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(a science fiction story) Wyhlléyas sat on the chair and stared into the Big Nothing. He was put there to think over what he had done, and he knew he had done things, but he couldn’t think of anything he had done fundamentally wrong. And that was the big deal about being in jail. Yes, he had not lived among the lines of the tradition, neither had his mate, but hey, the world changed every now and then, so why stick in the mud of world-creation for the rest of eternity? It had all started when this curious Elf had left the midst of Elfland and wandered to the Edge of the Forest. There, he had seen these humans. What he had seen was quite a legend now, whispered in gatherings of adolescents. The elderly Elves didn’t want to hear about it, but anyone younger than five hundred years was interested. It was not about the fact that these humans had mated when the Elf peeked out of the bushes. It was not even the way they had done it. It was the joy on their faces that made it interesting. Unfortunately, the runaway Elf was not left unnoticed. The humans saw him, and asked him to join in the fun. That was the beginning of the new era. The Elves learned to have fun while having sex. And, in a way, that was the beginning of the end. For centuries, the Elves had lived their eternal lives in peace and quietness, contemplating and being wise. They never aged, some died, but not because they grew old. They had sex, but not much, and only a few children were born each century. There was no sex-drive, nothing that made it necessary to mate and reproduce; being together meant a gentle discussion, the sharing of deep thoughts, philosophy even, or just contemplating nature. There were enough Elves, and the few that died because they fell off the cliffs or were attacked by dragons and trolls were simply replaced by the few babies. But now sex was considered fun, the Elven community rocked on its base. After the runaway Elf had returned and introduced sex-for-fun, more and more babies were born, and grew up in a few decades to discover the joy of sex themselves. And reproduced. Soon, the forest was flocked with Elves. Their dwellings were found on every glade, in all trees, and it expanded to close to the Edge of the Forest. They were still a bit afraid of humans with their iron ploughs and things, but slowly but steadily, they felt they were outnumbering the inferior races. The runaway Elf went back to the humans every now and then, and brought back more joy; he soon was followed by other Elvish traders. Items and ideas that were new to the Elves, but that guided them into a new way of life. Wyhlléyas took a draft from his cigarette. Yes, that legendary Elf sure had changed things. The young enjoyed it, but the old Elves were not amused. Neither were the humans, by the way. The Forest just was not large enough to feed both the human villages on its edges plus Elfland in its midst. He sighed and stood up from the chair. It was a plastic chair, figures. Everything to make him uneasy. He walked over to the window with the horizontal bars and looked out over the forest. The trees stood with bare branches exposed to the sun. It looked like winter, it always looked like winter. And the adolescents from hundred, two hundred years old couldn’t even remember what autumn, summer or spring looked like. He had told them so often: when the world changes, you better make the best of it. But they, the old and wise, didn’t listen and stuck to their traditions. Living in a forest, that was dying because the Elves ate more than the forest produced. And sticking to their mystic ways, contemplating their honoured virtues while staring into deep pools, having a heart for the life in the environment that was fading in reality; nature only lived on in their ancient memories. They talked about helping the animals, and each deer or rabbit, squirrel or boar that came to them, they cured with their herbal knowledge, but they never did something about the reasons why the animals became ill. They were starving, these animals. They should have known there was something extremely wrong, Wyhlléyas thought. At least when the human peasants came into the forest. They had carried all these iron things, because they knew Elves were afraid of iron, and humans, Elves knew, were afraid of Elves. But the humans did not come to attack. Not then. They just came to talk. He had been there, at the Gathering. Many had been there, some in the open, other hidden in the shadows of the forest. Some wanted to know what the humans were there for, other just waited for an invitation to have sex with the humans. But the humans were not having fun. They explained they needed wood from the forest, and there was not enough of it now the Elves used so much for their houses. You just could not chop down a tree when an Elf was living in or under it. And there were not enough animals left in the Forest, they went out to search for a less crowded spot. The humans -to the horror of the vegetarian Elves- ate dead animals, after they had killed them. But with the vegetation, it was the same thing. Mushrooms, fruit, nuts and herbs disappeared into the Elven community and not much of them was left for the humans. “What happened that your community expands so much?” the humans asked, “And why don’t you take care of the environment so that you don’t disturb it?” But the elderly Elves stared in the fire, and murmured some arcane words. In translation, their mystic mutterings didn’t make much sense. “Nature cares for itself, there is no need to interfere with the natural course of things.” “Nature has always healed itself, we care about that.” “There is more to worry about in this world than a temporary lack of resources, we have seen it so often over the millennia...” The humans shook there heads and left the Gathering. On the way out, one of the young Elves had asked them for a cigarette, eager to get some sex. While he was smoking, the humans asked him about the expansion of Elfland. The youth told them there were more babies in the community than ever before. At least ten a year. It was truly amazing. Everybody knew Elves didn’t reproduce