The story so far…..
Once upon a time, the fair state of Tasmania was ruled by a rounded, portly maiden and her council. The maiden was possessed of a bland, cheerful countenance, but no wit of any sort was discernible in her many pronouncements. She was, sadly, nothing more than a mouthpiece for those who plotted the exploitation of the land for their own political and personal ends. Of such persons there were many. They thought themselves most ingenious – their devious machinations were the stuff of legend, and all around them were citizens, both friend and foe, living in a state of the most dreadful confusion.
Foremost among the deceivers was an unspeakable ogre. An intractably defiant, black-hearted monster that stole furtively across the land, laying waste to the forests and taunting those who dared to protest. In the thrall of this abominable creature, the maiden and her council were held fast – although not unwillingly, since their allegiances secured the many benefactions that flowed from the loathsome one and its cronies. The betterment of all was no match for singular, perverted interests in the land of Van Diemen.
For the glorious island of Tasmania was possessed of a wondrous beauty, radiating from its mountains and waterways and its wild places – places mostly unsullied by human stain, thanks to the tyranny of inaccessibility and the reluctance of many among the populace to venture more than a few short miles from their own hearth.
Thirty years past, in the time of Robin the Questioned, the court of a powerful overlord, Robert the Inebriate, decreed that some part of Tasmania’s wild places be preserved forever against incursion by the rampaging ogre. The monster and its snivelling, ruling class acolytes were mightily displeased, and they remain so to this day.
The source of their displeasure and the target of their vile, unseemly rhetoric was and is, the cohort of citizens who follow the teachings of Robert the Green, a man of medicine who dared to argue against their pillaging ways.
And so ensued three decades of unrelenting strife, with forest workers and greens eternally, and oft-times violently, at loggerheads (pun intended). Whilst the protagonists were thus engaged, the monster went about its business with sure-footed stealth, all the while building a symbiotic relationship with the enterprise of Robin the Questioned and his fellows, and inveigling from the rulers a constant largesse.
But then it came to pass that the enterprise was precarious, and the symbiosis began to fail. The ogre was mightily displeased, and the rulers were deeply troubled, and fearful for their own comfort. At first, the rulers clung fiercely to the enterprise and sought most earnestly to distract the green ones from their opposition to its improperly conceived undertakings. A ruse was devised whereby the green ones were persuaded to join with the ogre’s cronies in pursuit of ‘peace in the forests’. The green ones were vain and naive, and easily seduced by promises of personal glory, and material reward. And, the rulers knew the verdant souls were no match for the black, duplicitous ways of the ogre and its fellows.
Whilst the green ones were thus preoccupied, another enterprise came forth to suckle yet more greedily from the public teat, and though of foreign taint, it served most satisfactorily to ensure the base aspirations of the rulers, and appease the ogre. And all the while, the hopelessly befuddled greens were promised a peace of sorts, but only if they gave succour to the foreign enterprise, and acted as emissary for its cause in far- flung lands.
And so it came to pass that the ample maiden, and those of her council who were of the lower order, decreed the terms of a peace. The green ones were most gratified, drunk as they were on the stupefying nectar of self-aggrandisement, but their glory was nought but a cheap, tarnished trinket. It mocked the jewel that had once been their ideals, just as they themselves were scorned by the upper order of the ruling council. For these fifteen men and women, whose extravagant powers were matched only by their meagre accountability, for the most part gave no credence to a peace which gave comfort to the greens, and curtailed the plunderings of the ogre and its compatriots.
The supreme overlord, Julia the Red and her fellow, Tony the Bodgie, offered gifts of great value to the council of Tasmania, if a peace could be agreed. But, the upper order of the council was defiant – ‘We shall not be overborne’, they declared. ‘We must satisfy ourselves of all matters in respect of this peace, and to that end, we shall form a committee of the council’. And thus began a lengthy confabulation, overseen by Paul the Devout, whereby many were called to appear before the committee of thirteen. Two of the fifteen were absent from the proceedings – Kerry the Unpretentious, for disavowal of such blatant political frippery, and Sue the Gatekeeper, for reasons of procedure.
The committee of thirteen was of a witless, though showy, character, and its proceedings were sluggish. Many thousands of words were uttered and faithfully recorded, but they were as a vast, barren wasteland, bearing no fruit and bringing no joy to the people of the island.
And, as the people waited to learn of the committee’s mind, the ogre roamed freely across the land, unfettered by man or beast or rule or ethic – revelling in a mirthful disdain that knew no master.
To be continued…..
