It was a nice day in the forest where the Happy Tree Friends lived. In an open area in the forest, Lumpy the lumberjack was working and swinging his ax at a particularly large tree. It took him quite a few minutes, but he eventually hacked it to the point where it would definitely fall soon.
"Phew!" Lumpy said as he wiped his forehead with his hand. He looked at the tree in front of him and nodded in satisfaction. "That oughta do it."
True to his word, there wasn't much left of the base of the tree, except for a thin line of wood remaining. And because of this thin line, the tree began to topple over. But to Lumpy's fear, the tree was falling right towards him, and as soon as he realized, he began to panic.
"Huh?! Oh, shoot!" Lumpy cried.
With no time to do anything else, he began to ran out of the way. But he didn't run much further than a couple of feet before he tripped over a rock and fell to the ground, face down. Without even rubbing his head, he turned his body upward, only to see the tree falling toward him. Lumpy shut his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable... Except...
The tree didn't crush him.
Lumpy opened one eye, then the other. The base of the tree was right over him, but didn't fall onto him.
"Huh?" Lumpy was a bit confused, but then it came to him that he was still alive. He took a deep breath and sighed in relief. "Phew..."
He then looked down to see what the tree had landed on that wasn't letting it squish him. There was a very short branch on one end of the tree; just short enough to keep the rest of the tree from making full contact with the ground. However, and this is a big however, the branch had landed right on Lumpy's poor leg, leaving the unfortunate moose trapped right under the tree.
"What the?!" Lumpy grabbed his leg and tried to pull it from under the branch, but that didn't work. He then looked up and pressed both hands against the tree, trying to push it out of his way. "Ugh... come on, come on!"
That didn't work, either. Lumpy lay where he was, pulling his hands away from the tree as he panted several times, trying to catch his breath. His tries were no use; as strong as he was, he wasn't strong enough to get rid of this tree. Lumpy looked to his side, but then smiled. His ax was close enough for him to reach. Surely it could help him.
Lumpy picked up his ax and held the sharp blade against the branch on the tree. He prepared to cut it apart.
"One... Two..." Lumpy counted, and then held the ax up high as he finished. "Three!"
But he pulled it up so fast that the blade on the ax went flying away. Lumpy could hear it hit another tree from quite a few feet away from him. The moose looked at the handle of his ax, saddened that he had been too careless before he could save himself.
"Aw, you gotta be kidding me..." Lumpy said with an equally sad sigh.
As unhappy as he was, Lumpy knew he had to find some way to get out of here. He looked around from where he was, not seeing much. He reached into his pocket and searched for something that could help him.
"What could I use to...?" Lumpy muttered to himself.
Finally he found something and pulled it out of his pocket. But in his hand he saw nothing more than a tissue. Lumpy inhaled and sighed once more. Of all the things he could have brought...
Suddenly, Lumpy got an idea. He looked at the tissue, thinking to himself. Maybe this tissue could be useful in the situation he was in.
"What if..." Lumpy started, "...I tickled my nose with this? It'd make me sneeze, but if my sneezes get big enough, they'll blow anything away..." Lumpy then gave a big, realizing smile. "That is IT! That'll get this tree off me!"
Lumpy held one of the corners of the tissue in his hand, which he used to twist one of the corners gently into a point. But as he finished rolling it up, the kind of expression that was a mixture of worry and nervousness appeared on Lumpy's face. He knew exactly what he was doing, and exactly what was going to happen. But it didn't matter, because he had to do it if he was going to get himself free.
Lumpy inserted the twisted tissue gently into his nostril and wiggled it around in slow, gentle movements. His nostril "cringed" from how much the tip of the tissue tickled it, and then began to flare. After less than a few seconds, Lumpy removed the tissue and quickly inserted it into his other nostril, tickling it in the same way, but at a faster speed to keep the sneeze from dying down. That nostril cringed and flared up as well, with his other nostril flaring in unison.
As Lumpy tickled and teased at his sensitive nostrils with his rolled-up tissue, he could feel a sneeze beginning to build at the back of his nose. He did whatever he could to lead the urge closer to his nasal passages, hoping it could tease out a buildup as well. It took him quite a few seconds - almost a minute, actually - but eventually, Lumpy's breath began to hitch.
"Aaah... Aaaaaaah..." Lumpy absentmindedly removed the tissue from his nostril as he tilted his neck back. The tissue still being dry enough to use, he caressed the very end of his snout with it, making it twitch in irritation. "Aaaaaaaah... Ahhhhhhh..." His nostrils continued to grow and shrink several times. He tried to sniffle, but most of the air that he took in came in through his mouth, with barely any making it through his nose. "Haaaaaaaaaah..." But as he inhaled, a bit of pollen from the flowers in the area went drifting toward him.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh... Aaaaaaaaaaaah..." Lumpy attempted another sniffle, taking in more air than the last sniff. And to his secret joy, the pollen that his last inhale lured toward him got sucked into both his nostrils, intensifying the urge to sneeze. Lumpy was extremely allergic to pollen, so as soon as it made it into his nostrils, it began tickling away, making him need to sneeze more and more.
"AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAH...! HaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...!" Lumpy absentmindedly dropped the tissue that was in his hand as he turned his head toward the base of the tree, still hanging just above him. His nostrils were shuddering and growing to several times their normal size, and his entire nose was twitching and shaking like crazy. Lumpy's teary eyes squeezed shut as he gave a final, climactic inhale.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-"
Lumpy tilted his neck as far back as he could go, and then finally exploded.
"CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The sneeze was massive, forceful, powerful and incredibly loud, and echoed all throughout the forest. Massive amounts of saliva and wind came blasting out of Lumpy's mouth, and the winds blew the entire tree right off of him. Not only that, the branch got blown off of Lumpy's leg as well, and had Lumpy not kept his eyes shut, he would have caught the sight of an entire dead tree, hundreds of pounds, flying all of the way to the other side of the forest.
Lumpy sat up, feeling a bit dizzy as he rubbed his pinkish-red nose with his forefinger. He sniffled a few times, hoping his nose hadn't started running from that enormous sneeze. Just then, he looked down at his leg and saw that it wasn't trapped under the tree anymore. There was a mark shaped like the end of the branch where it had pressed on Lumpy's leg, but no blood was visible, nor was any pain felt. Lumpy smiled in relief, then slowly picked himself up. He stood up, rubbing his leg briefly before he resumed rubbing his nose.
"It worked. I'm free. Thank goodness," Lumpy muttered to himself. He also saw the tissue on the ground, so he picked it up, blew his nose a couple of times to get rid of the excess mucus, and then wiped his nostrils with the tissue. He took a sigh of relief, still smiling as he rubbed the clean parts of the tissue against his nose.
"I guess there are some problems that can be solved with a really big sneeze," said Lumpy.
Lumpy then balled up the tissue, put it in his pocket and picked the handle of his ax back up. Feeling as though he'd never gotten trapped under that tree, he walked away to find his ax's blade so he could put it back together.
But maybe tomorrow, Lumpy would switch to using a chainsaw instead of an ax. Hopefully it would come in handy the next time he got trapped under a tree. Not that he ever wanted that to happen again, of course.
