THE MOTH WITH DREAMS

There was once a Moth who was such a dreamer that all the other moths dismissed as a hopeless romantic.

Every evening when the candles were lit, all the moths - except one - flew straight for the light, fluttering around the dancing flames, drawn to the warm, glowing brilliance and totally oblivious to the dangers they risked - until, that is, their bodies became charred and their wings were singed and caught fire.

One by one the moths would immolate and fall to the ground in tiny heaps of ash - except for the Moth who was a dreamer. He was never seduced by the candle-flames because he was drawn to another light: the pale, cold, creamy-blue disc of the moon which slowly crossed the sky and which the Moth, entranced, would watch through the glass of the windowpane.

Each night new moths would appear and rush towards the candles and certain death, while the dreamer Moth fluttered up and down against the glass, gazing at the moon and wishing that a day would come when he might find a way to fly to the beautiful pale light in the velvet-black night sky.

Of course, he never achieved his dream, but at least he knew what it was to dream and, at any rate, he lived many, many times longer than any of the other moths…


© Brian Sibley 2006

[Image: Clipart Etc]

THE SLOTH WHO REFUSED TO BE RUSHED

There was once a Sloth whom, everyone said, lived up to his name. He was, as the term ‘sloth’ suggests, idle, indolent and inactive, lazy, languid, listless and lethargic. Despite being permanently surrounded by animals that were concerned - day in and day out - with hustle and haste, the Sloth remained resolutely indifferent, even apathetic.

The other creatures had no time or sympathy for the Sloth’s slothfulness.

“Hurry up!” the Cheetah would yell every morning as he rushed by in a blur of whisker and tail. “You’ll miss everything that’s going on!”

“Where were you?” the Cheetah would laugh as he sped back at the end of each day. “You’ve no idea how many thrills and diversions you passed up on today!”

The Sloth never bothered to think of a reply because he knew the Cheetah would be gone before he could begin.

He sometimes wondered - briefly - what it was that the Cheetah and so many of the other animals found to do that was so essentially thrilling and diverting. He assumed it involved a lot of rushing and tearing about and no doubt a good deal of bounding and leaping as well.

No one stopped long enough to ask the Sloth how he passed each boring day or what he did to fill each monotonous hour.

Had they done so, the Sloth would have replied:

“I really haven’t done anything of importance… I woke early and hung from a branch pondering the way in which the early morning sun danced on the dew-sparkled grass.

“I took an hour selecting the single most luscious bunch of berries on my favourite berry-bush and then spent another hour savouring each juicy mouthful…

“I watched a spider tirelessly weaving a web of gossamer fineness and a butterfly struggle free from its chrysalis, dry its wings and fly off into the forest…

“After a light lunch of another bunch of berries, I looked on as a platoon of ants transported a leaf that was one hundred times larger than themselves and a tiny bird peck its way out of the blind-dark prison of its shell…

“Following supper, I watched the hummingbird hover in mid-air and suck the nectar of the hibiscus flower and at sunset I gazed at the sky as it turned first gold, then crimson and, finally, took on the blue-black shades of the star-pocked night…”

And such, I regret to tell you, was the shamefully unfulfilled existence of the Sloth who refused to be rushed.


© Brian Sibley 2006

[Image: Clipart Etc ]

BOTH STUBBORN AND STUPID

Everybody knew that the Ass was stubborn - in fact, as stubborn as Hell - but they soon found out that he was also incredibly stupid!

He lived in a damp, dismal, run-down corner of a field that consisted mainly of nettles, thistles and dock leaves as well as quite a lot of stagnant, insect-infested water.

Few of the other animals visited the Ass, not because they were being unsociable, but because the dock leaves, nettles and stagnant water had only a limited appeal.

Every now and again, however, one of them would look by in the hopes of involving the solitary, standoffish Ass in the wider community.

One day, the Cow came by and spoke to the Ass. “How would you like to help me crop some of the grass in the meadow,” she asked in a gentle, lowing voice. “It needs doing and it’s rather a lot of work for one - but the grass is beautifully green and really flavoursome…”

“No way!” snorted the Ass crossly, “You just want to get me out of my little corner so you and others can move in and chew up all my thistles!” Then, because he always had to make some smart-ass reply, he added: “Besides, I know all about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence!”

A few weeks later, the Rabbit and his family hopped by and spoke to the Ass: “We’re getting ready to harvest our carrot-patch and there are far too many even for our large family, so perhaps you’d care to join us? As carrots go, they are really sweet and tender.”

“No way!” snapped the Ass. “You just want to get me out of my little corner so you can invite all your thousands of rabbit friends-and-relations round to rob me of my nettles! Apart from which, I know that there’s no such thing as a carrot without a stick!”

