1. A little bird lived all
 alone in a very big
wood. He had woken up
 one morning, back
  when he was barely
fledged, and
untucked
his

   head from under
his wing to find the
  big wood empty.

There was no sound except
that of the wind
sighing through the branches.

2. His first thought was that he must have untucked his head
   from under the wrong wing that morning. He tucked his head
 under his other wing but when he took it out again the wood
                         was still empty. Then he tried the
                           first wing again for good measure. 

    Nothing but the trees
  and the wind murmuring in the
leaves.

   3. He ran up and down the branches
of the big oak tree calling out for
 hours but nobody answered. 

    Not unless you count the
  whistling of the wind
between the tree trunks.

4. He flew backwards and forwards over the immense woods
that always stretched to the horizon. He saw no other
 living thing but trees.

  He heard only the wind
burping and farting gently
 among the roots.

5. And every night the little bird would cry himself to
                   sleep out of sheer loneliness and hope
                  to dream of happier days when the wood
                  had been full of other birds.

                  Even the wind was silent because it had
                    run out of parts of trees to make noises
                   through and it hated to do the same
                     thing every day.

   6. But unknown to the little bird
there was just one other animal in the wood.
 A tiny beetle, barely out of its pupa,
had looked up from happily munching on a
bit of dead wood to find itself all alone.
  Like the little bird, it has looked
everywhere for others of its kind. It too
                cried itself to sleep
                  each night.

  7. Then one day, while they were coming round either side
of the trunk of the big oak tree, the little bird and
      the beetle came face to face.

  8. Of course the beetle was frightened at first but they soon
became friends and would happily play little games of hide and
seek all day in the
 branches of the
  big oak tree.

  9. I know what you're thinking.
Nature cannot be denied for long.

You are right of course.

10. They were both eaten by the big oak tree.

11. The next day the big oak tree woke up to find itself 
  in a barren land devoid of any other trees. And the
 only other living things, from horizon to horizon, were
huge yet strangely little birds. And for
  every second of every minute of every hour they
crapped on the branches of the big oak tree.

And the big oak tree cried in its loneliness and humilation.

    And some would feel sorry for it, but not us, we know
       what it did. 

           We saw it.

12. The wind howled through the gigantic feathers and beaks of the tiny giant birds.
          For a few days anyway, at least the wind was happy.

Copyright xoggoth