The Big Deer

Tales / VR Sweet Mode

This is a story for children, of course. It’s December, it gets dark so early & it’s so cold outside, that it’s the perfect month for stories to tell children.

This one is very simple.
We are in the middle of the forest.
In his pretty little wooden house, the big deer is resting.
He is reading his newspaper while the mushrooms are coming back on the fire. Mushrooms cooked with garlic – with some potatoes – will be delicious.

The night begins to fall, the great forest sinks into rest.

But all of a sudden, gunshots. One – two – three and four… the shots are getting closer – they are ? hundred meters away ? two hundred ?

The night begins to fall, the great forest sinks into rest.

But all of a sudden, gunshots. One – two – three and four… the shots are getting closer – they are ? hundred meters away ? two hundred ?

Frantic noises approach, broken grass, crumpled leaves, and then suddenly there are knocks on the door, struck with violence
Open the door!
Deer, deer, open me!
Open me or the hunter will kill me

The deer doesn’t hesitate – he takes off his slippers – you have to be decent after all – and rushes to the door.

At first he sees nothing, except the shadows that begin to eat the trees of the great forest.
But at his feet, there is a very small, very small rabbit, with fur soaked with terror, with trembling legs

He will kill me,” the rabbit stutters one last time.

– Rabbit, rabbit… come in and shake my hand, replied the deer, closing the door tightly.

The story for small children ends here.

But for the others… for the others, the hunter looms at the end of the road, a dark and terrifying shadow.
The hunter can’t go home with nothing – and he’s sure of it, that’s where the rabbit ran away.

The story for small children ends here.

But for the others… for the others, the hunter looms at the end of the road, a dark and terrifying shadow.
The hunter can’t go home with nothing – and he’s sure of it, that’s where the rabbit ran away.

He approaches the deer’s house with heavy steps.
No – do not think: he will kill the deer.
The hunter does not kill the owners of nice wooden houses. The hunter is not the wolf.
He is just the hunter – the one who kills the wolf and sometimes saves little girls who have been eaten by a wolf in grandma’s clothing.

The hunter wants to know if the owner has seen the rabbit, by chance.

But a deer’s house is not like ours – there is no room behind it.

No cellar to hide in – but where to go when the hunter’s blows resound terribly at the door?

Where would you go to hide, you, when there is only one room?

Oh yes? really?
Under the table, pulling the tablecloth tight?
would you do that, seriously?
Not bad. The rabbit did that too.

And the hunter, who was a bit stupid, didn’t see anything. He walked away empty-handed, wondering where the rabbit could be.

As for the rabbit, to console him, the Big Deer made him a chervil omelet, few games and then : gp to bed.

But the next morning, as the sun was rising over the forest, still fresh from the night… we had to think about the future: how to save Mr. Rabbit for good?

And the story goes on like that, between a hungry hunter, a terrorized rabbit, a big deer with a big heart, without forgetting to mix in the wild boars, the birds, the fox who is so clever, and and and – all this to save Mr Rabbit.

This story – which is an immemorial success with children – has, in my opinion, an absolutely enormous advantage, which is its location.

I have not forgotten – I can’t forget this – my very, very great desire to “see” in the scene dozens of little virtual fireflies, all fluttering together in the story.

The setting, divided between the beautiful house of the big deer and the big forest, the night so terrifying, the day so exciting – allows my dozens of virtual fireflies to wander through the story – to see the hunter coming – to be very, very scared and warn everyone – to laugh out loud when the beastly hunter gets caught in the traps of the fox, the sounds of the birds, the charge of the boars … and there are some like these throughout the story.

With a story like this one, which is just absolutely cute, it is so possible, so desirable, so happy to live the show “differently”, to live it all together under this curious helmet, being all fireflies, and all holding hands – that this project there becomes almost unavoidable.
It’s not putting kids under helmets to take their brains away.
It’s about giving them an unforgettable adventure – VR is useless if it’s not about unforgettable adventures.

And since it can do that, why not do it?

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Featured Image : Le grand Cerf – by Romain Simon