17/03/2017
Jungle Life World, a Fable
Before setting out in search of dinner, the male head toad, the patriarch of the family, called the rest of the family together for instructions on what to do while he was away. 'Let none of you wander off,' he said. His voice was reminiscent of the shrewd chord humans tend to use when torn between the consequences of full disclosure and the benefits of half-concealment. And by so doing, they create a confluent zone in which learners are in effect left grappling with their faith in the realm of the unknown.
After the advice, and none the wiser, when the adult toad left the young toads headed for the exit. And who should they run into but a pit of newborn snakes.
Animal neighborhoods, like the world in which we live, are a jungle full of conflicting interests and purposes. Hardly anyone can decipher what is in another's heart. There is no telling the prey from the predator, the innocents from the wise, the uneducated from the well-educated, the naive from the experienced, the good-willed from the ill-willed.
Snake, like the toad, had some traveling to do, so he gathered the baby snakes for his wise words of the day. 'Get out of the house; look around for whatever is out there.'
Evening had passed when the traveling toad returned home. He could tell it was dusk because there was no clucking sound from the nearby flock of hens.
To his dismay the young toads were missing and a desperate search was underway. He wondered if his children were dead, served as dinner for some depraved creatures. He lamented: had they followed his instruction to stay home, had they not doubted his foresight, had they trusted him without doubt, had they been wise enough to see then what he saw, they would still be alive.
The adult toad was still out of control when he sighted the youngsters. He high-jumped over to them. 'Where did you go?' he asked. 'We strolled out into the thick forest' they answered. He looked them over, and noticed dirt, and bits of wood on their upper back and top of their heads. Then he saw some scratches around their noses, eyebrows and foreheads.
The old toad inquired, 'You were playing with some beasts, weren't you?' 'Yes,' the baby toads concurred. 'With whom?' he cried. Some creatures, they told him, which were long and wiry, and had a tendency to dance vertically and horizontally with their necks and body. 'Moreover, they stuck out their forked tongues repeatedly, attempting to stuff our heads into their mouths.'
'God have mercy!' wept the adult toad; those were the creatures that had reduced the toad population to near extinction. 'You must never go near them again! When your heads were in their mouths, they were sizing you up for food,' he said. Now he wished he had gone through this detailed explanation the first time before he left for the day. But again, perhaps, he pondered if nature had taught these young toads an unforgettable lesson, in a way that no fatherly preparation could have done.
In the other neck of the forest the papa snake arrived back. 'Dad, where have you been? We're starving!' cried the baby snakes. 'You wouldn't be starving if you went out like I had instructed,' the father snake scolded. 'We did go out' they told him. 'What did you do while you were out?' he queried. 'We hung out with some squats; some lumpy and dull looking creatures that leapt around in small hops.' 'You did?' he asked, bewildered that they could be that ignorant. 'For heaven's sake, those were your lunch! You should have eaten them; they were what kept our population thriving.' If only he had filled in the details for them, he regretted.
