A long, long time ago...

Actually, it wasn't that long ago. It was only three and a half months. Still, eternity if you're a fruit fly.

But this is not a story about fruit flies. This is a story about a man. Upon his early retirement, he decided not to be one of those who move their families to a warm climate, near the sea, where there's a lot of fresh air and many seagulls.

No, this man did not care much about the seagulls. On more than one occasion they stole unattended food from him, leaving behind a nasty stinky speck as a form of payment.

Due to his dislike of the seaside scenery, this man moved his family somewhere much nicer. He bought a lone cottage right next to one of the largest swamps in the country.

His wife, his seventeen-year-old daughter and their cat named Dog came with him, somewhat reluctantly. They did not necessarily agree with his statement 'Water is water'.

The cottage was simply charming. The wooden framing and paneling had very little termite damage. It was a two-story house, although, when the daughter brings in her rather extensive collection of books, it will become a seventy-eight-story house.

The girl had two passions in her life – gardening and photography.

That's how her father sold her the idea of moving to the countryside. He sold it to her by buying her a new camera. It had 24.2 megapixel resolution, 3.0 inch touchscreen, extended optical zoom, a vast assortment of lenses and a ladybug sticker on the left side of it.

It only took a week for a girl to plant the entire garden at the back of the cottage. The soil was rich, earthworms were friendly and all the hard work was delegated to her father.

With garden planted, the girl had some free time on her hands. (Did I mention that the watch on her wrist was also a gift from her father?)

Wandering into the unknown in her brand-new pink rubber boots size 7 (waterproof until they crack), she was searching for interesting sights. And in the swamp, there were many.

Flowers growing from the mud, flowers growing from the water, flowers growing on top of the water. A paradise for plant lovers!

Insects were buzzing around the flowers in search of the nectar. Although, truth be told, some did have vampire-like tendencies. A hell for everyone without a bug killing spray.

Dozens of species of birds, kind enough to search for food in the water or around it, rather than stealing it from unsuspecting people. A promised land for bird loving photographers. 

Just as the girl was trying to get the perfect shot of a wild duck's nest she had discovered, she heard a rather unpleasant voice behind her.

"You eat eggies?"

She turned around, only to find herself face to face with a hideous creature. Its skin was the color of a green frog that fell into an undercooked chocolate pudding. Its ears were like two trumpets stuck in his head, leeches holding on to the earlobes like earrings. Its teeth were like piano keys – black and white. Its eyes were large, but half-closed giving the impression that the lights are on, but nobody's home.

He was wearing some old rags that could only count as clothes in the hobo society.

After the initial shock, the girl started to scream. Thanks to the years spent in the church quire, she could hold a note for quite some time.

All the birds flew away, all the frogs jumped into the water, and all the creature did was burp loudly.

The girl stopped screaming. After taking a deep breath, she screamed some more.

The creature scratched his head. He found a leech attached to the side of his forehead, pulled it off and ate it alive.

After that, there were no more screams. Screaming turned into vomiting.

"No eggies to you?" the thing asked.

The girl shook her head vigorously.

"Eggies to me!"

He bent down, grabbed the eggs with his sausage-like fingers and stuffed them in his mouth. The sound of cracking shells and the sight of the yolk streaming down his chin invoked another wave of throwing up.

Some of the predigested substance ended up on the camera. With disgusted look on her face, the girl wiped it off using her sleeve.

"What that box?" the creature wanted to know.

"A camera," the girl replied in shaky voice.

"That good for eat?" His tongue began to lick his lips smearing the rest of the egg yolk. The girl's stomach turned once again, but there was nothing left in it anymore.

"No!" she yelled. "That's not for eating! That's for pictures!"

"What picture?" He was confused.

"Any picture I want!" she explained further, a lot less patiently.

"Picture what?" He tried to convey his confusion elsehow.

"Did you want to know what picture is?" the girl asked encouraged by the fact that he hasn't tried to eat her yet. Or worse, eat her camera.

"What picture is," he repeated.

"It's..." she found herself lost for words. How was she supposed to explain what a picture is to this creature from the swamp? He didn't even know what a bath is!

"I'll show you."

She pointed the camera towards him and pressed the button. On the 3.0 inch screen, an image appeared.

"See, this is a picture," she explained.

"This one ugly!" he stated.

"This one you! I mean, this is you. You are on the picture."

"This one pretty," he had a sudden change of mind.

"Who is this one?" the girl asked pointing her finger (is spite the fact that she had been thought that pointing is rude) at him.

"This one ogre. Who this one?" It was his turn to point, although, with his sausage fingers, he lacked the grace all together.

