An Odour

And once upon another time, when all the animals had settled their minor disagreements over the shameless animal, you know, the one with the long fur, the pretentious lips, the bad ears, the poor sense of smell, and the very long horns, whichsame animal had, not only returned to the scene of the explosion, but had had the temerity and the poor taste, the even poorer smell, to leave, at last, by turning its less than appetising backside on us, and revealing, perhaps intentionally, an abominably soiled, semi-solid and off-colour rear end, which did show signs of old, well, ancient remnants of the same, the very same CACATUM, which is the Latin term for SHIT, proving, to all the animals, again and, for the last and final the proof of the pudding time, that what they had here, was an unfit, an unappetisingly and pus-generating, a decaying view of a grossly neglected and leaking, septic tank. And it had left the worst present that a forest can tolerate in good faith. A bad smell. So, being clean and rule-abiding, as well as strict and unbending creatures of the forest, they all agreed, at last that filth need not be tolerated, not today and not tomorrow. And they decided that there were measures to be taken to restore the forest to what it had been once before, prior to the malodorous Bang. They enlisted a group of volunteers, pine trees for fragrance and colour, skunk juice as an antidote, underarm fragrance from bandicoots and badgers, rancid dandruff from chickens, and pheasants, dead feathers, do smell nice as well, Moose and Buck deer pheromones, also urine, jasmin bushes, including chinese star and trumpet flowers, oak astringent from leaves, quarternary ammonia base from vilicus ostradamicus, and, for good measure, the forest's ultimate weapon, of supreme bluff, due to shape, stature and ability to browbeat, to instill awe, fear and the renewed tendency to bed-wetting, also called nocturia, and not a pleasant or much appreciated affliction. Yes, it was, is and will be... her Majesty, the lovely and much respected, Iuniperus communis. And, in eternal and perpetual gratitude, this wonder plant repays, and amply so, the trust, the respect and the unquestioned loyalty of all its peers, underlings, overlings and sidelings, by providing, but once a year, the raw materials for a wild and wonderful, but civilised, party, which rings in the New Year, which does occur but once annually. It provides Gin, from the fruit of the Juniper, the berries, fructus iuniperi, which, in turn, always leads to a situation best described as 'the nuts among the berries', and that is where it ends, in perfect harmony, and with the forgotten memory of a very bad smell.