THE CHAMELEON WHO WAS COLOUR-BLIND

The colour-blind Chameleon simply couldn’t change colour properly. If he was sitting on a bush of green privet, he went a bright, blistering red and when he was basking on the yellow sandstone rocks, he turned sky blue.

Everyone warned him to start doing things in the proper chameleon way so as to blend in with his surroundings rather than stand out.

"If you don’t conform, you’re done for!” said one old chameleon who had spent her life changing colour in the regulation fashion. "Don’t you realise that there are enemies of chameleonkind just waiting for you to show up?!”

But the colour-blind Chameleon just smiled and went on changing colour in his own highly individual way. Climbing up the rough black bark of a tree, he gleamed as yellow as the sun; silhouetted on a branch against the cobalt blue sky, he sported a vivid shade of green.

All the other chameleons waited for the day when a jackal or a buzzard would spot and make short work of their non-colour-coordinated friend.

But that day never came.

It wasn’t that he didn’t get noticed, because he did. However, it wasn’t a jackal or a buzzard that spotted him, but a famous TV naturalist who was so fascinated by the Chameleon’s radical determination to stand out from the crowd and to be seen that he took him off to the Big City and offered him an exclusive television contract which, in turn, led to personal appearances, a lucrative publishing deal and international celebrity.

Even in the unrelenting glare of media attention and public notoriety, he somehow managed to avoid the jaws of jackals and the claws of buzzards and became the wealthiest, longest-lived chameleon in the history of zoology.

© Brian Sibley 2007

THE SNAIL WHO WOULDN'T COME OUT OF HER SHELL

There was a Snail who was painfully shy and timid.

“You know what your trouble is,” said the Blackbird, “you’re far too insular and self-possessed, too reticent and retiring. You need to come out of your shell more.”

“More?” said the Snail. “I’ve never come out of my shell!”

“You haven’t?” asked the Blackbird in mock-amazement. “My dear! What have you been doing?”

“No a lot,” replied the Snail feeling awkward and embarrassed.

“Well then,” the Blackbird enthused, “You really mustn’t delay any longer! You need to come out and enjoy a bit of freedom!”

“I’m not sure,” hesitated the Snail. “I certainly couldn’t do it with you watching… I'm far too shy and bashful…”

“I understand, of course,” replied the Blackbird, “but supposing I were to look away?”

“Then," said the Snail after some deliberation, "I guess I might be able to manage it.”

“Good!” said the Blackbird, turning around and savouring the prospect of the effort-free lunch that he would soon be enjoying. “Just let me know when you’re out...”

The moment the Blackbird’s back was turned, the Snail silently slithered away and hid herself amongst a pile of several dozen large stones.

“Are you ready yet?” asked the Blackbird but there was silence and when, at last, he turned around there was no sign of the Snail anywhere.

The next few minutes proved two things: that snails are much better off not coming out of their shells and that a blackbird’s beak bashed against several dozen large stones will eventually break.

© Brian Sibley 2007

THE DOG THAT HAD HIS DAY

Try as he might, the Dog had never been truly content with his lot. He had lived a longish life and although he’d never bothered to learn counting, he knew that it was a good few years.

He had spent this life with a variety of people, good and bad: a family with a brattish Baby who had constantly pulled his tail, chewed his ear and banged him on his nose with a toy truck with sharp edges; a Society Lady who had kept him shut up in a penthouse apartment except for short, one-a-week walks round the block with the Butler; and, most recently, by an elderly Hobo who shared with him his bed (a draughty, leaky barrel by a railway siding) and his food: chuck-outs from smart restaurants and hand-outs from the Salvation Army.

Then, one day, the Dog woke up and the Hobo didn’t. The old tramp was cold and stiff and the Dog realised that another chapter of canine life was at an end.

It was only a matter of days before the Dogcatchers were after him and his doggy instinct told him that whatever the future now held it was, in all likelihood, not going to be good.

Nevertheless, he decided, he was going to give the men with their nets and leashes a good run for their money and he did.

