The tranquil forest

[twist]

It was quiet, green and peaceful. The four boys sat on the ground in the middle of the forest in the dappled sunlight. A smooth, round rock stood in the centre of the clearing. A bird perched high up in one of the trees whistled.

A winding stream ran through the forest and the boys could hear it bubbling and gurgling. The sun sparkled on the crystal clear water.
Then they heard footsteps followed by more footsteps and breaking twigs. The footsteps and cracking twigs grew louder.

The four boys looked at one another and knew they had no choice. Aspen the eldest of them who was tall and slim stood up and raised his arms skyward. He nodded to his friends sadly. He rooted his feet firmly into the ground. Aspen began to grow and his skin was transformed into bark. His arms were now two forked branches and other branches grew from his sides. Soon he was as tall as the other trees around him.

The hunter’s footsteps grew louder. Brooke’s eyes filled with tears as he silently waved goodbye to his friends. He followed the sound of the stream and dived in. Soon he was part of the water, running through the heart of the forest.

A twig cracked loudly and leaves rustled. “Iggy – Igneous, your turn,” whispered Jay hugging his best friend. Iggy’s mum was a geologist and was researching Igneous rocks just before he was born. She named him after her favourite rock.

Iggy was broad and a little short for his age. Iggy curled into a ball. Jay watched as his friend turned to a rock similar to the one that stood in the middle of the clearing.
Metal glinted through trees. Jay panicked and started to run. Soon his feet were no longer on the ground. His arms were wings. He was a beautiful blue jay flying in the air.
The hunters crashed into the clearing and looked around. They stopped to rest. They broke branches from a young Aspen tree and lit a fire. They carved their names deep into the rock. They looked to the top of the trees and noticed a blue jay silently observing them. ‘Dinner!’ shouted one and aimed his gun at the bird. The jay fell hitting branches all the way down. ‘He’s tiny,’ protested one of them but they threw him onto the fire anyway. They tossed the charred jay and their litter into the sparkling clear brook and left.

Then the trees lashed their faces with their branches, the water expanded into a river and encircled them. The rock blocked their only exit and the blue jays sang incessantly, louder and louder. The forest would never be tranquil again.

[twist]

This is my attempt at an environmental thriller in flash fiction format. Comments would be greatly appreciated.

[Calidore]

You have the makings of a decent E.C. Comics-style morality tale in there. I think the short flash format hurts this one some because there's no room to explain the strange behavior (and strange nature) of the boys. You seem to be making a point of portraying them as normal at first, even mentioning one's mother's profession. So where did these abilities come from, why do they have "no choice" but to use them here and now, why say what looks to be a final goodbye, where does this bond with the entire forest come from, and why will the forest never be tranquil again? As it stands now, it all feels very arbitrary and forced. Telling this as a regular short story would give you room to make the people and events breathe a bit.

A few more small suggestions:

* Your first two paragraphs are almost entirely description. You want to get the reader's attention immediately, so move the footsteps up and sprinkle the descriptions in where and when needed.

* Brooke is a girl's name, so make him a her.

* I found myself wondering why the hunters would carve their names into a rock instead of the handy tree, which is both traditional and much easier.

* I'm not clear on whether the rock blocking the hunters' exit is the "smooth, round rock" mentioned up top or Iggy. If the former, how does a rock in the center of a clearing block any exit from that clearing? If the latter, I'll invoke Chekov's Gun on the former and suggest losing it altogether.

As for the writing itself, it could use a bit more proofing (you're missing several commas, for example), but nothing major. Lots of people don't bother spacing between paragraphs, so it's appreciated that you did--makes it much easier to read.

[DATo]

Interesting! I hear echoes of both Steven King and Edgar Allen Poe in this story *LOL*

Well done, except that I am having trouble equating the term "boys" with the entities Brooke, Jay, Iggy and Aspen. I understand what you are attempting to do but I would have either presented the "boys" as ghosts of kids who had at sometime in the past considered the setting in which the story takes place their "special place" or "secret place" to meet. Another possibility would be to have made these entities forest sprites or some other spirit entities representing nature such as are found in Shakespeare's, A Midsummer Night's Dream or Greek mythological literature. It's like ... why would these apparently supernatural aspects of nature be "boys"?

Other than that it was a good read which nicely stated the environmental message you attempted to convey.

[108 fountains]

I enjoyed this quite a bit. I like the mystical feel of it. Another recent thread on the Forum relates to “exemplum” – a literary term I am ashamed to admit I had never heard before. After looking up the definition, I would say “The Tranquil Forest” is a pretty good example of an “exemplum.”

Calidore and DATo made some good comments and suggestions. I’ll add mine. I can see why you begin with the descriptions, rather than with the actions, but Calidore has a good point. To make the introduction shorter and get to the action sooner, you might consider deleting the first sentence and also the sentence beginning with “The sun sparkled…” and combining the first two paragraphs. You might change the word “boys” to “children.” This would allow you to make Brooke a girl. Then if you deleted the two sentences referring to Iggy’s mother (which I think are unnecessary; and none of the others have such a human reference), you leave open the possibility that they might not be human children, but some sort of forest sprite. (Somehow the word “children” just seems to have more mystical connotations than the word “boys,” although that might be just a prejudice of mine.) I would move the big rock in the center of the clearing to the edge of the clearing, and at the end I would say, “The two rocks blocked their only exit…” And you might also want to change the men from shooting the jay for “dinner” into just shooting it for sport (it would make the men appear even more callous and, besides, I don’t know anyone who would want to eat a blue jay). Finally, you might want to think about just deleting the last paragraph – it would change the message of the story entirely, and that’s something you might not want to do, but it is an option. I actually liked the ambiguousness and unanswered questions it leaves the reader.

[twist]

Thanks very much for suggestions and comments Calidore, DATo and 108 fountains. You've certainly given me some ideas!
The last paragraph was an afterthought 108 fountains so it's interesting that you think it might be an option to delete it. I often dream I'm running and then start flying which is why Jay runs first in the story...

[twist]

I only explained the origin of Iggy's name because it was not a name. Apparently Brooke is unisex but much more commonly a female name.