The Tumbling Moles

A Story for All Ages by Aaron McEmrys

Grandfather Thunder was having a very bad day.

You might not think it, but being a godlike force of nature is a lot harder than it looks. Grandfather Thunder is very big and very powerful, but let’s face it – watering the whole Earth is a pretty demanding job.

“The problem,” thought Grandfather Thunder gloomily, “is that I get no respect. All I ever get is complaints – so what if I water the whole planet and makes the crops grow, ‘the lightning and thunder kept me up half the night last night.’ So what if I’m the one who makes sure the rivers keep running and the rain keeps falling – the one time I get a little carried away and a teensy-weensy flood wipes out a village, I’m the bad guy! I get no respect!”

“Of course everyone loooves Grandfather Sun. He’s so warm and golden and has such great taste in very shiny suits. He gets all the credit for anything – nobody ever says, “how wonderful, it’s starting to rain – but everyone is delighted when the rain finally stops and the stupid sun comes out.”

“No respect at all.”

Just then, Grandfather Thunder rounded a bend in the rainforest trail and bumped headlong into Grandfather Sun, who was sitting on a high rock. The Sun was leaning back leisurely and snacking on all the tasty offerings that people all over the world left for him all summer long: on sunblock and ice cream; sun-tea and watermelon.

There he was, lounging and snacking right there in the Hoh rainforest, the darkest, wettest, lushest place in the whole world – the very heart of Grandfather Thunder’s Kingdom!

“Get out of here at once, you nasty old Sun – no one wants your suntans here!”

“I go where I want, oh sodden one. And this morning I choose to sit here, letting these waterlogged trees of yours dry out a bit for once.”

And sure enough, all the trees around Grandfather Sun were turning brown and brittle in the unfamiliar heat.

“I’m going to count to ten”, Thunder said, “and if you aren’t gone by the time I’m done counting, you will regret it!”

“I’m not going anywhere”, said the Sun.

They fell to bickering, each trying to outdo the other. And so it came to pass that the rainforest went through the longest, hottest, driest spell that anyone could remember, so dry that even the ducks had to start wearing sunscreen and broad-brimmed hats.

And Santa Barbara, the unquestioned capital of the Kingdom of the Sun did indeed feel Thunder’s wrath – and the cool fog of what the locals call “June Gloom” stretched on for weeks and weeks, until even the snakes and tarantulas started to knit sweaters and scarves.

Sun and Thunder glared at each other, and it was clear that neither of them was ever going to back down. The Sun stood planted on his high rock, beaming furiously while mighty Thunder faced him from under the shadow of ancient trees as menacing sparks of lightning and thunder rolled through the forest.

Each of them drew a deep breath, ready to blast the whole world with blistering drought and drowning floods – when, right in the place where sun and shadow met, the strangest thing happened ---

A pair of baby moles. You know, moles, those little nearsighted, nocturnal burrowers – a pair of baby moles rolled down the hill out of nowhere, giggling and wheezing as they play-wrestled, rolling wildly like a ball of goofy brown yarn.

They hit the ground with a thump and stood up, both so dizzy from their tumble that they swayed and staggered as unsteadily as two drunken sailors, which just set them off laughing all over again.

The moles were so near-sighted that they did not see the mighty Sun and terrible Thunder facing off so menacingly on either side of them. And so they kept on playing and clowning and giggling as the two angry gods looked on in astonishment, before finally plopping down in an exhausted heap and falling sound asleep right their in the middle of the trail – as moles are sometimes wont to do.

The Grandfathers watched the baby moles, their little breasts rising and falling with the innocent rhythms of sleep. They saw those tiny, fragile little creatures, with their bad eye-sight, narcolepsy and distinctly unglamorous goofiness – and they realized, finally, how foolishly they were behaving.

Grandfather Thunder lowered his arms and relaxed, and the sun came out in Santa Barbara for the first time in weeks. Grandfather Sun half-closed his burning eyes, and a family of ducks dove deep into a cool green pool.

Then, without a word, the two old ones nodded curtly at one another in temporary truce, and went their separate ways.

And so it was that the simplest, the most ordinary of creatures saved the whole world. This is not as strange as it may sound, for indeed the world has never been nor will ever be – saved in any other way.

The end.