The Field

Bigman - m-u-f-c.co.uk forum

Once upon a time there used to be a field
Every now and then some people would come along and kick a ball around.
The creatures that lived there liked this and welcomed these people into their hearts
because this was their field and there was enough room for everybody.

As time went on a butcher came along and put some cows on the field to make some money.
The people still came along to kick a ball around every now and then
and the creatures that lived there liked this and welcomed these people into their hearts because
even though the field now belonged to the butcher and was only fertile because they lived there,
there was enough room for everybody

As time went on the butcher died and the field came to belong to his son.
This son wasn't an evil man but he was greedy and stupid.
He saw that he could take this field and divide it onto bits
and then sell these bits for more than the field was worth as just as a field,
so that he didn't have to work hard keeping cows anymore.
The creatures who lived there still liked the people who came to kick the ball around
and welcomed these people into their hearts, even though the field now belonged to lots of people
and was only fertile because they lived there
but things were getting a bit crowded.

As time went on a hyena came by. Like the butcher's son he was greedy but not quite so stupid.
He saw how much the field that was divided into bits was worth.
He saw that the field was only fertile because of the creatures who lived there
and he saw that he could make the field even more fertile
if he put different creatures in it.
The creatures put up with the hyena in their home because they still liked the people
who came to kick a ball around more and more often now
but some creatures had to leave
because their was no longer room enough for everybody.

This was a bad time for the creatures
because decisions had to be made about who was to go
and who was to stay
and there were many tears.

As time went on the creatures that left moved to a different field
where nobody had kicked a ball around before
and watched some people there.
The creatures that left still liked the ones of their kind that stayed.
They were all friends and had all grown up together
liking the people who came along more and more often to kick all a ball around
but they were afraid for them because they could see that as the hyena
bought in more and more of these new creatures
there was less and less room for those of their own kind.
They all agreed that creatures of their own kind could come to their new field
anytime they wanted.

...and as time went on they all dreamed of the day that the hyena would go away,
taking his new creatures with him so that they could all get their field back
and watch the people that came along every now and then to kick a ball around together

and they started to save, so that when the hyena went
they would have enough money to make sure the field stayed theirs
forever.