He raced up and down town, tore here, there and everywhere: digging up flowerbeds; chasing cars, cats and chickens; knocking over trashcans; barking outside hospital windows; shaking rain off his fur in crowded hotel lobbies; leaving muddy paw-prints on newly washed doorsteps; frightening horses and startling old ladies; biting bicyclists and puncturing babies’ balloons.

They caught him at last, needless to say, but as they slammed the barred door on him in the Dog Pound and a man with rubber gloves and a syringe loomed up out of the darkness, he knew that at least he had, finally and very decidedly had his day --- and enjoyed it!

© Brian Sibley 2006

THE PIG WHO WASN’T AS HAPPY AS A PIG IN ****

There was once a Pig who was absolutely not as happy as a pig in s---!

He lived with a lot of other pigs that obviously were as happy as pigs allegedly are when living in that substance, whereas he couldn’t even bring himself to allow such an offensive word to besmirch his piggy lips, let alone feel happy about it.

While other pigs lived in sties that were messy and mucky and conducive to average pig-happiness, the Pig with whom we are concerned was prim and proper and kept his sty in astonishingly prissy and pristine condition.

He was, incidentally, also the only pig on the farm who had a corner of his sty designated as what his American cousins would call ‘The Restroom’.

His sty was so clean that, as the saying goes, you could have eaten your meal off the floor - which is exactly what he did everyday when the Farmer upturned a battered swill-bucket all over the neat little yard to the Pig’s neat little home.

The moment he had finished his meal, the Pig felt obligated to spend the next several hours cleaning and tidying-up.

Every few days, the Pig would notice that one or two of his neighbours were led away from their sties and never came back.

“That’s what happens,” he said to himself, “when you don’t keep your sty spick and span! You get your marching - or, I suppose I should say, ‘trotting’ - orders!” Then with a smug laugh he went to check that everything in his sty was just as it should be.

And so he went on for a long time, never allowing so much as an apple-core or a potato peeling to litter his home; priding himself on what a clean pig he was and how he found true happiness by not allowing his living standards to drop to the excremental levels of his peers.

Then, one day, the Farmer came to his sty, tied a rope around his neck and led him away.

At first, the Pig was confused and wondered whether he had, perhaps, slipped up somehow: overlooking, perhaps, a stale crust or two or a piece of pumpkin rind…

But then, knowing that that was a total impossibility, he decided that, on the contrary, he was being moved to more palatial accommodation as a reward for his impeccable manners and behaviour.

Alas, however, that was not the case and it was only as he got his first glimpse of the great gleaming Sausage-Making Machine that he knew that not only were his days of happiness truly at an end, but that he was now - like it or lump it - in the s***!

© Brian Sibley 2007

THE LION WHO WANTED THE LION'S SHARE

The Lion constantly complained about the fact that he never got the lion’s share. He knew that everyone always spoke about the lion’s share, but to the best of his knowledge, he hadn’t even seen a hint of it, let alone actually had it!

One day, he was lounging on the edge of the African desert considering how badly off he was compared with all those other lions who presumably got their due, picked up their rightful share.

“Who knows?” he muttered to himself, “For all I know they may have had my lion’s share, in addition to their own!”

At that precise moment, a Bald Ibis flew down and sat on a nearby boulder.

“What’s your complaint, O Royal and Regal One?” he asked in a highly deferential tone.

So the Lion told him…

“If that’s all that’s troubling you,” replied the Ibis, “I can fix that for you!”

“You can?” said the Lion in some surprise.

“I am the keeper of the magical mysteries of the ancient pharaohs and can easily grant a little wish such as yours. But, first, tell me: of what, in particular, do you want the lion’s share?”

“Food!” said the Lion without pausing to think.

“Anything else?” asked the Ibis.

“The affection of my lionesses,” he added, “and the respect of my cubs…”

“Is that it?” the Ibis enquired.

“Well,” went on the Lion, “good health, long life, peace of mind and freedom from worry…”

“All of that is possible,” responded the Ibis, “you have but to say the word and the lion’s share of all those things will be yours along with everything else!”

“Everything else?” queried the Lion.

“Most assuredly,” replied the Ibis.

“Then I would also have the Lion’s share of hatred, jealousy and malice; hunger and thirst; pain, sickness, grief and death…?”

