Friday 24 February 2012

Raelistic's Fables: The Crow and the Jug


Crow was very thirsty indeed, but, as so often happens with thirsty crows, he couldn’t find any water, because crows have a “water blind-spot”. As Crow was flying about unsuccessfully looking for water – first near a reservoir, then above a lake, next beside a babbling brook, finally in a pottery works – his eyes alighted upon a jug. Crow was greatly delighted with this exciting discovery, and flew towards the jug, hoping to find it full of water; however, it only contained a small amount. 
     As Crow lay on the ground struggling for breath from the combined effects of exhaustion and dehydration, he had a sudden flash of inspiration: fill the jug with stones and thus raise the water level so that the water could be drunk!  Crow worked tirelessly, picking up stones and placing them in the jug, one by one by one, which is no mean feat when you don’t have an opposable thumb. As he placed the final stone in the jug, Crow was overcome with jubilation. 
     Despair soon replaced this jubilation, though, as Crow noticed that the top of the jug was simply an assortment of very dry stones, with not a drop of water to be seen anywhere. Crow, who had received no formal mathematical or scientific education, had failed to take into account the fact that the gaps in between the stones at the bottom of the jug would become filled with the small amount of water, thus rendering his valiant stone re-arranging efforts a foolish waste of time. 
     Death swiftly followed for Crow and was a merciful release.

And the moral of the story is:

Dehydration will kill a small creature, such as a crow.

1 comment:

  1. Haha. A wonderful reworking of the old fable. I really enjoyed it.

    All the best,
    Jack

    ReplyDelete