that fast. Their fertility had gone up like magic, and yet, the Elf knew, there was no magic involved. The humans frowned and left, only a young woman lingered to be alone with the Elf. He took off his clothes to mate with the female human. She lay on the grass with her skirt up and watched him getting undressed. When he finished stripping, she handed him a small package. “Use that,” she said. “What is it?” he asked. “It’s a condom.” He unpacked the thing and looked at it. “What do I do with it? It’s sticky and feels... strange.” Out of disgust he let it drop in the grass. It had felt a bit like magic. You never knew what humans put on things like that, it smelled like bad magic, even though the humans called it chemicals. The female sighed. “Look,” she said, “It’s all right with me that I have sex with you, okay? But I just don’t want to get pregnant, I have a husband and already three kids to take care of; I can’t have an extra half-Elf in my household. So put the condom on your prick, so you can’t make me a child.” The Elf looked startled. “That’s interfering with nature,” he said. “I can’t. It’s against the laws of nature.” The woman pulled her skirt down and got up from the grass. “Fine, then I can’t.” She looked angry, and paced away to the Edge of the Forest. What happened afterwards, was something Wyhlléyas would rather forget. At the time, he wished he could die. Some of his friends had committed suicide, or at least tried to, but he was to much a coward to do so. He didn’t even fight in the war. He was too young for it, had no experience like the elder had, who had fought in almost forgotten legendary wars, against the Dwarves and the Orcs. This time it were the humans coming into Elfland to fight. After they had realised the Elves were not planning some kind of birth-control, they decides to fight for their forest. They had come with sharp words at first, but where waved away by the elder Elves, who would not allow the humans to distribute condoms and mess with nature. Enraged, the humans returned with sharp swords, guns and bombs. It was terrible. Never before, so many Elves had died. Many humans died too, but at least they had their modern weapons, where the Elves relied on their successful, legendary elven-wood swords and large ditto shields. They were shot to smithereens. Wyhlléyas got tears in his eyes whenever he remembered the slaughter. It had been suicide fighting the humans. Blood stained the soil of Elfland forever and a day, and the worst thing was that the memory couldn’t fade with the fading of the generations. The reduction of Elves was good for a while, and the humans did not came back. But the babies that were born after the war grew up with the joy of sex and all other bad things that were imported from human villages. Soon, the Elves spread in the forest like they had done before the war. There were now not only houses on every glade and in or under every tree, there were fast-food restaurants, tobacconists, large departmentstores and supermarkets, pubs, coffee-shops and brothels. Shops with everything you could dream of and more. The elderly Elves saw it all happen, but did nothing. It was what they always had done, but on a slightly larger scale. Elves needed dwellings, and places to trade. That was their nature. You shouldn’t interfere with that. The humans were in shock after the war. They had seen the beautiful creatures of the woods die in pain. It was not what they had wanted, and they were ashamed of their actions. If only those Elves were bright enough to see that their modern way of living screamed for a new way of thinking. They did not want to march against the Elves again. Instead, they prayed. They fell down on their knees in their temples and prayed to Mother Earth, the Goddess of Fertility and Nature. They prayed until their knees hurt, their backs were bent into a crook, and their lips were sore from kissing the altar, their voices hoarse from all the holy words. But Mother Earth had heard them. She looked down on Elfland, a vast grey spot on Her planet. She couldn’t do much about it, and yet Her heart went out to the humans who so badly needed Her help. She just couldn’t change the things the Elves had set in motion. It was their free choice to destroy Elfland. Then, Mother Earth had an idea. She had seen what the Elves had changed, and what they now wanted more than anything else. They could have it, She just had to reduce the effects of it. With Her Divine Colleagues She talked about it, and They came to an agreement. The Elves could enjoy sex forever and a day, and they did not have to interfere in nature by considering birth-control. And She, the Goddess of Fertility, was not allowed to mess with their fertility. And they couldn’t loose their immortality. But they won’t reproduce that much anymore, and thus would not longer be a danger to the human culture. And so, Mother Earth had decided, all Elves had to be gay. Wyhlléyas threw his fag out of the window. He should have been gay about it. He turned his back to the window with the view that made his heart ache. That decision had been a few decades ago. The forest was recovering, but it would take some time before all the things were more or less back to normal. And there were still much too much Elves, anyway - it would take centuries before enough of them had died to be reduced to the normal population of Elfland. He sat down on the plastic chair again, in this human prison. It was set up especially for Elves like him, the horizontal bars to make him uncomfortable (the vertical would have reminded him of his beloved trees). The concrete table in front of him was empty, and on the wall he had scraped lines, one for each day, to measure eternity. Behind him was an iron bed. It was uneasy to sleep in it, and he had nightmares all the time. He was convinced it was the iron that caused them. The human psychologist told him it was guilt. Guilt about what he had done to human culture. But whatever he had done, he did not feel guilty about what he had done. It made him sick to be in jail for eternity. He painfully missed his beloved and adored friend. And the illegal baby she had borne. Related topics: |