Shortly afterwards, the sheep decided to call. “I say,” she began with a nervous bleat, “I’ve got a big field full of choicest clover that makes a really good summer snack. I’d be very happy to share it with you. Sometimes you can even find a four-leaf clover which is lucky as well as tasty!”

“No way!” the Ass grunted without looking up from his thistle. “You just want to get me out of my little corner so that all and sundry can come down here and gobble up my dock leaves! And, anyway, I know perfectly well that no one truly ever lives in clover!”

From then on, nobody bothered about the Ass any more until, one morning after several weeks of continuous rain, his cousin the Horse, galloped down to the field, calling out in a loud urgent voice: “GET OUT! Get out of here while you can! I live up on the hill and I’ve been watching the river! The waters are rising dangerously high and this corner of the field is going to flood. If you don’t go now, you may not escape with your life!”

“No way! NO WAY!” the Ass brayed. “I’ve had enough of all these attempts to get me to leave my home! Well, you’re wasting your time, because I’m not moving! I’m STAYING - come Hell or high water!”

Seeing it was useless, the Horse turned and galloped away. When he looked down from the top of the hill the next morning he saw that all that was left of the Ass’s stubbornness and stupidity was now floating in the floodwaters.

The Horse gave a whinny: “Ah, well,” he said sadly, “an ass is TRULY an ass who repeatedly looks a gift-horse in the mouth…”



© Brian Sibley 2006

[Image: Clipart Etc ]

THE AMBITIOUS FLEA

There was once a Flea who, for an invertebrate, was an inveterate social climber. He lived on the back of an old, fat, grey Rat in a farmer’s barn, but was deeply dissatisfied with his way of life and was always boring the other fleas with his dreams of getting on in the world.

One day his opportunity came when the farmer’s Dog (who was a lazy individual) decided to chase the only rat in the barn who looked too old and too fat to give him much a run for his money.

The Dog quickly cornered the rat and as his jaws clamped themselves around the rat’s neck, the Flea deftly jumped from prey to predator.

Life on the Dog was better than life on the Rat, but still the Flea wasn’t satisfied and soon another opportunity presented itself for social improvement.

The Farmer who owned the Dog took him foxhunting and whilst the Dog, being lazy, never got within a yard of catching the Fox, he and his master arrived in time to see the kill.

The flea judged his moment to perfection and in a series of calculated moves leapt from dog to dog and finally onto the brush of the unfortunate Fox, just as the leader of the hunt seized the corpse and held it aloft for the satisfaction of the assembled company.

The Flea was enjoyed a light snack of freshly drawn fox-blood when fate dealt the Flea a winning card. It so happened that the Huntsman was employed by no less a person than the King and so, as duty demanded, he offered the bloody trophy to his monarch.

As His Majesty took hold of the fox’s brush, the Flea took another leap and landed on the royal personage itself. He could scarcely believe his good fortune and supposed that his life would, from then on, be one of peace and tranquillity with unlimited opportunity to gorge on the finest blue blood in the land.

But it was not to be. The other fleas who had been born and bred to the royal life looked down their proboscises at a Flea who came from such humble origins as a rat in a barn!

It wasn’t long before the Flea was once again very unhappy with his lot in life and, after spending only a few days in the King’s armpit, decided that he needed a change of air. One morning he hopped onto the Royal Butler and thence to a Royal Serving Man and by a series of brilliant manouvers made his way down into the Royal Kitchen where he found an old, fat, grey Rat who lived under a flagstone in the Cook’s pantry.

And there he lived happily for the rest of his long life, earning great respect from the other fleas dwelling on the kitchen Rat, who thought him a very superior individual. He was accorded all the bogus esteem shown to a celebrity and his fellow fleas constantly begged and pestered him to recount stories of his many adventures in the world and, most especially, his intimate and minutely detailed memoirs of his life in the service of Royalty.


© Brian Sibley 2006

THE SEWER RAT WHO KNEW THE VALUE OF DIRT

Living, as he did, surrounded by the most disgustingly unpleasant sewage, the Sewer Rat was soon able - with only a minimal amount of muckraking - to find out the dirt on everyone!

There were no smelly, smutty secrets that he did not know and when others discovered that he knew things about them that they didn’t want ANYONE to know, they made the Sewer Rat their friend - inviting him to private parties, weekends in the country and all the most prestigious social events - in the hope that, through flattery, they could buy his silence.

The Sewer Rat enjoyed the kind of life denied to most rats and, since he was constantly discovering more and more dirt on more and more people, succeeded in widening his circle of intimate friends and social influence until he was able to forget that he was, in fact, just a Sewer Rat.

