Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, where no boy or girl has ever dared to go, where the bugs are bigger than your head, where the trees are taller than the tallest skyscrapers, where the rain never ever stops and where the birds sing their beautiful melodies above your heads, lives the greatest superhero mankind has never heard of.
You would never meet another superhero like him. No cape trails behind him in the wind, no mask covers his face, and he doesn’t have a silly little sidekick following him around. He swings around from tree to tree, the wind whistling past his ears as he speeds through the rainy sky and over the ginormous, beautiful trees. He doesn’t have the biggest muscles like the gorillas around him, and he isn’t as agile as the monkeys – in actuality, he is quite lanky, with scrawny, short, dirty-blonde hair and clothes made of leaves from the trees. He carries around with him, everywhere he goes, a staff made of bark from the oldest, wisest tree in the forest. This staff is unlike any other – it gives him unimaginable power over the rainforest, he can create whole bodies of water with a swish of the staff, he can cure any hurt animal with the tip of the end and can rid any evil that poses threat to his rainforest and the animals that live there. His name is … Enviroman!
But also in this rainforest lives a man by the name of Deforester. He is the polar opposite of Enviroman, with a crooked smirk on his face and a black heart in his chest. He stomps around the forest floor, causing every animal that lays its poor eyes on him to run away screaming with unimaginable fear. He squashes the ferns and bugs beneath his big black boots as he walks and turns the trees that Enviroman cares for to ash with the touch of his little bent, wrinkly pinky finger. Nobody in the forest knows why Deforester is the way he is, why his heart is so black, and why he wants to destroy the rainforest. They just run from the path of chaos and destruction that he leaves as he walks. For years, Enviroman has been trying to eradicate and end the tyranny of Deforester and try to save the animals of the forest, but Deforester always slips away under Enviroman’s fingers, creating more destruction as he goes deeper into the forest.
The rain was pouring over the canopy of the rainforest, every little droplet bouncing down the leaves of the trees, onto the leaves of the green bushes below, and then on the floor with big splashes every time. Thunder roared in the sky louder than the jaguars of the rainforest could ever dream of. The oldest, widest tree in the forest sat embracing the rain that fell upon it and listening eagerly to the thunder’s voice and the stories it told. This tree had been right in the centre of the forest longer than anyone had ever known – its bark was old and wrinkled, but still as strong as ever. Its roots stretch over every inch of the rainforest, underground like a brain system connecting the nerves of the forest together.
Deforester stood at the base of this majestical, beautiful tree that had stood there for lifetimes, his beady little eyes studying the bark up and down. With one swift movement, he pressed his wrinkly pinky finger against the wonderfully old wood and suddenly with a poof of ash, the tree that had looked over the entire forest for all of the animal’s lifetimes, the tree that all the animals had admired for all their life, the tree they had gone to in times of joy and in times of sadness, the tree that supported the whole forest … was gone.
Deforester stood in the place that it moments ago stood, his beady little eyes dilating as the ash covered the forest floor and landed on his giant boots that now looked even more black than ever, as black as coal, as black as the night sky, as black as his heart in his chest. He almost looked happy for once, before his mini-smile shrank back down to the abnormal crooked smirk that has always called home on his face and he walked away leaving behind his footprints, and path of destruction as he carried on through the forest. The rain still poured from the sky and the thunder still roared but the oldest, wisest tree in the forest no longer heard.
Enviroman’s face went sour, his knuckles twitched, and he had a look in his eyes that no animal in the forest had ever seen from him. He had just found out from one of the parrots that the oldest, wisest tree was gone – the tree that his staff came from, the tree that he loved the most in the forest. He shot up above the canopy standing on a very tall tree, (although this tree would never be as good as the one Enviroman loved), his eyes darted around every part of the Amazon Rainforest, he stood there for hours, his eyes constantly searching. It turned to night but he did not move, he just stood there searching.
The next morning, the animals were getting worried, some saying he had gone mad now that the oldest, wisest tree had been destroyed. Big crowds of animals watched Enviroman from the bottom of the tree that he stood upon. Many more hours passed before in a sudden fit of rage, Enviroman’s pupils focused in and he started darting through the trees, across the whole forest. He passed every river, every lake. He was a blur to the animals who watched him from below.
