GIGGLES

GIGGLES

There was a time when hyenas did not laugh and weeping willows real tears.

 Hyenas not only didn't laugh, they did not smile. They were the saddest and most Serious Creatures in all the animal kingdom. 

None of the other animals ever invited them to their socials or picnics. In fact, they held their events in the farthest distance from the Hyena Village. The other animals did not dislike the hyenas, but nobody could have any fun with a hyena, sitting and staring stone-faced, as they danced and swung from the trees and or threw  coconuts at each other.

The hyenas of thought that the other animals were silly, not funny wasting their time on unproductive games.

The hyenas valued they're stoicness. They gave names to their 

 children like Gloomis, Dark Thunder and Stick- to- it-. These were Black Clouds friends in the village, set apart from the rest of the jungle.. a hyenas code was, the other animals could not accept their behavior, they would not accept the other animals silliness either. Black cloud was not that sure..

He snuck off into the far Glen and often tried to laugh. He could not. He tied sticks to the corner of his mouth, to try and smile.. they just broke and hurt his lips.

He went to his parents and asked them if they had ever smiled. "Why would a hyena want to smile?"

He went to the Grand Hyena, and and asked him why this was so. He was told, that all animals were different... birds could not roar, lions could not fly, and hyenas could not laugh. It was just so. Black Cloud was still not sure.

Things continued as they were until a spring morning, when Black Cloud was picking blackberries near Guzman Meadow. He was among the fields of wildflowers. He heard a buzz . In those days, bees were Capital Bees and a bee sting was up serious business.

He ran, but tripped over a hidden log and fell into the slime pit. Then, he scurried out and plowed through the flowers ,till he heard no buzzing sound. At the reflecting pond, out of breath, he gazed at the water. He was covered with every imaginable color flower. Twigs were stuck like a crown on his head,  and pine cones covered his nose.

He looked again in amazement.. not at the flowers, but at his own mouth...his lips were starting to turn upward.. then it came from deep down.. laughter.. uncontrolled laughter. The more he looked, the more he laughed.. Black Cloud could just not be still..

He dashed to his village. Each hyena he met, stopped to lecture him, but wound up laughing too. Seeing him made each hyena think of looking like Black Cloud, as no hyena had ever looked before. 

The inner barriers cracked open, freeing the joyous sounds, missing for so long from the village.

Soon the whole village rocked with laughter. Hyenas rolled on the ground with  their snoots in the air, gasping for more breath.. to laugh some more.

After that.. no hyena could stop laughing. They became the first animals invited to festivals. Good jokes, bad jokes, the laughter still came.. bathing the jungle with joy, till even the weeping willow stop shedding their tears. 

Every Grand Hyena, at every annual Hyena Slime Pot Day, before his dip, still tells the story of Black Cloud, the wise hyena who discovered the great hyena truth. "TO BE ABLE TO LAUGH AT OTHERS, YOU FIRST HAVE TO LAUGH AT YOURSELF."

Oh Yes And..Black Cloud's first child was named GIGGLES.