This is the personal blog of alisonraymond

Like many of my generation, one of the staples of every childhood Christmas would be the annual comic book. The front cover always featured the main characters in some impossibly snow blanketed version of their weekly haunts while the inner pages included, amongst the stories and cartoon strips, odd little games and puzzles.

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Instructions to make an origami elephant and a vanishing money trick provided diversion one boxing day afternoon as I recall.

However, it is one of the stories from my elder brother’s Eagle annual that comes to mind after all these years. The tale featured none of the characters made famous in the weekly comic and so, was presumably included as a filler like the games and puzzles.

It has parallels in folk tales from around the globe and ideas which can be traced to the great religions, but this graphic version spoke to me as a child and whispers to me still.

I share it here without commentary.

The central character is a space traveller on some lone mission into the far reaches of the galaxy. Beset by mechanical failure he is obliged to seek a safe haven. Urgent “may days” are despatched and the craft is bought to a crash landing on a small planet.

The space craft is damaged beyond repair and so our hero carries out cursory tests on the atmosphere and then, having established that the air is breathable he disembarks to explore his new home.

He finds lush vegetation and succulent fruit in the forests, but, is it safe to eat? He encounters complex ecosystems and most interestingly he discovers a population of large mammal like creatures. Surely, here is his salvation! He has only to study these beasts and eat what they eat. They are flesh and bone, they live and breathe as he does, he resolves to follow the group as they set of to forage next morning.

At sunrise the group set off, Soon after entering the forest the creatures cluster in a grove of fruit trees and begin to pluck and eat the luscious red fruits. Immediately the famished traveller rushes to the grove and picks a fruit, but, as he is about to eat his eyes fall upon one of the animals browsing nearby, around the creature’s neck hangs a medallion from the very space agency to which he belonged. Had this monster consumed some other luckless castaway and stolen the medallion as a trophy? This couldn’t be! The creatures seemed benign, nice even.

Discarding the untasted fruit the man looked around at the other animals. This one seemed to still carry the tattered shreds of some alien uniform, that one had a tarnished bracelet on its forelimb, and slowly the horror of his situation dawned. These gentle, apparently slothful creatures had not eaten those who had borne the artefacts, they were those same beings now transformed by the very fruit which gave them life!

Rushing from the grove the man retires to consider his position. The “may days” will guide his rescuers, but can he survive with neither food nor water until they arrive? As a man he is a “doer” he travels the universe discovering new territories and forever extending his control over his environment. He could ease his hunger by eating the fruit, but to become one of these creatures would be to sacrifice the “doing” to become a “being”. A creature living as part of its environment, apparently ignorant of the paucity of its existence.

For days the shipwrecked traveller eats and drinks nothing, becoming weaker while the beasts continue to thrive around him. They in turn, are clearly anxious for his welfare and he is welcomed to travel and rest with them.

Finally, hunger and despair overwhelm the man and, after a final moment of soul searching, he bites gratefully into the sweet and juicy fruit and is transformed.

Immediately he becomes aware of music and fragrances and artistry, indeed an entire culture which is now his. He is filled with joy as a new and previously unimagined life unfurls all around. Comrades cluster around to share his pleasure and to welcome him, one says “we couldn’t tell you what it is like to be us, you had to make the decision to join us for yourself”.

Sometime later the rescue craft appears in the sky over the planet. A man calls through a loudspeaker “We know that you are one of these creatures, we have an antidote for the effects of the fruit and we can restore you to manhood, show yourself and we will take you home”. The group of beasts gazes dumbly at the passing craft and one whispers to the former astronaut “It’s up to you, if you want to go nobody will mind, but once again you must choose” “No” replies the traveller “I am home, I shall stay”.

And the last words of the story were in a speech bubble coming from the rescue craft as its pilot sadly turned away from the planet having failed in his mission “Poor guy, I guess we were just too late to save him!”

…and that’s the way it was!

Alison.