Probably about a decade ago or more, a group of community members and myself took on the powerful paper mill in our town.
Many frustrating losses and a few successes later, I decided that maybe our story could best be told if it were modeled after a fairy tale with mean old dragons and innocent village folks.
The following is the result which I just found today on an old computer.
Once upon a time in a village near the mountains, there lived a huge dragon named Willard who gobbled up trees and laid paper eggs all day and night.
Many villagers in the valley town loved Willard the Dragon because he would pay hundreds of them gold nuggets to feed him trees and to keep his paper eggs pretty and clean.
The gold the villagers earned from Willard the Dragon was shared with the Queen’s court and merchants in the village.
For many years the Dragon and the villagers lived in peace. They knew that the Dragon’s fiery breath was dangerous, but the dragon also made the village proud because the gold Willard gave the people was exceedingly beautiful and beneficial.
One day Willard the Dragon told the villagers that he wanted to grow even bigger so he could gobble up more trees and lay more paper eggs.
The villagers told Willard to set up a meeting with the Queen and her court.
The Queen and her court were happy to hear of Willard the Dragon’s plans, and asked what they could do to help Willard get bigger faster.
“That’s something I wanted to discuss with you,” Willard the Dragon said boldly while yellow smoke twirled out of his huge nostrils. “I have sent my servants to the ends of this world to trade for many contraptions to make me bigger, but I don’t want to pay taxes to the village for it.”
“Well, all of our merchants and peasants pay more taxes in our village when they get bigger,” the Queen reasoned.
“Then I will leave your village and gobble up trees somewhere else, and you will have many unhappy villagers without anyone to serve, and they will no longer have any gold,” Willard angrily snorted.
“Oh no!” the Queen pleaded. “Our merchants need the gold you pay the villagers who serve you. And I must purchase jewels from the merchants for my court. We will do whatever you want.”
“I will need more trees, and I will spew out more poison from my nostrils, so I can make more paper eggs,” Willard told the Queen.
“Some of your villagers will become sick and die,” Willard warned. “But don’t worry, most won’t die quickly. It takes my poisoned breath many years before it kills.”
The Queen and her court smiled because their castles were high on the hill far from the Dragon, where his poisoned breath didn’t reach.
“Only the peasants will suffer from your poisoned breath,” said the Queen. “But we shall all live happily ever after with you, Willard Dragon in our village.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Willard the Dragon. “I don’t know if you will have enough trees to feed me, and without trees, I won’t lay any more paper eggs, and your merchants will have no customers at the marketplace.”
The Queen laughed. “Look at our mountains and our valley. Our trees grow faster than even you can gobble up. We will always have trees, and we will always have you, Willard.”
Willard, not the Queen, was right. A score of years later the village no longer had any trees on its mountains or along the great river or even at the Royal Castle. Willard’s fiery breath had killed most of his servants and the peasants near him. Meanwhile Willard had grown as huge as volcano. He could no longer move somewhere else, so he died one day with a small puff of smoke.
Seeing Willard now dead and decaying, the Queen soon died herself because of his great stench. Her court ran away to all the corners of the earth.
The remaining peasants of the village who had been exiled to another kingdom during the Queen’s reign soon received word that Willard and the Queen lived no longer.
The yellow sulfur laden air quickly decayed the damage done by these two despicable characters. The peasants returned to the village and worked together to clean it up and plant many new trees in the valley and the towering mountains all around them.
They named their village NewTown.
And it was they who REALLY did live happily ever after.
Moral of the story: If something stinks, there are probably many who put rotten meat in the stew. Throw it out and make some new.