Everyone else, by common consent, decided to tolerate the Rat, since they knew that it is always better to have those who can damage you as an ally rather than an enemy, even if they were born and bred in the sewer. After all, as a price for confidentiality, the occasional, albeit pungent, smell of sewage was little more than a minor inconvenience.


© Brian Sibley 2006

THE HUNGRY PYTHON : A Cautionary Tale

The Python was unbelievably hungry. He hadn’t eaten in over a week and his last meal had been nothing more substantial than a very small bush pig that, to a python with a healthy appetite, was no more than a meager snack.

He slithered about all over the jungle looking for food but found nothing (and no one) to eat - until he ran across a scrawny little Mouse who was sitting in a state of some irritation attempting to bite his way into a large nut. Regardless of how hard he nibbled, there seemed to be no way of cracking through the shell. So busy was the Mouse that he didn’t notice the snake sidling up to him.

“Hold it right there!” hissed the Python and, when the Mouse looked up, he fixed him rigid with his famous hypnotic gaze. “Permit me to make the introductions,” he went on teasingly (he had never listened to his mother when she told him not to play with his food), “I am a python and you are a mouse who is shortly about to become my lunch!”

“In that case,” said the Mouse, “I shan’t be needing this…” and he dropped the nut.

“How do you mean?” asked the Python, a tad confused.

“Well,” the Mouse explained, “There’s no point in my bothering to eat a nut if I’m about to be eaten myself. Why should I fatten myself up just for you?”

“Well, since you ask,” replied the Python, “because I’m extremely hungry and you are a very small mouse. So, anything that makes you a more satisfying snack, is all to the good! I will accord you the privilege given to every condemned prisoner facing the gallows: you may enjoy a hearty last meal! I will wait until you have eaten your nut.”

“Then you will have a very LONG wait,” said the Mouse, “because I can’t break open the shell.”

The Python gave a patronising hiss. “That’s easy!” he said. “I can get that open in no time.”

“Very well, then,” sighed the Mouse, “You open the nut, I’ll eat it and then you can eat me!”

So, the snake opened his jaws wide and sank his fangs deep into the nutshell but it didn’t break. Not only that, but he found that, having bitten so deeply, he couldn’t pull his teeth out again. They were fixed fast.

The Python shook his head from side to side, trying to dislodge the nut but without success. In focusing on this unexpected difficulty, the snake had to release his hypnotic gaze on the Mouse, who scampered off, laughing loudly, leaving the Python - whose his jaw was beginning to ache badly - to consider the high price of greediness and the fact that food today was becoming less and less cooperative!


© Brian Sibley 2006

THE ELEPHANT WHO FORGOT

There was once an Elephant who had the worst memory of any pachyderm in history. He forgot everything: which waterhole provided the best wallowing; which mango-tree grove had the sweetest, juiciest mangos; and he never, ever, remembered the birthdays of his family.

In fact, he wasn’t precisely sure which, if any, of the elephants in his herd, WERE his relations!

“Don’t you know who I am?” asked his sister in considerable irritation and he innocently replied, “I’m sorry, I forget…”

“Don’t you even recognise your very own brother?” angrily demanded his own very brother and, since he didn’t, he could only reply, “I’m sorry, I forget…”

Eventually, his relatives shunned him and even his mother, to her great distress, decided that she had no choice but to disown him.

The Head of the Herd (an elephant of venerable age and great authority) summoned the Forgetful Elephant to give an account of himself but, unfortunately, he forgot to turn up for the appointment.

“You are a disgrace to pachyderm-kind!” said the Head Elephant when their paths finally crossed. “You should be ashamed to call yourself an elephant!” Then, glaring down his trunk at the miscreant, he trumpeted: “You are forthwith banished from the herd! Now GO!”

So, the forgetful Elephant sauntered off and no one saw or heard anything of him for many, many years.

But then, at long last - when all the other elephants of his generation had grown old and gone to the Elephant’s Graveyard - the forgetful Elephant was discovered to be still alive and wandering absent-mindedly through the world.

The Old Vulture, who was charged with overseeing such delicate matters, flew around for a great many days looking for the Forgetful Elephant in order to find out why he had outstayed his allotted time-span.

“You were never supposed to have lived this long!” the Vulture crossly announced when, eventually, he tracked him down.

“Oh,” replied the Elephant, genuinely surprised and even mildly interested, “I didn’t know that…”

The Vulture continued: “You should have gone to the Elephant’s Graveyard long ago!”

