Nature's Retaliation

The sun had just slipped behind the horizon, and a warm breeze was whispering to every leaf on every tree as my father, brother, sister, and I hiked through a forest of pines nestled directly behind our house. My father, who studied the habits of Michigan whitetail deer, told us that if we kept quiet, we might see some wildlife. The promise of seeing a squirrel, a raccoon, or perhaps even a deer, had silenced us, and we scanned the woods, jumping at anything that resembled a tail or antlers. We solemnly followed our father in single file, like priests on a sacred pilgrimage to a holy offering site.

At first, the wood’s diverse exhibit of flora and fungi occupied my attention. But, after about an hour, boredom set in. My body was the main course for the famished mosquitoes that infested the woods, and a thick cloud of them hovered around me, unbearably biting at any piece of exposed skin. Our strict adherence to the no-talking rule made time creep more slowly than it should have, and my legs, after trudging over two miles, felt like they were shackled to a wrecking ball. I wanted to return home, but my father meandered leisurely up ahead, bending down frequently to analyze deer tracks and droppings. Obviously, he had no intention of halting his expedition.

To keep myself busy and to counteract for my growing ennui, I began investigating every interesting object in the forest. I lifted up rocks to see what lived beneath them, harvested odd looking fungal growths for future use, plucked petals off flowers just for sport, and smeared slugs against trees to see if their insides contrasted with the bark. Preservation of the environment wasn’t a high priority.

“Quit destroying nature!” my father commanded after witnessing me knot a bow-tie with a newly-acquired garter snake.

“Why?” I asked, irritated that he had broken our rule of silence and prohibited me from diverting my boredom.

“Because I said so!”

“Because I said so” didn’t seem like a very good reason. Nevertheless, I complied, drifting to the back of the line and sulking in frustration.

While I brooded, I came across a huge hollow log lying on the path. I evaluated the log’s strength, and, judging from its rotted appearance, decided that I could easily break it open. Stepping back, I sprinted and jumped, and with a satisfying crack my feet splintered the dead wood.

As I looked down to assess the damage, an angry humming erupted at my feet. All too late, I realized that I had disturbed a hidden nest of ground hornets, and now the enraged insects sought revenge. Before I could react, a yellow-black blur flew towards my face. I swatted at it, but it landed on my right eyelid, injecting burning formic acid into the skin. I screamed and clutched at my eye, the sting feeling like the prick of a red-hot needle. As I screeched, something with wings landed on my bottom lip, crawled into my mouth, and lodged itself between my tonsils. A reflex forced me to gag, but my spasmodic choking only aided in pushing the hornet further into my esophagus. Inside my throat I felt the squirming insect struggle, frantically stinging my insides in a futile effort to survive. The pain I felt was not limited to my interior, for the demons were attacking every piece of exposed flesh. In vain, I tried to escape the inhuman torture by flailing my arms, but with every horrible sting I became more and more disoriented in the cyclone of hornets. As the terrain started to spin, my head struck the ground and the world went dark.

When I woke up, a florescent light glared directly above my face and overwhelmed my bloodshot eyes. A blurred figure stood over me, and I could hear soft voices discussing some matter in hushed tones. I felt like the victim of a sadistic acupuncturist, my skin blazing. As I regained my vision, the image of my father standing over me became visible. After asking how I felt and informing me that I was in the emergency room, he said, “You asked me why you shouldn’t destroy nature. Well, I think you have your answer.”