Great pieces my senior and mentor, Baba.  I really enjoyed them. Please keep them coming. This says everything about the state of affairs in smiling forest, from the time of Talkmuchdo little to the present. Thanks, Abdou Rahman 

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> On Nov 20, 2016, at 11:56 AM, Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Chapter Seven
> 
> The visit of the Miriki Forest foxes and how Talkmuch Dolittle sailed into exile
> 
> The announcement over Smiling Forest radio that some red security foxes from the distant and powerful forest of Miriki had arrived in Smiling Forest for joint security maneuvers with the local foxes elicited little surprise. It was an annual custom for Miriki foxes to come give some training to Smiling foxes and so there was nothing strange about it. The ship in which the Miriki foxes sailed could be seen anchored off the coast of Smiling, awaiting the time to discharge its fox cargo for the exercise. So that when the animals of Smiling Forest woke up to the specter of hordes of heavily armed foxes marching down the streets towards the royal palace, there was little alarm at first. They were simply preparing for the joint exercise, the animals thought. But it soon dawned upon them that the joint Miriki-Smiling security foxes exercise was still two days away. And waves of fear and anxiety swept the four corners of Smiling Forest.
> 
> That fateful day became known in the annals of Smiling Forest history as the Tragic Day of the Foxes. The day when the self-declared gallant and patriotic foxes of Smiling Forest decided that since they had the guns and machetes, they were more entitled to wielding power than the increasingly corrupt, inefficient and unpopular Talkmuch Dolittle administration, or any of the other animals who had no guns or machetes. On that fateful tragic day of the foxes, something died in Smiling Forest and something - dark and sinister - was born. It was to haunt Smiling Forest for more than two decades.
> 
> As the armed foxes marched towards the royal palace, word of the strange spectacle somehow reached Talkmuch Dolittle and members of his government who were having an early morning meeting. It was as if a bombshell had been dropped in the middle of the august assembly. All the great officials, including his Royal Highness, scrambled off for dear life. Talkmuch Dolittle, with help from Andi Smoothy, the Miriki Forest envoy, who by some strange coincidence, happened to be present, quickly herded his family into a canoe that rowed out to the waiting Miriki foxes ship, which sailed further away from the shore and later proceeded to Sunulu forest. Here, Talkmuch Dolittle and his entourage were granted temporary asylum. Reports had it that on board the Miriki ship, one of Talkmuch Dolittle’s two wives had fallen upon Jumbo the peacock and severely clobbered him with her high heeled shoe, cussing and accusing him of bringing the evil misfortune on the royal family. A few months later, a crestfallen Talkmuch Dolittle traveled to the distant forest of the red animals where he sought refuge. Jumbo the peacock, having craftily stashed some of his wealth abroad, set up shop in Sunulep Forest and became a businessman.
> 
> As Talkmuch Dolittle sadly sailed away into exile, speculations abounded as to what role Andi Smoothy and the Miriki Forest government played in the ousting of Talkmuch Dolittle. Miriki Forest was notorious for helping oust leaders around the world, especially if they were seen as having too cozy a relationship with the forests of the yellow animals and their ‘munism ideology. The speculations soared to the sky when it was discovered that six days before the Smiling Forest foxes seized power, Andi Smoothy had met with the six foxes who later emerged as the lead conspirators in the overthrow of Talkmuch Dolittle. Many years later, some animals still suspected that the Miriki Forest government had something to do with Talkmuch Dolittle’s ouster. Since that information remained classified, some animals impatiently waited for the day when they would lay their hands on documents explaining the nature of the Miriki-Smiling Forest relationship during Talkmuch Dolittle’s last days in office.
