The Teen


   
Ezra Azra






 
(c) Copyright 2026 by Ezra Azra

Photo by Brian Deegan. Art by Mobberley at Wikimedia Commons.
Photo by Brian Deegan. Art by Mobberley at Wikimedia Commons.

8

 
Once upon a time there was a Teenager walking through a forest.

She had her headphones on. She was listening to music from an electronic device she had hooked on her belt which was strapped tightly around her waist.

She was reading a published Teen magazine. She was wearing glasses tinted a light yellow. She was chewing gum.

Yes, she was a healthy normal stereotypical modern financially independent Teenager.

In one of her pockets she had a packet of cigarettes and a cigarette lighter, and a packet of nicotine patches. The only reason she wasn't smoking a cigarette this time was because she needed two hands to turn pages as she read the published Teen magazine.

She was quite-and-utterly-and-totally oblivious to where she was. She didn't care. She was having an ultra-Teen good time.

Yessss, in more than one sense, it was a bright sunny day.
 
As she was passing one of the many trees in the forest, she did not hear a nervous voice say "You are in danger, little Lady."

She carried on walking; listening on her headphones; reading; chewing gum; not smoking cigarettes, not yet.  Dried up dead tree branches fell in front of her from high up off some of the nearby trees.

A second time the voice shouted "Watch out, Teen-y!"

She couldn't hear anything except the music coming through her head-phones from her player hooked on her belt which was strapped tightly around her waist.


She did not care and could not care less about everything around her.

It was as if from deepest down her subliminal non-conscious self she instinctively and genetically knew she was an Almighty God.

Indeed, it would not have happened as a surprise to her to discover that there is a language somewhere in which the word ‘Teen’ means ‘Almighty God; YEAHHHH!’

When she saw broken tree branches on the ground blocking her way she was obliged, reluctantly and irritably, to stop walking.

She did not stop chewing gum. She did not stop listening to the music coming through her headphones from her player hooked on her belt which was strapped tightly around her waist.

She lowered the magazine a little to enable her through her lightly yellow tinted glasses to look at the branches blocking her path. She did not take off her tinted glasses.

Not outwardly showing the slightest sign of the impatience she felt, she simply started to step over the fallen branches to carry on walking while she did all those other things.

Again, the voice shouted at her loudly enough to penetrate her head-phones. “Young Lady, you are in danger!”

The teenager stopped and took a step or two back in surprise. She stumbled. Her lightly yellow tinted glasses fell to the ground. The published magazine, too, fell out of her hands, to the ground.

She quickly turned off the music. She slid her headphones off her ears to hang around her neck. She did not remember to press the off button on her player hooked on her belt which was strapped tightly around her waist. She looked about in surprise at where she was.
 
Again, the voice said "You are in danger, little Lady!"

The Teen looked about to see who was talking to her. She saw nobody.  She asked "Where are you?"

"Right here, to your left. Behind you."


The Teen turned, and looked. She saw nobody.

"Okay" said the Teen, irritably and beginning to be angry, "whoever you are, just cut it out! I'm in no mood for games!"

"This is not a game" said the voice. "You are in serious danger. There are wild ferocious wolves in this forest."
 
The Teen looked at the large old tree at her left a little behind her. She figured the voice was coming from someone who was hiding behind the tree. She walked up to the tree.

Now, she was angry. She took the chewing gum out of her mouth with her thumb and index finger and stuck it on the tree, aggressively, challengingly, defiantly.

"Whoever you are" she screamed "just leave me alone! This is not funny! Come out and let me see you! Now!"
 
A voice said "There's nobody else here. I am talking to you. Me. This tree right here in front of you. The tree you've stuck your slimy chewing gum on."

The Teen looked at the tree in disgust, stamping her foot on the ground, threateningly.

"Trees cannot talk" she said. "Why am I even bothering to have this conversation if you won't come out, whoever you are?"
 
"Okay" said the tree. "Don't believe I can talk, but believe me when I tell you to run away because there are wild ferocious wolves coming this way."

"There are no wild ferocious wolves in this part of the country" the Teen yelled!

"Until this morning" the tree replied.