“Oh,” said the Elephant again, “I didn’t know that either…”

“Every creature under heaven,” explained the bird, “is told when the time has come for them to die. Were you not told?”

“I don’t know,” replied the Elephant with complete truthfulness, “I forget…”

The Old Vulture nodded, turned his back and went away to file a report saying that he had been unable to find the Forgetful Elephant. He had decided, on this occasion, not to enforce the rules since he thought that anyone who refused to accept the limitations imposed on them by convention - even if it was only because of a bad memory - deserved some reward.

And so, to the best of my knowledge, the Elephant is still alive, somewhere in the world. Of course, if he is ever asked how old he is, his answer is always the same: “I’m sorry, I forget…”


© Brian Sibley 2006
[Images: Elephant from Larvalbugg; vulture from Clipart Etc]

THE BUTTERFLY WHO WAS IN LOVE

The Butterfly fluttered in at the open window of the art gallery and flittered about looking at the paintings hanging on the walls. She hovered in front of a vast, romantic landscape with rolling, wooded hills and a herd of cows standing by a stream, but it was nothing like the real countryside that she knew because there was no smell of grass, no sound of babbling water or lowing cattle.

Then the Butterfly paused by a still life depicting a pyramid of fruit and a scattering of dew-covered flowers; but it was also nothing like real life, having no mingled fragrances of orange, apple and wild roses.

Then she saw what seemed to her the most beautiful thing in the world: a huge canvas splattered with multi-coloured abstractions and vibrant explosions of vivid colour; dots and spots, dashes and splashes; a riot of hues and tints, pigments and tinctures…

It was love at first sight.

Dancing rapturously before the picture, the Butterfly bobbed and curtseyed in whirling gyrations by which she hoped to woo and win the affection of this dazzling creature. But the painting did not respond - even to the most sensual and seductive of her dances during which she brushed her delicate wings against his rough-edged brushstrokes.

The Butterfly’s life would, in any event, have been brief but here, in the art gallery, it was even briefer, though more ecstatic. In a heart-stopping spasm of unrequited love, she died, clinging to the canvas and shedding microscopic butterfly tears.

A passing Curator stopped in horror, appalled at what he saw: life crudely intruding into the hallowed sanctuary of High Art and daring to touch a priceless masterpiece…

A Child, who was wandering by, stopped in wonder, entranced by what he saw: a painting that in one corner and for one, brief, glorious instant, shimmered and fluttered and almost burst into life…


© Brian Sibley 2006

THE HYENA WHO WOULDN'T LAUGH

There was once a Laughing Hyena who, contrary to his name and the usual inclinations of his breed, never - under any circumstances whatsoever - LAUGHED...

This Hyena flatly refused to see the humorous side of anything and wouldn’t let his funny bone be even gently tickled.

When all the other hyenas were in their element, telling one another the funniest stories with the cleverest punch lines or the raciest double entendres and were rolling on the veldt with side-splitting hilarity, the Hyena who wouldn’t laugh still didn’t crack a smile, but merely wore a straight-faced expression that told the world that he was seriously not amused.

The other hyenas got bored with the Hyena who wouldn’t laugh and did their best to ignore the fact that whenever any of the rest of them told a joke, shared a gag or made a pun, this kill-joy merely shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and sighed heavily.

Then, one day, when the pack was sitting around cracking one another up with their usual funny anecdotes, something spooked a nearby herd of rhino. There were six of them - big, hefty brutes that were generously blessed with bone and brawn, but who had scarcely an atom of brain between them.

One second the rhino were grazing the grassland, mindlessly chewing the cud; the next, they were thundering here, there and everywhere, bellowing and snorting, crashing into one another and trampling anything and anyone in their path.

And in their path were the hapless hyenas, too busy laughing their silly heads off to hear the approaching tornado of hoof and horn.

It took less than a minute to leave the hyena pack limping around with broken legs, dislocated jaws, sprained ankles, strained backs and splitting headaches.

That was when the Hyena who wouldn’t laugh began to chortle and then chuckle, to giggle and then guffaw until he LAUGHED OUT LOUD for the very first time in his life. Tears streaming down his face, he fell on the ground and rolled hysterically about, clutching his sides in an agony of amusement!

One of the other hyenas, who had gained a black eye and lost most of his teeth, hobbled over and stood looking at what was now the only laughing hyena for miles around. “Why are you laughing?” he asked in great irritation. “You have never, ever, laughed at anything before.”

“That,” tittered the Hyena who wouldn’t laugh, with a smirk that widened into the widest of smiles, "is simply because there wasn’t anything worth laughing at before!”


© Brian Sibley 2006
Read more of my Likely Stories.

[Image: Clipart Etc]