The following is an Epilogue to the animated short film "The Tannery" by Axis Animation. The short film can be viewed on Vimeo on Lain Gardner's account. Knowledge of the short film is needed to understand this Epilogue.
"The Tannery" is a UK Film Council, Scottish Screen, DigiCult and Channel 4 Presentation. It was developed by DigiCult and Lupus Films, produced by Axis Animation, and funded by Channel 4, UK Film Council and Scottish Screen.
In other words, I DON'T OWN IT AND I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE ONES WHO DO OWN IT!
This is just an Epilogue that I made for it. It cannot exist without the original short film, so you need to watch it first. It's easy to find on Vimeo, just do a quick search for it.
Nothing is forever.
Nothing will go on infinitely with no end. Eventually, all things cease to persist. They end, they halt, they decay, and they will be finally and truly over.
Mankind has always created things and maintained things in such a way that it appears that they might last forever. However, there are very few things in the world that mankind truly desires to maintain indefinitely. They grow tired of the upkeep, and soon move on to something new, leaving the old to age and decay and finally end, returning to the Earth from which came and wishes to return.
That is the truth, and that truth is the true end of the story.
The young teenage girl walked down from the attic, holding the tail end of article of clothing with her finger tips. She held it out as far away as she could from her body, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"Can this go out too?" she asked aloud to her mother.
The older woman looked up from the collection of cardboard boxes filled with old antiquated objects and over at her daughter and the object she was holding. The mother pulled a wry face and said, "Do you even have to ask? Ugh! That old moth eaten thing!"
The young girl nodded, looking over the stained, dirty fur. "Yeah. It's really ugly looking. I wonder if it really looked all that good years ago when it was new."
The mother sniffed with an air of slight contempt and said, "Well, personally, I'd say it would look the same. Only clean, with no holes, and without any bad smells. Even then I still wouldn't wear it. Fake furs are far better. You don't have to worry about fur falling out and what-not. But, who am I to judge my great grandmother's taste?"
The teen chanced a glance at the head, and quickly looked away. "Ugh! I couldn't imagine wearing a dead animal! Very creepy!"
The mother smiled warmly as she took the fur away from the jittery teen, "Well don't worry. It can't exactly hurt you, now can it? Come on, let's get rid of this unusable junk now."
The fox stole was tossed into a box with a number of other similar unwanted pieces taken from the attic. As the mother and daughter carried things out into the yard, they were completely unaware of the invisible presence that followed them, keeping it's tired eyes on them and the skin that lay in the box.
The house was within the mountains. Far away from the city, and surrounded by a good two or three acres of land. For people who liked the peace, quiet, and solitude of the country; and didn't mind commuting to school and work; this was paradise.
One of the numerous benefits of this kind of life away from close, tight neighborhoods with people's houses crammed together, was the burn barrel.
A fire was started inside the rusted barrel and allowed to die down slightly. Once it was ready, the rough outdoorsy woman that was the mother started to drop the unwanted objects into the barrel.
"This cuts out the middle-man, so to speak," the woman quipped as the daughter watched her work, "Why let trash take years to be broken down by bugs and worms in a landfill when you can just turn it to ashes in an hour or two?"
The daughter nodded, "Makes sense to me, mom."
The unseen presence watched as the two humans dropped clothing, papers, and other small combustible objects into the barrel. It then turned its eyes towards the box that held the old, decaying fox stole. It didn't take it's eyes off of it as the young teen picked up the box and stared at the lifeless head. Then, as if it were no big deal or great concern, the girl threw the contents of the box into the fire.
A stirring of emotion erupted in the spirit's center. It was feeling of elation of liberation that defied explanation. The spirit tilted it's head back and opened it's mouth. It was almost as if he were letting out a sigh of relief, but of course, spirit's don't breathe.
The fire consumed the fox stole very quickly, reducing it to ashes and returning it to nature, where it would bring nourishment to the plants of the Earth.
The fox's spiritual form sparkled as it started to slowly levitate up into the air. Up it rose, high above the land, gaining altitude quite quickly as the tanned skin was devoured by the flames.
From his great height above the trees, the fox could spot other spirits rising into the air around him. Some had served their purpose as prey, their bodies devoured by hungry animals. Others had died of natural causes, and their bodies fed the insects, fungi, and plants as a part of nature's system of decay. And yet, some others were of very different origins. Out of landfills, dumps, incinerators, and trash grinders; spirits parted ways with their finally destroyed tanned bodies, smiles of relief and release stamped on their faces. They finally realized that their plight was never eternal. Nothing is eternal, and neither was their binding to their world. It may have taken so many years, decades in some cases, for their tanned bodies to finally be broken down for the Earth to reclaim. It may have seemed like the day would never come.
But as they could clearly see now, mankind hadn't stopped that day from arriving. It came. Someway or another, it came just the same.
As the fox rose far into sky, dissolving into light as he was taken to a plane outside the ken of mortal man, he could have sworn he had spotted a large bear spirit, giving a winking smile at him before he finally vanished.
The peace that had been slowly welling up within the fox's spiritual form finally reached critical mass. The fox closed his eyes peacefully as a smile spread across his face, and then, in a twinkling of light, his time on Earth came to an end.
The fox felt someone else's paws take his own.
He opened his eye to see who it was.
The bunny and fox smiled at one another.
The End