Oldest Green

There once was a man whose family had all died in a terrible plague; he alone remained and he decided that he too should now die. So he went into the wild woods all by himself to find his end there in some way.

After a day and a night, to heartsick to walk any further, he lies down at the foot of a great tree, and swears he'll not move again, and let the forest take him. But as he lies, and tries to die, something tickles his ear. He tries to ignore it, but the tickling gets too strong - it is a caterpillar walking on his ear. Annoyed and absolutely determined to die with grief, the man flings the caterpillar away and lies down again. Now, there's a creeping on his legs. He is lying on a nest of ants. In irritation, he throws off his clothes and finds a rock nearby to lie on, hard and cold. As he lies, he sees a bush full of tasty ripe red berries just ahead. Try as he might, his hunger gets the best of him and he has to go and eat some berries. And so it went from one thing to the next, and on, and on, and finally, and after many weeks, it slowly dawned on him that he was not alone.