"This one human," the girl said. "A human named Adelia."

"Ogre named Ogre," he added to clarify his identity.

"Well, ogre named Ogre, I should get going now. You just stay here, in the nice swamp and eat eggies."

He understood the 'eggies' part. He looked around but failed to see any of the delicious treats.

"There," the girl pointed somewhere in the distance, her pointing shaky, yet so graceful. An ogre could only dream of achieving such level of gracefulness.

He left in search of the eggies, and Adelia left in search of a safer place. She took off faster than a gazelle chased by a lion in the Serengeti. She sighed with relief when she closed the garden gate behind her, marched straight to the vegetable patches where she started to pull out the weeds, a bit too enthusiastically. Stress makes you do weird things.

Later that day, she told her parents all about the ogre living in the swamp, way too close to their lone cottage.

"I'll see what I can do about that," her father said.

The next morning, he embarked on a short trip to the nearby town. Adelia was convinced he would find an exorcist specialized in casting out ogres, or at least Ogrebusters' service. But no, not her father! He came back with a bunch of brochures.

'Chase your ogre away', 'Ogres be gone', 'Ogre no more' were just a few titles she was hoping to see on the brochures. Wrong again!

'Rural estate – road to success', 'How to stand out in the sea of renters', 'You've got it, they want it (a business plan)'. That's what she read, realizing her father had no intentions of getting rid of the nasty creature that was ogre named Ogre.

"We can make use of the situation. An ogre is practically our neighbor. People would pay to see him," her father explained.

"He could have eaten me!" Adelia exclaimed while the vein on her forehead was pulsating.

"But he hasn't, daughter dear. And if he hasn't eaten you, maybe he wouldn't eat the tourists either."

"Fine! Do what ever you want, just keep the nasty thing away from me!" she said and wrinkled her nose.

"Oh, darling, that will not be possible," he said with a way too gummy smile. "You see, you are at the heart of my business plan. From what you've said, the ogre is quite savage, and for the purposes of my plan, I need him to be a bit more tame. That's where you come in. You're gonna civilize him!" 

The girl could not believe her ears. He lost it, she thought. He's gone completely mad!

She took dad's business plan straight to her mother and after explaining his mad ideas, she came to another realization – her mother was just as mad as he was!

"What a wonderful idea!" the mother said. "Our very own Bed&Breakfast! Genius! We have enough rooms, we could convert the entire first floor of our charming cottage!"

She clapped her hands and went to search for an affordable interior decorator.

Adelia, on the other hand, was sent to search for the disgusting ogre.

She found him near the spot of their first encounter. He was still a large, filthy, awful smelling creature. But this time, the girl had a secret weapon.

She reached into her backpack and took out a can of air freshener. She sprayed the space between them generously. The ogre coughed.

"What smell so bad?" he asked while flapping his arms around his body as if he was fighting off a swarm of blood-sucking mosquitos.

"You smell so bad!" the girl replied. "But I made it all better now. Listen, we need to have a serious conversation."

"Serious conservation?"

"Con-ver-sa-ti-on," she repeated slowly, but still felt like she can almost see the question marks above his head. Therefore, she simply said, "Talk. We need to talk."

Then she went on to explain her father's business plan. By the time she was done explaining, her arms were very soar. (She hadn't been beating him up, she just gestured a lot due to his limited vocabulary.)

So it happened that one sunny day Adelia brought the ogre named Ogre to their lone cottage. It was the only house in a mile radius, so she didn't have to worry about nosey neighbors.

Her mother always thought that the first guy Adelia would bring home would look like Prince Charming. She was even willing to forgive him if he didn't come riding on a white horse. For her father, the prancing black horse on the hood of a shiny red car would suffice.

Instead, Adelia walked through the garden gate followed by creature that definitely did not possess a horse. If he ever did, he probably ate him. He resembled a horse, though. If you looked at his nostril area.

"Stand here," the girl instructed, and using her camera took some 'before' pictures.

"Where should I begin?" she then asked her mother because she hadn't worked up her strategy further than Step 1. – Bring the ogre to the cottage and Step 2. – Don't let him eat the cat.

While they were trying to come up with a lesson plan, they lost sight of the ogre. They found him in the garden, on Adelia's precious vegetable patch where he was plucking out carrots and radishes only to consume them on the spot, with dirt as a condiment.

The sight of him eating was enough for the women to make their decision. Table manners are the first thing he should learn!