He came to a sudden stop in a clearing in the forest. There used to be trees and life and habitat where he was standing in the clearing, but they were all destroyed by the man that stood in front of him … Deforester.
Enviroman’s eyes welled up, his knuckles becoming tighter, gripping onto his staff with all his might. Deforester opened the crooked mouth on his face, showing his yellow rotten teeth but before he could let out any sound, Enviroman charged at him, his staff poised for Deforester’s heart. Deforester swerved out of the way, watching Enviroman try to come to a stop. Enviroman leapt high into the air and came crashing down on top of Deforester. He punched him in the face over and over again until his knuckles became red with blood and Deforester’s face slowly deformed. With a sudden burst of energy, Deforester pushed Enviroman off from on top of him with all his might. He fell to the ground with a thud. They both slowly got back to their feet, Deforester charged for Enviroman and punched him right in the jaw, knocking it to the side with his power and chipping the bone. Enviroman touched it with his staff, instantly fixing it back into the proper position.
Seeing this, Deforester grabbed the staff right out of his hands, picked it high above his head and made it come crashing down, over his strong kneecap, breaking it in half. Enviroman screamed as it happened, tears streamed out of his face like the rain from the sky above. He charged at him like a pack of rhinos, grabbed around his waist and tackled him into the ground, A big thud sounded as he hit the ground, cracking the soil in half.
The last thing that Deforester saw was a crazed madman on top of him, punching his face with all his might, tears streaming down Enviroman’s face and screams being heard throughout the whole rainforest. Enviroman did not give up and kept battering Deforester’s face. Blood streamed all over his fists and down Deforester’s face, the soil below them eating every droplet of blood that splashed down onto it. Deforester was a limp lifeless body but Enviroman did not give up his rage of emotion that was boiling inside of him. Every punch was for every tree that had lost a life. The passion in his fists came crashing down until he had given as much revenge as he could.
He slowly stopped punching, picked up his still-clenched fist and studied them in front of his face. He watched the blood trickle down on him, his hands red and sticky.
Still crying, he lifted his head to see the horror on every single animal face that he had been oblivious to in his fit of emotion staring at him, horrified. He saw parent animals hiding their babies from him. Animals’ jaws dropped onto the floor with mortified eyes. The animals that had once praised and worshipped him, looked at him with the same look that they had always looked at Deforester with. All animals, predators, and prey gathered together, watching the scene that had happened before them.
Enviroman just sat on top of a lifeless deformed body, not thinking about what he had just done, not thinking anything. He always wanted to care for the forest, but had he cared too much or was that the right thing to do, he couldn’t decide. He had vowed to always protect the forest and to nourish all lives, but Deforester was keeping him from doing that, he finally thought to himself.
His head swirled around looking at all the animals staring at him. He stood up slowly. All his muscles were spasming and his head was dizzy and spinning. He stood for a while, thinking back on the years he had protected the rainforest, he remembered never having a family and the forest being the only one there for him.
He finally decided that his job here was done, he knew he had to leave the forest to be its own natural saviour without him looking out for it. He knew that the forest no longer needed him and the animals would never be able to look at him the same after the horrifying act they just witnessed him do. He slowly walked through the crowd of animals that stood around him and never looked back, he just kept on walking, walking, walking through the deep Amazon Rainforest.
Some time had passed since the great fight of the rainforest, and stories had been passed down through generations of animals of what had really happened on that fateful day. Enviroman was never found again, some said he had passed away, and some say he is still in hiding but everybody knows he will never be found again and doesn’t want to be found again.
Ever since then, the rainforest has been flourishing, the grass has never been greener, the water never clearer and more plentiful and the trees bigger and taller than ever. The circle of life lived on, the animals respecting their environment and each other. Some miss the days when they were looked after by that human with a magical stick, and some think they are happier, more natural and freer than ever but every animal knows that the environment that they live in, the wonderful, perfectly natural Amazon Rainforest is their home, and nobody can take it from them!
Jaden Klopper – Year 13
