Red Rioting Hood and Friends

Little Red Rioting Hood and friends lived on  the edge of a beautiful green forest.

The forest was looking rather tattered lately. Woodcutters  had wreaked havoc, cutting  and selling the majestic, old trees for firewood. With the profits they  bought all the essentials one needs for a modest life: luxury German  cars, fancy houses and expensive watches. When people  complained, they flashed valid permits and tender documents. Anyway, they said, a regular, thorough pruning with chainsaws was good for the forest,

"Where else will you get fuel for your cooking? Wind turbines?"

"And besides, we donate, out of the goodness of our cholesterol clogged hearts, wood chips and sawdust  to our poorer people to power their ice cream  businesses."

While Little Red lived in a sprawling house and dined on dainties,  friends lived in hastily erected shacks and lived on magwinyas, whose price kept rising. But the friends loved the little hood dearly.

"She speaks so nicely and promises all those good things.  One day we will drive out all the wolves and this beautiful,  green forest will be ours - even if we have to burn it down first,"

The wolves were of every description: fat wolves, not - so - fat wolves, growlers squeakers and howlers.  This really, really annoyed little Red. Some wolves she said did not belong. They should return to the northern forests or pay handsome arrears-rental. To whom, she omitted to mention.

What annoyed her most was that the wolves claimed to be the guardians of the forest. Worse still, they claimed to be grandma's best friends and protectors.

"We took care of grandma when you were still a little Red pipsqueak. 

Now you're nothing but a big talking pipsqueak."

Now Grandma lived on the other side of the forest, just about getting by on a state pension. Her once fine house had seen better days. She often had baked beans, (from a nearby spaza shop), on toast between pension paydays. The wolves, woodcutters and the Hood WhatsApp group all claimed to care dearly about her but her gaunt frame and persistent cough told a different tale. Only a few kindly neighbours ever did practical things for grandma but the wolves, the woodcutters and the hoodsters snarled at them to mind their own business.

Grandma sighed.

If only they would all leave her in peace to do her knitting and baking, have an occasional gin (the prices were pretty much beyond her pension pay grade), watch Durban Gen, Man United and the Sharks.

But it was not to be,  for all had heard the rumour that grandma actually had a substantial amount tucked away in VBS and other banks.

Little Hood arose in a foul humour one morning. Her favourite Gucci store had been closed by protests.

"Enough",  she said.

"Those damned wolves are raiding Grandma's cupboards and filling her head with capitalist, colonialist nonsense. It is the month of March, ideal for marching, and we shall march to Grandma's. She filled a basket with delicious baked goodies: Pan-African pie,  promise puffs,  dialectical delicacies and revolutionary red velvet cake.  All light, fluffy and airy. The aroma filled the forest, reaching even to Grandma's house,  though she couldn't quute tell what it was and whether she liked it or not. The friends of hood cheered,  danced and urina..., pardon, ululated.

But the wolves and woodcutters disapproved.

"How dare you feed Grandma that unhealthy, sickly sweet stuff? Do you have any idea how many grandmas are seriously ill from feeding on that junk?

And the last time you lot marched through the forest, you burned whole swathes. urinated and worse on the pathways."

"Nonsense!" retorted the hoodster.

"The forest and the future belong to us. You are irrelevant."

'Irrelevant', a word she'd learnt recently at school, was one of Little Red's favourites. Almost as good  as 'revolutionary'. (She struggled a bit with the letter 'r', being still so little).

"Irrelevant!" The wolves huffed and puffed indignantly.

"Wrong story", said the little hood. "And you can't blow my house down.  it's made of wevolutionary materials donated by friends of the wevolution." 

So the arguments raged back and forth. The forest rang and echoed with howls, yelps, high pitched, girlish shrieks, barks and what sounded suspiciously like great, booming brain farts.

Grandma sighed and returned to her knitting.

 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

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