> 
> After the flight into exile of Talkmuch Dolittle, Jumbo the peacock and other members of the ousted government, the armed foxes consolidated their iron grip on power in Smiling Forest. Having flown and dashed frantically into hiding, senior officials of the ousted administration were ordered to come out and hand themselves over to security stations around the forest for their own safety. A few ventured to obey the orders, but the majority had to be hunted down, fished out and thrown into jail, charged with the plunder of Smiling Forest resources. In those strange early days of the foxes, it was common to see the powerful animals of yesterday being shamefully hounded and paraded around Smiling Forest, from pillar to post, post to pillar, severally denounced as traitors and thieves who had plundered the resources of Smiling Forest and had lived flamboyant lifestyles while the great majority of animals lived in abject poverty. Captured members of the Terifo and Mayifo factions were driven around in the backs of trucks, guarded by heavily armed foxes. For the next few days, no one knew who the leader of the foxes was.
> 
> Over the years, there had been many cases of armed foxes seizing power in near and distant forests around the continent of Toro. Chilling accounts of the horrendous crimes committed by these foxes in power reached the animals of Smiling Forest and made them shudder at the very idea of foxes in power. Horrendous tales of murder, injustice, wanton destruction of lives and property, the near deification of power drunk foxes characterized the fate of forests taken over by armed foxes. In all cases, a mad fox seemed to have been the leader. There were the stories of Corporal Idim (the cannibal) of Ugidi forest, who promoted himself to General, declared himself emperor of the red fox empire, killed thousands of innocent animals including some of his friends whose wives he seized, and kept chunks of animal flesh in his fridge; of Corporal Bikisi (the clown) of Cenetu forest, who also promoted himself to General, crowned himself emperor and wore a crown worth over thirty six million dollars; of Sergeant Sado (the sadist) of Bareyu forest, who butchered all members of the government he overthrew, declared himself General, and went for a weekly hairdo worth thousands of dollars in the distant forest of Miriki; of Sabacha (the butcher) of Nigiri forest, whose killing squads gunned down countless opponents to his brutal regime; and of the maddest of them all, General Motusi Sicko (the vampire) of Ziyiri forest, who, though a fox, insisted that he was a leopard, built a castle on the sea, and demanded to be worshipped by the animals. Motusi Sicko liked to have the blood of his victims drained into a glass and drank it so he could become invincible. The list was endless.
> 
>  
> In spite of all these frightening and horrendous tales of brutality and madness about armed foxes who seized power around the continent of Toro, the majority of Smiling Forest animals brushed aside all possibilities of such an aberration in their own dear motherland. “Smiling Forest is a blessed forest,” they convinced themselves. “We are not like other animals and other forests," they reasoned. “We are simple, honest and hardworking folks. The great God Yallah loves us and will not allow what happened in other forests to happen here. What about all the prayers we say, all the sacrifices we make to the great God Yallah? Surely He will not allow us to go down the path of those other miserable forests, whose animals are ungodly and treacherous and ungrateful to the great God Yallah?”
> 
> The ugly reality, as the animals were soon forced to acknowledge, was that Smiling Forest had indeed joined the list of the raped forests; the miserable club of depraved forests where truth becomes lies and lies truth; the sad forests where justice becomes injustice, and freedom slavery; where truth becomes lies, and lies truth. Smiling Forest would soon become worse than those forests where only the wicked and the mediocre thrive and the truthful and the good are relegated to the status of unwanted pariahs - jailed, beaten up, shot dead, sent scrambling for dear life into distant hostile lands where they are considered third class citizens and have to endure all manner of shameful and degrading treatment.
> And so while some of the less sober animals celebrated and danced in the streets, the more sober animals cried and wailed and hit their heads against the earth, and threw a thousand questions up to heaven, hoping that the great God Yallah would send them a clue, help them understand just what had happened, where they had gone wrong. All they got in reply was silence, a deep silence that threatened to burst their tortured ear drums. The Great God Yallah was not in the habit of talking back to His creatures. He had stopped that long ago, when the world was still young…. Smiling Forest was in deep, deep trouble. Its animals were destined to suffer one of the longest and most brutal experiences of armed foxes rule not only within the continent of Toro, but throughout the whole big wide world.
> 
> 
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