Thank you Rahman, for the kind words and encouragement. I'm glad you are
enjoying the pieces.

Warm regards,
Baba

On Nov 20, 2016 3:24 PM, "Abdou Jallow" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 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
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> 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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