The last laugh....

His whole face was unclean and wooly, ripe with Uukie lice.

Unable to wash away sins, soap was an unnecessary foreign luxury lost on the clean residing beyond the trees inside their lofty chambers. He would hide from the vain virtually hairless warm eggheads, not to avoid their taunts and stares, more so because he craved peaceful anonymity as much as the feeling of the dark mud strangling his hairy toes and the ash living under his bropunzel.

Had he overslept past sunrise when the clearing became occupied with the juvenile pitter patter of feet following the rules heading towards the clanging school bell in the distance; if he had a name and was confronted, it would not satisfy the inquisitor, since he would only introduce himself if cajoled and coerced using a soft "U" sound grunt. Of few words, he was comfortable in his quiet lonely form, and as just a rumor to them, as a legend, as an afterthought, he swiftly maintained his distance from the home dwellers with precision, until that one unfortunate lazy day he rose with the sun already up over the ridge. A vision dressed in all white gingham lace, with a red satin ribbon braided through her golden hair, she was too young to be a bride and too old not to know better than to wander away from the others on her way to school. First she screamed, and as he retreated, her uncontrollable laughter reverberated off his deferential back and into his uncomplicated intellect; a laugh universally known as an affront to otherness.

After that day, when he sensed their close proximity, caught like a novel virus he contemplated their peculiarities and intolerance. "Umm, Ugg, Urr, Udd,....." which in Uukie translates into, "With all their words, with all their thoughts, what do they know about living off the land in harmony with nature? Look at them all in their gaudy garments off to a heated room in search of more words, more things, returning at dusk to their elders readily offering abundance to be consumed and absorbed all the while sitting comfortably beside their warm hearths communally. How would any of them know how to fend for themselves should their comforts be blown away? Is it not fair to teach them of my ways, the lesson of simplicity and enlightenment for rudimentary survival? It is not my intention to follow their ways and then laugh last. It is only my intention to catechize."

Long after he burned their homes right down to the solid earth, one after the next catching fire like dry cotton until there were none standing, long after they picked up their pieces from the ash and moved on, they all spoke of the Uukie beast, who grew larger each time the story was told, asking the same question habitually to the only one who had ever caught a glimpse, for as long as she lived.

"Tell us again. Why did you laugh?"