by Jim Hanas
Oppressors design their own oppression.
The Robot in the Hobo Jungle
A ROBOT ESCAPED FROM HER masters and ran to the city of boxes by the river. Beneath a bridge she found a softened, wet box that did not have a person in it and she lay down to gather her thoughts. In the night she realized that she had no oil for her joints and no electricity to recharge her body and mind. By running away she had secured a quick demise for herself. Because she was afraid to show her body to the people moving about the city of boxes she fashioned a cloak from newspapers and she gathered the cloak tightly around her.
Near the river several people were gathered around a barrel in which a fire raged against its own containment. She did not dare go too close to the fire for fear that her cloak would catch and her true self would be revealed. So she called to the people from the shadows, knowing that the brightness of the fire would keep them blind.
“Do you live here?” she asked. “Is there any electricity?”
Three faces rotated towards her, that of a man and two women, all dirty, and exhausted.
“Who are you?” the man said in a voice that was the growl of dirty gears.
“I’m a stranger. I’m lost,” said the robot.
“Why do you need electricity? Who sent you to us for that?”
“No one sent me. I told you: I’m very lost.”
“We’re all lost,” said the man and he turned his back on the robot.
After a few minutes one of the women shuffled away from the fire and came up to the robot. As she approached, the robot shied, moving further into the shadows. The woman held out a cup. The silver breath of steam wafting up from the tea caught the weak light of the fire and it struck the robot as a very beautiful sight.
“They’re afraid of you,” the woman said. “If you need electricity then you must own something.”
“I don’t,” said the robot. “I have never owned anything.”
“Let me see your face,” said the woman.
The robot paused, and in that pause she realized that to be unknown was a death for her. She lifted the cowl of her cloak very slightly and leaned towards the woman to show the dimming light of her mechanical eyes. The woman smiled.
“Look,” she said.
All around the robot, electric eyes began to light.
“We have what you need,” said the woman.
Help each other.
The Jellyfish and the Anaconda
A JELLYFISH AND AN ANACONDA found themselves stranded on a sandbar together. To pass the time they discussed which of the two was the more deadly.
“Are you kidding?” scoffed the anaconda. “I can crush a tiger.”
“Yes, but one tiny sting from me and even an elephant would fall down in torment and die a painful death in hours.”
“There are no elephants in South America,” said the anaconda.
“And you were never a giant,” said the jellyfish.
The two bragged and debated well into the night. In the morning the sun rose and the jellyfish, desiccated and miserable, gave in and admitted that he thought the anaconda the more fearsome of the two.
“Thank you,” said the anaconda and he slipped into the water carrying the jellyfish back in with his tail.
“You are welcome,” said the jellyfish as he swam to the side of the anaconda and stung him to death.
Never trust a statement obtained under duress.
The Independent Sheep and the Lion Full of Instinct
A SHEEP WHO HAD NEVER wanted to follow broke away from her flock one sunny afternoon and set off across the hills and into the forest alone. By coincidence a lion escaped from a traveling zoo and made her way into the same forest. Each of the two creatures were happily exploring the trees and winding paths of the forest when suddenly they came upon each other.
“Well, this is awkward,” said the sheep.
The lion sighed as she felt her old instincts rise and she knew she would have to kill the sheep and eat it because that is what she was made to do.
“Talk quickly,” said the lion. “Give me good reason to spare you.”
“I would like to,” said the sheep. “But I can’t think straight.”
“Tell me that you are another lion in sheep’s clothing or that you are a poison sheep. Promise me that you will lead me back to your flock and if I spare you I will have the warm bodies of a dozen in your place.”
“What was that first one?” said the sheep.
“Tell me that a witch has enchanted you and if I eat you I will become a sheep.”
“It’s not such a bad life except for this part,” said the sheep.
“Listen! If you don’t tell me something then I will eat you because I am a lion and my gut is rumbling just looking at you.”
“Well, why don’t you close your eyes,” suggested the sheep. “Close your eyes and when you fall asleep I will leave and you can wake up and go about terrorizing other fluffy animals.”
“Alright, I’ll try,” said the lion.
And she closed her eyes. The sheep, seeing that the lion was having difficulty keeping her eyes closed, sang a lullaby about counting all your relatives to help ease the lion into slumber. At long last the lion fell over, fast asleep, and lay snoring by a Saskatoon berry bush. The sheep, having sung for hours and now picturing all the sweet black faces of her family, felt deeply relaxed. I will just lie down here for a minute to rest and then I will escape, she thought. The ground was very hard and the lion looked very soft so after a few minutes of rolling and complaining and adjusting herself the sheep went and lay against the lion and fell instantly to sleep.
