAS, the Defendant did emit a loud and frightening noise which has left members of the warren in general and Plaintiff Regis Rabbit in particular traumatised. Also, the noise emitted by the Defendant scared at least 6 (six) baby rabbits attempting to sleep ...Document 2
Metaphor Mountain Council, Forest Division
100 - Large Rock by Stream
Metaphor Mountain Forest, NI82Attn: Grumpy Bear
Dear Mr. Bear,
It has come to our attention that you have recently moved to the area. We at the council are always happy to hear about new arrivals in our neighborhood. To that end, we would have normally liked to extend our welcome to you in anticipation of a long and happy future together.
But we understand through the complaints of some of your neighbors that you have, in short order, (1) created construction messes, (2) willfully damaged neighboring homes, (3) generated much offensive noise, and (4) dishonoured contracts with neighbors. As to that last point, we understand you are being served with legal papers laying claim. And as for all the issues mentioned here, we would like to advise you that our forest is not an appropriate forum for the display of such behaviour. We are a peaceful, gentle community interested in harmonious living and cooperation.
You have not made a good first impression with us, and we are forced to place you on warning. Any further actions by you that we deem to be unpleasant, unsavory, anti-social, or offensive will result in your expulsion from the Metaphor Mountain Forest. In addition, one of the stipulations to prevent us from expelling you forthwith is your adherence to the M4, which states, in part:
"... those found to be in contradiction of these mandates must submit within 7 days, in writing, a list of steps taken to rectify the situation and a signed written apology with a promise to not repeat such actions as were deemed offensive again ..."
To that end, Mr. Bear, we require such documentation submitted no later than a week from today.
We remain,
etc. etc. etc.
Grumpy Bear sighed. This was how a reputation grew...
1) Metaphor Mountain Moral Mandates
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