“Yes, that is so,” agreed the Ibis.

“Then,” said the Lion, “I will content myself with an ordinary share of all those things and forego the lion’s share.”

“You choose well,” said the Ibis, “and in making that choice you reveal that when it comes to wisdom you truly do have the lion’s share!”


© Brian Sibley 2006

THE BEAR WHO BEHAVED LIKE A BEAR WITH A SORE HEAD

“You drive me CRAZY!” screamed the Female Bear. "I mean C R A Z Y ! ! You lounge around all day doing nothing, saying nothing and then snore and fart all though the night! And what happens when I point out that we’ve nothing in the cave to eat? You go out fishing, are gone for hours and hours and hours on end and catch what? NOTHING! Or you go off looking for honey, are missing for what seems like days and come back with what? NOTHING! Apart from a mass of bee-stings that you spend the next week scratching to death! And if I so much as even open my mouth, utter even the merest word of complaint, suggest that your behaviour is less than perfect, you stomp about, growling and grumbling like the proverbial bear with a sore head! Oh, but my mother was right! I was a FOOL to have ever gone into hibernation with YOU!”

The Male Bear said nothing; he simply picked up a very large rock and brought it down on his mate’s cranium with a sickening, skull shattering---

CRACK!

“There!” he said with what might have been a growl or could have been a laugh as he shambled out of the cave and off into the woods to join his mistress, “Now I’m not the only bear with a sore head!”

© Brian Sibley 2006

THE CAT WHO GOT THE CREAM

There was a cat - a pitifully pampered pet - who, if you had looked at him, you would have said had that smug, self-satisfied look of a cat who had got the cream. And, indeed, he had.

In truth, he got the cream every day - and twice-a-day on Sundays, high days and holidays!


But, after a year or two of lapping up the cream and licking out the bowl, he rarely if ever relished the experience as he had once done when he was a kitten.

The special treat was now a commonplace event; the privilege, a right; the surprise, expected. And so, eventually, the Cat who got the cream looked less and less smug and self-satisfied and increasingly sated and bored with life.

Other cats - those who haunted dingy alleyways and seedy rubbish tips, living on rotting fish-heads and the rancid dregs from beer cans - had always envied the Cat who got the cream.

But they were rather less envious - and realised the true price of a saucer of cream - when their mollycoddled contemporary died, long before his time, of coronary heart disease resulting from an exceptionally high intake of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

© Brian Sibley 2006

THE OSTRICH WHO KEPT HIS HEAD DOWN

There was an Ostrich who was the most nervous creature of its kind. At the least provocation, the merest hint of alarm and the flimsiest cause for concern, he would thrust his head into the sand and stay there until he was sure, beyond any doubt, that the coast was clear and the danger past.

He could often be seen - his neck, body and legs very much in evidence, but his head well and truly out of sight - long after the wildebeest stampede had galloped away in a cloud of dust or the big game hunters’ jeep had rattled off into the distance.

“Why do you wait so long before showing your face?” asked one of the other ostriches.

“Well,” said the Ostrich who kept his head down, “one really cannot be too careful…”

“But---” began the other ostrich and then stopped short on hearing a low snarly-roar that suggested that a large predator was lurking nearby.

Instantly, the other ostrich made a dash for safety, knowing that, with a head start, he could out-run anything on four paws.

The Ostrich who kept his head down, on the other hand, poked his head in the sand and pretended that, since he could see nothing, he could not be seen.

The Jaguar, for that is who was doing the stalking, sat for some time washing his paws and looking at the exposed haunches of the Ostrich. Eventually, however, he decided that without the chase the kill would be boring, so he wandered off to look for an antelope or two.

The Ostrich who kept his head down, kept his head down for several hours, congratulating himself on having eluded certain death.

As a result, he failed to notice great banks of black storm clouds rolling in across the veldt or hear the rumble of approaching thunder. In fact, he knew nothing about anything until - with a single, dazzlingly searing flash - he was struck by lightning and fried to a crisp.

© Brian Sibley 2007

THE RABBIT WHO DECLINED TO BREED

There was once a Rabbit who refused to breed, declining absolutely and without any apparent remorse, to indulge in the business of procreation that so occupied all the other rabbits in the warren.