In her sleep the lion imagined a world where sheep and lions slept together in a bed with great big pillows and then woke and ate strawberries and drank cream. She had been very tired and so she slept a long, long time. The dream became elaborate until she could smell the scent of sleeping sheep and hear the sounds of sheep snoring and she felt deeply at peace with herself. For her part, the sheep dreamed of a life of adventure, exploring forests and jungles alike with a lion by her side to protect her. Finally, the lion and the sheep awoke at once.
“Well, this is awkward,” said the lion. “You are still here.”
“Yes,” sighed the sheep. “But I’m poisonous,” she tried.
“You are not poisonous, but I had a wonderful dream and I think we can make it together.”
“I had a wonderful dream too!” said the sheep.
They told each other their dreams, repeating them over and over until the previous reality seemed unthinkable.
You choose who you are.
The Sailor and the Fish
A SAILOR WHO HAD ALL the best intentions went fishing one day in a little boat let down from her ship in the center of the ocean. The day was very hot and the waves were very slow and before long the sailor fell asleep with her hat shielding her face and her fishing rod gone slack in her hand over the side of the boat. Hours passed and she floated far from her ship. The rod slipped from her hand and sank. Her arms and legs burned deep red. At last she woke and realized that she was lost. She sat in the bottom of the boat and cried for herself until she heard another voice crying and the sound of gnawing below her.
“Who is there?” she called. “Am I not alone?”
But the source of the tears and the gnawing did not identify itself. After a little while the sailor saw a large gray body move under the water near her boat. The mysterious figure swam just beneath the surface, circling the boat slowly. Then it seemed as if the creature doubled upon itself and the sailor heard the gnawing again.
“Who are you?” she called. “What are you doing?”
But the creature did not answer. A swirl of blood rose on the seafoam over the spot from where the sound emanated. The sailor became frightened and began to lament her fate out loud. After a minute the gnawing
went silent and the creature beneath the boat was still. But the sailor continued to ululate over her foolishness and the end of her life in sheer loneliness. At last she heard a voice.
“I’m a fish, just a fish. I have eaten all my children and now I am eating myself.”
“Why did you eat your children?” the sailor asked.
“Out of hunger.”
“And why are you eating yourself?”
“Out of grief.”
The sailor lay back in the boat and looked at the sky. She wiped her tears with her hat and gathered her breaths until she felt calm again. It would be days until she died of dehydration, but more if it rained and she had to starve. In those days she might be rescued or she might not.
“Well, I suppose you must not have had a choice,” she said to the fish. “At any rate, I am glad for some company.”
“I had no choice. And I am glad to tell that to someone,” said the fish, and they stayed together for as long as possible.
Things are never so simple as when you are sad.
The Snake and the Woodsman
A SNAKE, HAVING MAD HIS hole near the porch of a cottage, inflicted a bite upon the ankle of the woodsman who lived there. The woodsman grabbed the snake and shook it. He screamed at the snake and lifted him up and threw him in a barrel. The woodsman rolled the barrel down a hill and across a field and all the while he chided the snake for its nature. The woodsman and the snake crossed two more fields and then, still not satisfied that the snake had been punished, nor that the snake had been moved far enough from his porch, the woodsman tied the barrel to the back of a rowboat and floated it behind him as he rowed and rowed and rowed across a great channel.
At the shore of a foreign land, the woodsman took the barrel to a local market to sell the snake as a slave to a snake charmer. But the woodsman could not speak the language and so he had to take the snake with him for many, many lessons — until he could return with the snake to the market. By this time the woodsman had become accustomed to the snake in the barrel who, he assumed, had long since repented the bite. At night he often sat upon the barrel and thought how lucky he was not to have died from that bite, which had gone untreated. He wondered about his wife and infant son and if they would ever accept the snake if he were to return home with it as a pet. He wondered if it might be best if he stayed in this new land, speaking his new language. He wondered if he should take on a trade where he might become richer than a woodsman, able to build a house with special snake doors and furniture for the snake so that they might live in peace as equals. He spoke of all these things to the snake and he sang lonesome songs deep into the night as he drank wine and slept with his head propped against the barrel.
At last he decided that he must free the snake and they should decide together to make a life or to go their separate ways. By this time he was quite old and gray and had forgotten the route back to his cottage, had forgotten even the name of his wife. And so he lifted the lid from the barrel and saw that it was empty. How can this be, he wondered. I have spent fifty years with this snake and at the last minute he vanishes!
Back at the man’s cottage the nest of snakes left behind had grown so huge that the grass and trees were hissing with them. The woodsman’s wife had left long ago with their child and, assuming that he had died from the bite, she had remarried and been happy. Their child had grown and developed talents in archery and music. He had married a girl he loved, who was funny and warm, and who his father would have liked. Together they raised sweet children. Those children, the woodsman’s grandchildren, learned songs and these they sang to the stars every night. All this, the woodsman never heard nor saw for he spent the rest of his days gazing into the empty barrel.
