Honey Badgers and Karma

The second action project calls upon the sophomores of GCE, and this time, we're making a fable. A fable is of course a type of story that contains a moral, or lesson. In the one I have made, it tells the tale of a bad badger who gets his own medicine when Karma intervenes in his mischief. I must say that making this was what I enjoyed, creating the general story was both fun & challenging. Hopefully, the message is clear to see because it will not be directly stated here, or in the story, just to leave interpretations sake. So with this brief explanation out of the way, I hope you enjoy.

Karma’s Been Badgered

“Ben. Ben Badger. A misfit amongst misfits, and no I don’t mean he acts good or proper. Imagine the worst bully you had, multiply by eight, and straight up know this guy’s got no incentive whatsoever. His most frequent victim is Joe the Swan, a bird who can’t fly, can you guess why? Years ago, Ben was being egotistical as usual, and when he saw, ‘Some feathered finch on his turf ’ he instantly slashed those silky wings making him flightless. Joe never went near that maniac again, it’s just a shame others have.

VG, Karma 2014

The poor people of Elwood need to put up with this furry beast everyday, and since nothing about their democracy says there can be an option of exile, they truly are stuck with him,” reads the report, “You know, I can’t believe I’ve overlooked this issue for so many months now…” mumbled Karma.

-Okay, so first things first, you’re probably wondering who, or what, Karma is. Karma is an invisible force of equivalent exchange, simply put; good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But something to note would probably be how busy Karma is, you know, kind of having to serve the entire world ‘n all… sounds like a job for Santa. Coming around back to… Ben… he never got paid back for what he did to me, I valued my wings just so much, especially since I made a living off of them. I used to be an airdevil, somebird who pulls of tricks of flight for show, but my career came to an unfortunate ever since that overgrown rat sliced ‘em up. So now I’m retired, unwillingly, and am doomed to narrate this story forever… or at least for however many times anybody’s going to be reading this really.-

Moving on, Karma was determined, knowing that it’s been ignoring such a threat only boiled it up some more! The question is, how should Karma play it out? It thinks, and it thinks, and it thinks of it some more, and now the answer is clear. Karma realizes that surely, should every mischievous deed of Ben’s backfire, then he would definitely see them as signs. Unfortunately, only moderately intelligent or smarter creatures get this point… Ben of which, is not.

Searching for the brown, black, and gray troublemaker wasn’t all too hard for Karma, seeing as how the ability to fly comes very useful in it’s job, yet the large city of Elwood is rather, uh, large. “In the multiple reports, Ben has been described as a large Honey Badger, often wearing a leather jacket, skinny jeans, and of course, his valued necklace of a golden number one,” Karma remembers, “So if I was a badger, I’d probably be hiding in my hole, wouldn’t I?”

As Karma searches for the mangy mammal, it finds out that everyone else always knows where he is. Karma heard the Owl cousins discussing that Ben was planning to put up offensive graffiti on the domestic houses, simply to assert his… dominance.

As you probably guessed by now, I truly have a fond hatred for that striped furball, so the best thing I could do after that incident is warn everyone I know about Ben’s horrible acts. It’s just a shame I couldn’t tell Glen about him before Ben decided to prank him. Now Glen is a hummingbird with a swollen chin, and a sprained wing… Ben’s idea of a joke usually consists of a tripwire near some stairs… if only Glen embraced his flight, but he’s not really one of flight, poor guy never learned how.

VG, Ben Badger 2014

About midday in the Birch line ETA stop Simble, Karma finally found Ben. Oddly enough, he was just leaning on the corner of the wall, holding something… “What could it be,” wondered Karma, but then it hit him, that was a graffiti can, it’s obvious that he’s going to spray some other nasty comment on the wall. “Well if someone doesn’t want their property to be sprayed, lets see how you’d like it on yourself,” Karma uttered. Quickly, the invisible spirit vanished into the can itself. Ben says to himself, “Everybody always passes by this stop, so why not spice it up a bit, heh, no one will think of what I have planned, besides, who cares for private property anyway, it’s not stopping me,” as he shakes the can of red graffiti paint, this is when karma acts.

The can explodes, the paint dripping everywhere, but all of it on the wall simply slides off and leaves no mark. Ben, however, is splattered in red, not in a consistent manner either, frustrated, Ben chucks the remains at a car, shattering its window, yet peices of glass fly to his hands. “Augh, what a day,” Ben groans sarcastically, “Stupid can! Stupid car! Whatever, there are still plenty of mailboxes that could use renovation!”

“So,” Karma directs to Ben, “You still haven’t figured it out?” But being a spirit of equivalent exchange, Ben, nor anyone else hears a thing, but the others in the area watch as Ben storms off.

“My beautiful bike, oh how I couldn’t live without you,” Ben says to the motorcycle in his garage, “I’m so glad I found you that day.”

Karma, trailing behind him, notices that this was mentioned in a previous report, but it didn’t related to Ben… “Mr. Brown’s motorcycle was stolen by an unknown alias, he appeared to be skunk like, but Mr. Brown knew every skunk in his family, it’s just unfathomable because they could’ve simply asked. So other skunks are out of the question,” remembered Karma, “Meaning that it must have been Ben who stole it!”

Ben hopped on the bike, revved it up, and pulled out his bat. His necklace is partly spotted from that red paint, Ben, still irritated at that fact, drives of to break some mailboxes. “Venting out anger is good, and smashing stuff is even better,” Ben sneers. As Karma follows it realizes that Ben is about to hit a home run from that mailbox, so quickly thinking, Karma launches itself into the mailbox, strengthening it by, oh lets say, strong enough to withstand Ben holding out his bat while travelling at 35 mph. As soon as there’s impact, Ben flies off his bike, twirling through the air like a ballerina, and falls, banging his head… he’s not moving…

Ben’s spirit rises up from, what was once, his body and sees the strange anomaly known as Karma pop out from the mailbox. “Phew…” Karma sighs as Ben looks down. Frightened, very frightened, Ben asks, “Hey chump, w-w-what’s happening?! Why is my body there???” Karma simply smirks, “Tell me troublemaker, have you ever heard of Karma?” Ben shakes his head. Disappointed, Karma explains what it is and what’s been happening. Ben lashes out, “So that dumb stuff happened to me cuz of you?! I oughta knock your lights out… even if you are just one big light,” Karma smiles and replies, “Listen, have you tried not being bad?”

“Heh?”

“You see, I am equivalent exchange, I make bad things happen to bad people, so if you want me to leave you alone, just stop doing these misdeeds,”

Ben still has a baffled look on his face…

“Okay,” Karma starts, “If you ain’t a jerk, than yo life can be peachy, but keep doing this and Imma hafta make yo life a nightmare homie,”

Ben scoffs, “Yeah right, as if… besides, all I’m doing is having fun and keeping my land, is that so wrong?”

“Should you harm others along the way, then yes, like I said bad things happen to bad people, that’s just how, I, Karma works,”

Hours later, Ben regains consciousness, looking down at his necklace… but wait, it’s not even there. He searches for it, but there’s no luck, and then he realizes, that was no dream. What he was told by that odd little fireball must have been true. Glancing at the damaged motorcycle, Ben walks up to it. “Maybe if something I valued got lost, I’d make a hissy fit… and I may hang out at a spot a lot, but does that make it mine?” Ben contemplates and stands there, until he figures out what he must do.