Nick Klaus's Fables

by Frederic Colier

here,” said the daughter. “Our stingers have no power against their shells. They can crush us to death.”

  “Why don’t I make you a nice stew of . . .?” She never finished her sentence but they all knew. To make the matter worse, the turtles started to snoop around their family’s car, crushing with their heavy body.

  “We’re all safe up here,” reassured the father. “They are too slow and heavy to climb up the dune.”

  They watched in dismay at the nosy turtles tramped around the dune and came across the lazy rattlesnakes. Within minutes, they made a barbecue and swam in the rainwater together.

  “Lucky us, we’re up here,” said the father, taking a deep breath. “Otherwise, we’d be attacked from all sides.”

  And even though the scorpions got what they wanted, plenty of sunshine, they spent the rest of the summer perched on top of the dune starving, scared and miserable. But they were safe.

  The Turtle and the Goose (#35)

  A turtle tired of swimming wanted a rest from her dark and murky water and crawled up a small rock in the middle of a pond. A tall imposing goose stood there, warming herself in the sun. Bothered by the bird’s unexpected large presence, the turtle said:

  “I swim all day long in this cold and muddy water and never get to warm up my bones and shell in the sun. You standing on this rock cast but a long shadow. Would you mind flying somewhere else?”

  The goose raised her head and closed her eyes. Obviously not interested in the turtle’s plea, she stood erect. Bothered by the bird’s cold reception, the turtle stuck her neck out. She was not going to allow a feathered creature to deter her.

  “I can’t rest on the edge of the pond and bask on a patch of sand. The dogs taking their walk try to catch me if they spot me . . .”

  The goose opened one eye and glancing down at the brown turtle snapped:

  “Why should your grievance take precedence over mine? Children love to play. If I try to peck in a field of grass, football, baseball, and all sorts of projectiles land on me.”

  The turtle listened with concerns at the goose’s predicament, which she understood only too well.

  “You have the whole sky to fly. This rock is all I have to rest,” said the turtle.

  “It makes more sense for me to stay on this rock. You have a hard shell, enjoying the sun in the field should not bother you,” said the goose.

  The turtle considered the offer, but the field of grass was far away, packed with roaming dogs and children playing with a ball, which landed in the pond, at the foot of their rock. Distraught, the goose flapped her wings. Seeing an opportunity, the turtle said: “If you let me rest on your side of the rock, my hard shell will protect you from flying objects.”

  Without waiting the goose switched side, and the turtle got to bask in the sun.

  The Slug and the Flying Newspaper (#36)

  Once upon a time day, in the quiet village of Slugburgh a massive crash was heard. The men slug crawled out of their houses and threw each other looks of dread mixed with relief. One of them, a father slug raised his voice over the commotion and watching a vanishing cloud of dust, from across his driveway, said: “Looks like the Slugson’s house got crushed.”

  He then quickly waved at his wife to take the kids peering from the windows back inside. Mother slug pulled the children off and drew the curtains shut. The father joined the group of other slug fathers gathering at the foot of the Slugson’s flattened house, where a massive rolled-up newspaper laid on top of the rubble.

  “Holy snail,” said a slug. “I’ve never seen a newspaper so big.”

  “Where on earth does such newspaper come from?” asked another slug.

  The slugs arched their eyebrows, considering each other. No one knew, and no one was ready to act. “It sure was a strange delivery,” mumbled one of them in the crowd. “Slugson told me he never ordered such huge newspaper.”

  The Slugsons listened to them, heads down at the sight of their destroyed house and tottered away without anyone noticing. Father slug went back to his family and closed the door.

  The following morning, another massive newspaper landed right on top of the Slugorama’s house. Inside the slug’s home, the family grew scared, but the father reassured them. The great slug God was protecting them and something similar could never happen to them. “We have a roof over our head and food on the table and have nothing else to worry about. This is not our problem.”