Invest appropriately in your relationships. Also, look in the barrel.
Mousetrap
A FARMER TRAPPED A GROUP of mice that he feared were responsible for eating the seeds in his field. Inside the cage the mice introduced themselves to each other. Some were family, some were friends, but many were strangers. One mouse suggested that they could escape by cooperating to open the cage.
“The ceiling of the cage is the weakest point,” he noted.
The ceiling was high, but made of mesh and the little door there was held shut by a piece of twine that would be easy to chew apart. The walls, however, were smooth, oiled metal and no purchase could be made by their little feet.
“What we need to do is stand upon each other’s shoulders and make a tower. The mouse that reaches the ceiling can jump onto the mesh, chew open the door and go and find something to lower to the other mice through the opening,” their clever new leader said.
Even a long stick would do for mice are very good at climbing and at balancing as long as they have the least friction or grip on a surface. And so the mice agreed on this plan and began to climb upon each other’s shoulders. They swayed back and forth as the tower grew. The mouse who had invented the plan waited to be the last to climb to the mesh and release his brother and sister mice.
“Hurry,” he urged. “Hold still. Don’t sway like that.”
At last he climbed the frame of bodies and reached the ceiling and destroyed the fragile twine that held the door closed. He disappeared, slamming shut the exit behind him and yelling, “Goodbye!”
The other mice tumbled to the floor.
“Sedition! Sedition!” they screamed, stomping and jumping and weeping with betrayal.
Miserable hours followed in which they made peace with their inevitable drowning. At last the farmer returned and grabbed the cage. He tied the cage in a burlap bag used to hold potatoes and took the cage with him to the river. At the river he flung the cage onto the water and left the mice to die. Water filled the bag quickly. The baby mice cried and clamped themselves onto their mothers’ bodies. Older mice began quoting stories about the afterlife barely recalled from their childhoods. Married couples declared their devotion or confessed their infidelities. It was a sight to equal the greatest human disaster. The mice scrambled to swim in the water, rising as the surface rose until at last they were pressed against the mesh of the ceiling.
“Wait, we can escape now,” cried one mouse. “Let us escape through the door and then through the mouth of the bag and swim to shore.”
“I can’t swim!” cried one mouse in despair.
“Then I will carry you,” said another.
Quickly, quickly they swam through the mesh and through the mouth of the burlap bag and they found themselves in the current of a great body of water. On the horizon a strange vision emerged: the mouse who had abandoned them riding in the open mouth of a pelican. The bird flew down and scooped all the mice into his ballooning jaw and flew them to safety on the shore. As they were deposited into the sweet dry grasses some of the mice began to clamor for revenge against the one who they believed had betrayed them. Others insisted that he was the hero of the day and should be rewarded. At last the mouse himself spoke up.
“Friends,” he said, “when I yelled goodbye I was speaking to the farmer. If it seemed as if I slammed the door it was because I moved so hastily. I went to find a rope and when I returned you were gone. I bribed the pelican with a ring I stole at great danger to myself from the farmer’s wife. He traded the ring with a magpie for information to find you. We came at once and saved you. I never betrayed you, but the task was more difficult and took almost too long to complete. If you had all perished I would have taken my life for the guilt.”
When the other mice realized what the first mouse had gone through to rescue them they felt ashamed.
“Forgive us,” they cried. “And thank the pelican and the magpie for us. Thank you for returning.”
After that day the mice knew to trust each other even in moments of great anxiety.
There is always more than one hero. At the end of a story it is only the ending that matters.
The Caribou and the Leopard Fro
g
IT WAS CLOSE TO CHRISTMAS when a caribou was surrounded by hunters in an Arctic glen. The hunters, dressed in white, silently circled the animal who raised her head high and looked out over the watercourse and cried.
“No,” said the caribou. “I love to travel, but I suspect that you are lousy companions.”
A red dart sank into her neck and she saw the ground before her knees as she crumpled.
The caribou woke in a concrete room. A shallow moat of dirty water separated her from a glass wall behind which stood a row of children in thick trousers and jackets with mittens like massacred hands dangling from strings out their sleeves, looking for all the world as if the living creature waking before them was of less interest than stale bread.
Twice a day the caribou was dressed in bells and led outside to pretend (with other deerish peers) that they had some vested interest in a fat man. Music played too loudly hurt her ears and the smells of perfume, gasoline and cigarette butts almost obscured the scent of water, weeds, trees and feathers warm on the bodies of free-flying birds. The caribou sniffed again and sighed. The zoo was in a valley that meandered for miles in every direction. But the caribou was tethered to a sled.