"How can you know?" shouted the Teen, angrily. "You're a tree. How could you see wild ferocious wolves that are not here?"


"Hello?" said the tree. "I have branches that are very high up. From up there I can see into the next County. But if you don't want to listen to me don't blame me when those wild ferocious wolves get here and eat you up."

The Teen stood there for a few seconds and stared at the tree belligerently. She still did not believe the tree could talk. "I think I'll just turn back and go home" she said, contemptuously.

Do not forget to pick up your lightly yellow tinted glasses, and your magazine” the tree said, trying sincerely to sound genuinely helpful and not facetious, not even in the slightest.

The Teen heard wild ferocious wolves howling nearby. She was scared.

"It's too late" said the tree. "Run over there and climb up that tree. Climb high and hide yourself. You will be safe. Wild ferocious wolves cannot climb trees."
 
The Teen quickly ran to the tree and climbed up as fast and as high as she could.

Two huge hungry wild ferocious wolves dashed in, panting noisily.

"Where? Where is the person you said you smelled?" growled the one wild ferocious wolf to the other wild ferocious wolf in genuine wolverine dialect.

"Right here, I tell you. See?" The one wild ferocious wolf chomped on the published Teen magazine that was on the ground, while saying,

"Smell this. Someone was here a minute ago." The other wild ferocious wolf, too, chomped on the published Teen magazine, and saw the Teen’s lightly yellow tinted glasses on the ground.

"Yes! You're right! Look! Sun shades! They must still be here. They won't be able to see a thing without these lightly yellow tinted sun shade glasses. Let's search around."

In order to see clearer, the one wild ferocious wolf put on the lightly yellow tinted sun shade glasses.
 
"Chewing gum!" shouted one wild ferocious wolf when it saw the chewing gum stuck to the tree.

"Must be a Teen! They are forever sticking their slimy chewing gum everywhere! That’s how I have been able to track down so many for lunch and dinner."

The one wild ferocious wolf said to the other, “You said you gave up eating Teens because they taste yuck?”

 “I have” said the other wild ferocious wolf, “but sometimes I have no choice because there’s nothing else to eat. On those occasions I just swallow the Teen whole so that I won’t have to taste what I am eating.”


By now the Teen high up the tree was trembling in fright because she understood what those wolves were saying because she had learnt that wolverine dialect in High School as a voluntary Arts Elective subject in order to graduate from High School.

Incredibly, the Teen began to cry. The wild ferocious wolves heard her.

"Aha!" said one wild ferocious wolf. "Check out all these trees. Someone's hiding in one of them. It's a good thing we wild ferocious wolves learnt to climb trees."

At that moment all the trees started yelling and shaking down dead dried branches on the wild ferocious wolves.

Both the wild ferocious wolves were terrified. They thought armed people were coming. The wild ferocious wolves galloped away at a speed barely a few seconds below Albert Einstein’s calculation of “e=mc2”.

The wild ferocious wolf wearing the lightly tinted sunglasses was in the lead because the sunglasses made that wild ferocious wolf see clearer than the other wild ferocious wolf, his best buddy.

Those two wild ferocious wolves didn't stop running until they were many counties away from the forest.

"Okay," the first tree called out to the Teen. "The wild ferocious wolves have gone. You can come down now."

The Teen did not climb down. The tree called out a second time. And a third time, but the Teen did not climb down.
 
"Oh, dear," said a tree. "I see her. She is slumped over a branch. I think she fainted in fright. I didn't know Teens could be frightened by or of anything. Now what are we going to do?"

"Nothing," said another tree. "We can't do anything until she wakes up."

"Or until somebody comes looking for her."

"Yes."

"I just hope she doesn't blame us for her published magazine being chomped up.”

Or for her lightly yellow tinted glasses being stolen by that thieving wild wolf.”

She probably will blame us, because that is what Teens do, instinctively and from deep down genetically.”

"Why would she blame us for her published magazine being chewed up? She can see for herself that trees don't have teeth."

"She's a Teen. She will insist on whatever she prefers."

"If she asks about her lightly yellow tinted sun glasses, I'm playing dumb."

"That should work because, instinctively and genetically, she already doesn't believe trees can talk."


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