The Bachelor Rabbit maintained that his decision was a moral stand against the threat of over-population. However, others were soon putting around the story that his abstinence was, in truth, a clear indication of moral corruption and sexual deviancy.

Concerned that their young might be at risk from his unnatural perversions, the community ostracised the Bachelor Rabbit and avoided all contact with him. The single Rabbit, nevertheless, remained surprisingly cheerful and resolutely refused to be rushed into the mating game merely in order to save his reputation.

One day a Polecat caught and was about to eat one of the warren’s most prolific breeders, a rabbit who had already fathered several dozen young and whose sexual prowess showed no sign of flagging.

The Bachelor Rabbit, seeing the Father Rabbit’s plight, hopped swiftly over and pleaded with the Polecat on his behalf. “Please,” he begged, “this rabbit has a huge family to support, I have none. Eat me instead.”

The Polecat who had already breakfasted on two starlings and a baby ferret and was, therefore, not hungry enough to eat both rabbits agreed without hesitation, gobbled up the Bachelor Rabbit and allowed the Father Rabbit to go free.

Later, passing the warren, the Polecat heard the rabbits discussing the incident and praising the Polecat's generosity and thoughtfulness in ridding the rabbit community of a perverted and morally bankrupt misfit.

The Polecat smiled to himself. “How strange!” he thought, “It was merely an economic decision: given a choice, why would I eat a rabbit who still has many years left in which to provide me with new generations of breakfasts, lunches and dinners?”

© Brian Sibley 2006

THE GIRAFFE WHO STUCK HIS NECK OUT

“I know I’m sticking my neck out,” said the Young Giraffe, “But those trees, way over there, look to me as if they are covered in really luscious leaves right at the very top.”

“What trees?” asked one of his elderly relatives.

“Trust me,” said the Young Giraffe, “with due respect, my eyesight is better than yours.”

So the whole herd followed the Young Giraffe and headed off for the trees, which were, even further away than they had at first supposed.

Although they began their journey almost as a canter, their speed soon dropped to a lope and, by the time they reached the trees, they were going at little more than a dawdle and were exhausted and very hungry.

They were pleased to discover that the trees were indeed covered in the most lip-smackingly luscious leaves at the very top of their branches. But unfortunately however far they stuck their necks out every single bunch of leaves was just beyond their reach.

As can be imagined, they were not best pleased with the Young Giraffe.

A few weeks later, the Young Giraffe coughed politely and said that whilst he was probably sticking his neck out once more, he could smell a waterhole full of fresh, clear drinking water off in the distance beside a large outcrop of rock.

“What rock?” asked another of his relatives.

“Trust me,” said the Young Giraffe, “I have a very keen sense of smell.”

Against their better judgement - and only because they were very thirsty - the herd agreed to follow the Young Giraffe to his waterhole.

After another long, tiring trek, they arrived at a muddy puddle at the bottom of a deep hole that was currently occupied by a bad-tempered and overweight warthog.

Even if they had been willing to drink a warthog’s bath water, it would have made no difference for however far they spread their long legs and however far they stuck out their long necks they couldn’t reach the brown, brackish sludge.

For the second time in too short a time, the Young Giraffe was not especially popular with his family.

A week or two passed and, one day when the giraffes were roaming the savannah, the Young Giraffe once again felt compelled to make an announcement.

“I know you are tired of me sticking my neck out,” he began, “but I really think that I can hear a pride of lions creeping up on us through the long grasses.”

“SHUT UP!!” shouted the giraffe family as one animal.

So he did…

Feeling unbelievably humiliated, tears welled up in his big brown eyes and it was at that moment that the lions sprang!

The first animal to fall was the Young Giraffe, proving that if you keep sticking your neck out, sooner or later, you are going to get your head bitten off…

© Brian Sibley 2006

THE STARFISH WHO WENT TO LOOK FOR THE STARS

Ever since she could remember, the starfish had only ever had one thought in her mind: to find out why she was a starfish…

“The answer is simple…” said the Conger Eel, who lived in a deep dark hollow beneath a mountain of rocks and who was generally reckoned as knowing more about the ways of life beneath the waves than any other sea creature.