For that reason, a table was set in the garden where the breeze had free access from all four sides of the world. A lacy tablecloth covered the wooden table, a tall vase with freshly cut hydrangeas and pink roses was the center piece and several scented candles were lit around the flowers.

Adelia invited the ogre to sit at the table. He did, but in doing so, he pulled the lacy tablecloth, knocked over the vase and caused a small fire when melted wax soaked the fabric.

After that, a new approach was needed. The table was stripped-down and deprived of all decorations, which made it ogre friendly.

This time, mission of sitting down at the table was a success. Adelia immediately took her camera to immortalize that historical moment. She brought a plate of baked potatoes and placed it in front of him. He grabbed a handful immediately and stuffed it in his mouth.

"NO!" Adelia screamed scaring a flock of starlings that were about to feast on the cherry tree.

Ogre named Ogre looked at her, continuing his chewing.

"You mustn't eat like a starved gorilla," she said.

"Ha?" he asked.

Choosing to forget everything they taught her at school, she said, "You... no... eat... like... that!"

Mimicking the words helped.

She sat at the opposite side of the table where another plate of potatoes was set, took a fork and stabbed a piece.

"You... eat... with... fork," she said in a manner suitable for speech therapy.

He took a fork in his oversized hand and stabbed one himself.

"Now eat," she encouraged him.

Before she was able to show him what she had meant, he put the potato in his mouth along with the fork. He even tried to chew it, but his wobbling teeth refused to let it happen.

"Fork no good," he said.

"Fork isn't for eating!" she said and shoved her fingers in her hair seriously messing up her hairdo.

After that, it only took her an hour and a half to teach him how to bring food to his mouth using a fork. Five additional hours later, and he was sipping tea with his pinky finger up in the air.

It was time for another photo. She decided to call this one May the fork be with you.

By the time the first lesson ended, she noticed one thing. As time went on, more and more flies kept popping in, swarming around the smelliest thing in the garden.

One might think that it was a big pile of manure she was gonna use to fertilize her garden, but no! It turned out that ogre named Ogre smelled even worse.

With the help of her father who basically did all the hard work, an inflatable pool suitable for six children or three adults or, in this case, one ogre, was set on the grass. Adelia filled it with hot water and poured in a whole bottle of bath gel.

Adelia brought her laptop ("No! That no good to eat!") to show him short educational video of what she wanted him to do. She didn't have enough upper body strength for another extensive explanation, her arms were still soar from explaining how forks work.

When she clicked 'play', an animated character began explaining the importance of personal hygiene through a catchy song. If it was good enough for a four-year-old kid, it would be good enough for a nobody-knows-exactly-how-old ogre with mental capacity of an underdeveloped chimpanzee.

The strategy worked. He jumped right in the pool, his clothes still on. Just as well, Adelia thought to herself. Civilizing this savage was traumatic enough, she didn't need additional trauma in the form of seeing him naked.

He did exactly what the video suggested:

He washed his face, washed his feet (hands need to be clean before you eat).

He cleaned his teeth, combed his hair (they will take you anywhere).

He washed his back, washed his belly (no longer will you be smelly).

The experience of witnessing ogre bathing lead Adelia to one important discovery concerning water: when an ogre bathes in it, it turns black.

Another photo of the ogre in the process of becoming less smelly was taken using Adelia's 24.2 megapixel camera. Looking at the picture, she wasn't satisfied.

"You need new clothes," she stated before telling her mother, "He needs new clothes."

"Leave it up to me!" mother practically sang in response, for any excuse to go shopping was always welcome in her book.

She came back with brown pants and a white shirt, both size XXXXXLL.

"I saw on TV that this looks is very 'in' this season if you're an ogre," she explained.

He put the clothes on and posed for some more pictures. The camera flash kept on blazing as Adelia kept pressing the button on top of the camera and memory card kept on filling with pictures of an ogre.

"The tourists will have cameras too, you know," she told him. "They will come with their cameras and you will have to stand very still so they can take some pictures."

"What if I no have some pictures to give tourists," the ogre wanted to know.

After a polite, ladylike laughter (she only snorted once), the girl explained what she had meant, and the ogre named Ogre, under her watchful eye, practiced his posing.

Not long after that, an inviting picture of their cottage surrounded by lush greenery has been placed on several internet sites to atract visitors.

Lone cottage Bed&Breakfast

Leave all your worries behind. Join us in our lovely cottage in the middle of the countryside, with the swamp as your only neighbour. Enjoy the homely ambiance with a touch of wilderness. Discover an ogre, civilized and eager to meet you.

