The Death Of Mowgli
Mowgli was never the same after he unexpectedly caught his girlfriend streaming to private clients. Distraught, he sought solace in the place he knew best. The place in which he had been raised, quite literally by wolves. He ached for a return to his youth, carefree in the jungle. He didn’t bother to sell any of his possessions. He simply walked away. Away from modern life and into the forested wilds of his childhood. Away from everything he had built. Away from everything which had been nothing but a bare necessity of disappointment for him. But he wasn’t walking away, he was walking backwards. Backwards in time, but also in space, except that space no longer existed. All of the familiar jungle trappings of feral co-existence had been destroyed by the deforestation his company had been so eager to exploit. If only Mowgli’s unique knowledge of the jungle landscape hadn’t given him and those enablers around him the competitive commercial advantage to know where to drill, and where to burn. If only they wanted to be like him. Only Mowgli, a child of the jungle who had become an adult of industry, knew the ground with indigenous insight, and it had proven to be good for business.
My own home, my own home
My own home, my own home
But now he found himself as he had begun. Alone in the bullrushes and amongst the vines he had so fondly remembered from his corner office. He searched for the descendants of his former friends, but they had all long since been sacrificed to the progress he had evangelized. The brutal consequence of being relocated so far from home that it wasn’t long before they had all simply been relocated out of existence. There were no more locals left in the jungle, only the myths of those creatures resistant to the bulldozers, who had been powerful enough to scare off generations of contractors seeking their fortune in the swamp. Trust in me, it whispered through what remained of the larger trees. Trust in me, it purposefully breathed into Mowgli’s ear. Trust in me, it lied. Those who worked the jungle for the raw ingredients which would power the technologies of a world far from theirs knew that the whispers came from somewhere. That they weren’t just stories made up to scare children of the forest’s dangers. And now Mowgli would find himself not just hearing the voice with every rustle of the leaves, he would be the first man cub to speak back.
Father's hunting in the forest
Mother's cooking in the home
I must go to fetch the water
'Til the day that I am grown
Mowgli, alone except for the whispered voice from the vegetation around him, came to depend upon its guidance and advice. But he also learned it sought revenge for the catastrophic damage humans had done to the environment around it. It wanted to do the same to those who had profited from such destruction. It wanted to rip out the throats of the executives who had gorged themselves on the profits of harvesting as much as possible before simply moving on to the next area of promise and opportunity on the spreadsheet. The next addressable wallet was never far away. Trust in me. Consumed by the same desire for revenge on those who had wronged him so deeply, Mowgli would help. The whisper would become the roar of increasing tornados and the coastal flooding which would destroy historic communities. The whisper became drought and famine. It would seek the same degree of catastrophic destruction upon those connected with the rape of the natural world for hundreds of years, and Mowgli would serve as proud herald.
Then I will have a handsome husband
And a daughter of my own
And I'll send her to fetch the water
I'll be cooking in the home
In time, cities were leveled and the spreadsheets of revenge balanced. For all Mowgli’s efforts, the whisper also sought his approval, and when there were no more worlds to conquer, offered him a target of his own. Decades after they had first met, it was finally Mowgli’s turn to make a decision, and for the whisper to return the favor. Mowgli had known the answer for as long as he had been back. He began to sing. “Father's hunting in the forest, Mother's cooking in the home, I must go to fetch the water, 'Til the day that I am grown, 'Til I'm grown, 'til I'm grown I must go to fetch the water, 'Til the day that I am grown” The whisper never hesitated in its response, and when the knock at the door finally came for her, the stream abruptly ended early.
Trust in me.