The Starfish was prepared to wait a long time for a reply because everyone said that the Conger Eel always took a long time to answer the questions he was asked, which was proof positive of wisdom and sagacity. In truth, being bored by a succession of the most trivial and stupid questions, he often fell asleep before getting around to answering…

On this occasion, however, the answer came instantly and was brief and to the point. “You are a starfish because you are called a starfish!” And with that, the Conger Eel promptly settled down to have another sleep.

“But why am I called a starfish?” the persistent Starfish demanded.

The Eel began to regret not having had his nap before answering the Starfish’s question, but trying not to sound too irritated, he elucidated.

“Because you are shaped like a star…” And, without waiting for the next question, he went on to explain that there was another world above the roof of the sea: a world that also had a roof which, at night, swam with great shoals of bright shining creatures who were shaped --- like starfish!

The Starfish was so entranced by this knowledge that she decided, there and then, to witness this amazing phenomenon for herself.

So that very night - when all the fishes and other sea creatures were asleep, hanging suspended, unmoving in the gently shifting current or hidden away among the waving fronds of seaweed or lying on or under the rocks - she swam all the way to the very roof of her world and looked up and saw, vaguely and a long way off, what she felt sure were the lights that the Conger Eel had told her about…

Because it was hard to see clearly, the Starfish decided to swim further in-shore and eventually reached a part of the sea where the distance between the sandy floor and the roof was hardly anything at all and very soon, she found herself half-in and half-out of her world and for the first time could fully see the star creatures suspended from the dark, blue-black roof above…

“They must be sleeping, too,” she thought and decided that she would wait to see if they would wake up and begin swimming about.

She waited a long time - though it felt like no time at all, she was so dazzled by the cold, shimmering brilliance of the star creatures - and as she waited the tide, unnoticed, went out and came back and went out and almost came back and went out and out and didn’t come back…

Too late, the Starfish realised that she was out of her element and, being unable to return to her own world, must now surely die…

Dying, as it turned out, was long and painful, but, just before she finally dried out, stiffened and lost consciousness, she saw something so wonderful, it almost took the unbearable pain away: one of the star creatures suddenly broke free from the shoal floating in the darkness and swimming fast and free through its sleeping companions plummeted into the blacker-than-black line that marked the point where the roof of this strange dry world met the roof of the sea…

In that moment the starfish understood everything and nothing and then died…


The next morning, a young child running on the beach found a dead starfish that had been washed up and stranded by the tide.

“Look!” said the child’s mother, “It looks just like a star!”

The child looked pitying at its parent. “It looks nothing like a star,” it said contemptuously, “A star is an incandescent body comprising a sphere of hot gasses held together by its own gravitation and emitting light, energy and electromagnetic radiation drawn from thermonuclear reactions in it’s interior!”

On hearing this, the soul of the starfish - skipping through limitless galaxies unseen in the light of day - emitted a celestial laugh…

© Brian Sibley 2006

[Image: © Celina Macdonald 2006]

THE CROCODILE WHO GOT RELIGION

The Crocodile was a child of nature. He lazed about in the sun on the banks of the Nile for quite a lot of the time and when he wasn’t basking, he was swimming around gobbling up hundreds of innocent little fish by the toothy jaw-full.

The Crocodile was happy and whilst the fish weren’t especially happy (although it all happened far too quickly for much in the way of philosophical reflection) everyone accepted that it was ‘nature’s way’: crocodiles ate fish; fish got eaten…

Then one day a Missionary came to call and, through the use of many texts of Holy Scripture and much passionate oratory, showed the Crocodile the error of his ways. So powerful a preacher was this Missionary that the Crocodile was quickly convicted of his fearful wickedness, after which - with many tears of contrition - he repented of his manifold sins and embraced the True Faith with every fibre in his scaly body.

Thereafter the Crocodile became a totally reformed individual and never again ate little fishes --- without, that is, offering up a devoutly fervent prayer for their tiny immortal souls!


© Brian Sibley 2006
[Image: Larvalbug]