  On the third day however, without telling his family, he joined the other men slug standing on the threshold of their doors, waiting to see if a third newspaper would land on someone else’s house. Sure enough, ten minutes later, another giant rolled newspaper appeared in the sky, spinning silently like a sick propeller. All the slugs held their breath. Whose house was the newspaper going to flatten could be read on everyone’s lips. The newspaper landed in a massive din right on the fireslug station.

  “If it starts raining newspapers this size, tomorrow, I’m taking my family away from this village. This is no longer a safe suburban lawn to live,” said Slugfin. The Slugfin family was the first to leave.

  “Stay,” begged some of the fathers. “It’s very expensive to build a new house.”

  But Slugfin was resigned and took his family away. The crashing of the strange rolled-up newspaper continued to destroy the village, day after day. It destroyed the school, the restaurant, the slugnandez, the slugsmith, and the slugtum houses. When on Sunday, the newspaper grew unexplainably twice as large, frightened to be crushed, many of the slugs in the village started to abandon their houses as well in search of the Slugfins and for a new lawn to live in peace.

  Worried sick, as her husband searched the sky from morning to evening, mother slug sheltered her three children behind her and begged her husband to leave as well. He frowned at her and declared. “So far I have been right. The newspaper has not fallen on our house, and it won’t, and I knew it.”

  The slug father was right. Day after day the newspaper fell all over the village destroying almost what was left standing: the Town Hall, the hospital, the theater, the grocery store and many more buildings, so many that the father slug stopped paying attention and read his newspaper the entire day. He even allowed his children to play outside in the backyard, secretly rejoicing that his house was spared.

  One day he woke and only his house stood alone among the ruins of the flattened houses and wrecked town.

  “See, I was right,” he bragged to his family. “The newspaper won’t fall on us.”

  “It may be the case,” said his wife with sadness. “What good is it to live in a town when there is no one left but us?” She walked out with her three hungry children and slammed the door leaving him alone.

  The Grain of Sand and the Oyster (#37)

  Once upon a time, a grain of sand lived at the bottom of the ocean. It was a lovely ocean, not the type with dark water, strong twirling currents, and teeming with dangerous creatures. This ocean was as blue as the sky. It was also shallow and received tons of sunlight, which made its water inviting to swim in, since it was so warm. There was not much more than a grain of sand could complaint about, except perhaps looking too much like any other grains of sand. This is what happened to our hero grain of sand.

  It woke up one morning and realized that it looks like just any other grain of sand. Same round shape, same coffee ice-cream color, same minuscule size. While the tide came in and out, and all the grains of sand rolled over each other, no one would notice our grain of sand. And there was nothing that would make it look different from the other grains of sand. Frustrated to be ignored, and no one paying attention to it, our grain of sand managed to climb on the top of a seashell. When it looks at the massive landscape, it was overwhelmed with sorrow. The ocean floor was vast and even. Grains of sand as far as its eyes could see. How could the world be so unfair and have made him just a boring tedious grain of sand? What kind of world was this, where no one nowhere would ever pay attenti
on to it? he cried lowering his eyes.

  “It could be worse,” he heard a muffled voice whisper. The grain of sand at first did not pay attention, thinking it was another grain of sand stuck under the seashell, trying to cheer it up. But the voice continued:

  “You could be stuck to the mouth of a small fish, and then be swallowed up alive with the small fish by a large fish . . . and the large fish could be eaten alive by a shark in one gulp, and you could end up in the depth of the darkest cold ocean, where no one ever again will ever hear back from you.”

  “Thank you for your kind words,” said the grain of sand, sighing.

  “At least, the water is blue and warm, and you can see around for miles,” said the voice.

  “You try then to be a small grain of sand,” said the grain of sand out of patience and waiting for a current of some sort to push it away from the voice.

  “I think you are just perfect,” added the voice.

  The grain of sand huffed and puffed. “Perfect? If I’m perfect that means that everyone looking just like me is perfect. Which really means no one is perfect.”

  “Everyone is perfect, but you are just more perfect,” repeated the voice. The grain of sand looked towards the voice for the first time, curious. Who did that voice belong to? Telling it nice kind words like these?

  “You’re just saying that because I’m sad. Or else you’re just making fun