Tales from Hallowed Hollow
Karma
Written by
Marg Watt
Moorna Publications
Text copyright © Marg Watt 2011
ISBN 978-0-9871069-8-8
Published by Moorna Publications at Smashwords
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Moorna Publications.
*****
Karma
While it truthfully has been said that Isaiah Grubgrub, the hedgehog, had never been guilty of going out of his way to deliberately cause harm to any other creature during his lifetime, it could also just as truthfully have been said that he’d never gone out of his way to do a good turn for any other creature in need of his help either.
If anyone had ever asked him if he thought this state of affairs made him a good or bad animal, he wouldn’t have been able to offer up an opinion on the matter. He quite simply didn’t really care one way or the other.
As far as he was concerned, life was nothing more than looking out after his own interests, rather than worrying about what happened to other creatures, or for that matter, what other creatures may think of him either.
Isaiah had been born and raised, in and around Hallowed Hollow and Saxby Wood, where he had never known what it might be like to suffer any form of hardship.
He had never needed to concern himself about being short of food, or a warm and dry place to shelter away from the worst of weathers during the coldest winter months, so he was prone to take all these sorts of things, and many more, fore granted.
His attitude meant that he tended to be far less sympathetic than he otherwise could have been when it came to the subject of other creature’s needs during the hardships of winter.
During one particularly harsh winter, some season cycles after he had woken up from his deep winter’s sleep - where he had been tucked away in his warm underground burrow hidden away within a group of thick bushes - he had gone outside to dig around beneath some small rocks where he knew he’d find a few juicy beetles.
He had gulped them all down greedily while totally ignoring, and without a single thought, for the plight of the starving bird who’d been forced to stand by and watch him eat the lot, even though Isaiah himself wasn’t really hungry at all.
It just hadn’t occurred to him that the bird might have stood a far better chance of surviving the harsh season with just a little bit of help from himself.
He had not intended to show off his food gathering skills in front of the bird, nor had he wish the bird harm in any way at all, he quite simply had not thought about another creature less fortunate than himself.
Isaiah was just being Isaiah; thoughtless, rather than deliberately hurtful toward others. But, by the same token, he also wasn’t one to expect others to think to help him out of a jamb either, so as far as he was concerned, the one thing cancelled out the other, simple as that.
Therefore, had anyone ever told Isaiah that his life could be greatly enriched if he were prepared to make a few minor adjustments to his attitude and behaviour, he quite simply would not have believed them, but that was exactly what he was about to learn.
*****
It was a beautiful spring day as Isaiah Grubgrub, in his unhurried way, shambled along a drainage ditch that passed through Saxby Wood
It eventually opened out onto the meadowland of Hallowed Hollow. From there, it flowed into a pretty little pool before continuing onward to eventually meet the peaceful flowing waters of Wharley Brook.
Isaiah didn’t have a care in the world. The sun was shining, the birds were cheerfully singing to greet the new day, and all was generally well within the hedgehog’s world.