It was a lovely sunny day when the first tourists came to the lone cottage. They were an older couple. A man in a safari style outfit (a little round in the stomach area) with a camera in his hands instead of the gun, and a woman in a floral shirt, beige pants, purple anatomically correct shoes and a rather large straw hat with a lilac ribbon.

The mother showed them to their room, the daughter offered them fresh produce straight from her garden and the father steered them in the direction of the ogre's whereabouts.

Adelia followed them as their interpreter.

They found him under the willow tree where he was picking his teeth with a fishbone. He threw it away immediately after seeing the scowl on Adelia's face. Or maybe it was because of the frantic waving of her hands behind the tourist's back.

"And this is the ogre," Adelia said to the tourists.

"Say hello," she said to the ogre.

"Hello," said the ogre.

"Fascinating," the lady seemed impressed by the almost clean ogre in white shirt and brown pants.

He squinted at her, stared like that for a while and then asked, "Why you have sun umbrella on head?"

"I beg your pardon?" the lady begged his pardon.

"Sun umbrella," the ogre pointed at her head with his sausage-like finger.

"Ogre!" Adelia warned him. "We said it's not nice to point!"

He waved around with an outstretched finger and, not knowing what to do with it, he stuck it up his nose. Adelia slapped her forehead with an open hand at the sight of that.

And what ogre sees, ogre does.

He yanked his finger out of his nose and used his palm to slap himself over the head. Unfortunately, along with his finger, a sticky, icky, gooey substance came out of the nose.

It was too much for the classy lady to handle.

"Come along, Richard! We are leaving this instant!" she said to her husband, and so, they left.

After a week of working up a new strategy, the family welcomed some more tourists at their countryside cottage. A family with three young children showed up on a Saturday morning.

The mother showed them their rooms and Adelia took them to the table in the garden where a breakfast had been prepared for them. This time, the ogre was in the garden. They saw him standing next to the hydrangea bush, thoroughly scratching his butt.

"He's funny!" the little boys said.

"He has no manners!" the little girl frowned.

"He's disgusting!" the mother added another insult.

"I no disgusted!" the ogre said and came to the table. "I know eat with fork!"

To substantiate that claim, he picked up the fork and, while he held it in his right hand, he grabbed a handful of steamed vegetables with his left hand. With the fork proudly up in the air, he stuffed the vegetables in his mouth, proving once and for all that he knows how to use a fork.

For some reason, the family didn't stay longer than it took them to load their suitcases back in the car.

The third set of tourists showed up just a week later. A young couple this time. A brown-skinned guy and a skinny girl with a pet chihuahua on a pink leash.

After a warm welcome in the cottage near one of the largest swamps in the country, they set out into the wild to find an ogre and photograph him with their camera. Although it did have better features than Adelia's camera, it did not have the ladybug sticker on the side of it.

It didn't take them long to find the ogre. He squatted next to a puddle, trying to catch elusive tadpoles.

He looked up when Adelia softly coughed. Or maybe it was hearing her say, "Hey, we have company!" that attracted his attention.

He stared at the girl, he stared at the guy, he stared at the chihuahua.

"Why you have rat on string?" he asked the girl.

"That's not a rat! How dare you call my Foo-Foo a rat!?" she replied.

Adelia gave him a look under her furrowed eyebrows and over her flared out nostrils.

"Why you dirty?" he asked the guy, for all the people he saw in his life so far were pale in comparison to this one.

"Ogre! We don't say that!" she yelled at the ogre.

"I apologize," she turned to the guy and gave him an apologetic smile.

"He's not dirty!" she frowned at the ogre some more. "He was born with darker skin!" her teeth were clenched so hard, one of her fillings came loose.

"He born like that?" the ogre asked and came closer to see, and maybe even touch the unusual boy. "Brown pretty. I want be brown too."

After saying that, the ogre named Ogre found a puddle of mud and happily jumped into it. He rolled in the mud like a pig trying to get rid of the skin parasites.

When he was done, his shirt was no longer white, his skin was no longer the colour of a sick frog, but his pants were still brown, just like the rest of him.

"Ogre pretty!" he said ecstatically before he started to dance around, waving his hands and singing in a language no one ever heard before (probably because he had just made it up).

Those tourists didn't stay long either. They left the very same day, flecked with mud. Adelia waved them goodbye, also stained with mud that identified her as another spectator of ogre's dance show.

After that, it was time for a new add. The image of their cottage remained, but the text was drastically shortened. It said:

Lone cottage Bed&Breakfast.

Enjoy the homely ambiance with a touch of wilderness. Beware of an ogre. He was and always will be wild. He cannot be civilized. We know. We tried.