Day: September 27, 2022

WDYS — A Fable

Fandango16 Comments

A donkey and a tiger were talking. The donkey said to the tiger, “The grass is blue.”

The tiger replied, “No, the grass is green.”

The discussion heated up, and the two decided to submit to arbitration, and for this they went before the lion, the King of the Jungle.

When they reached the forest clearing, where the lion was sitting on his throne, the donkey began to bray, “Your Highness, isn’t it true that the grass is blue?”

The lion replied, “Yes, the grass is blue.”

The donkey smiled and said, “The tiger disagrees with me, contradicts me, and annoys me. You must punish him.”

The lion then declared, “The tiger will be punished with five years of silence.”

The donkey jumped cheerfully and went on his way, braying, “The grass is blue. I am right, the grass is blue.”

The tiger accepted his punishment, but he asked the lion, “Your Majesty, why have you punished me? After all, the grass is green.”

The lion replied, “Yes, in fact, the grass is green.”

The tiger asked, “So why are you punishing me?”

The lion replied, “Your punishment has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. Your punishment is because a brave and intelligent creature like you wasted your time arguing with a donkey, and then, on top of that, you came to bother me with such a question.

“It’s a waste of time arguing with a fool and fanatic who does not care about truth or reality, but only about the victory of his beliefs and his illusions. Never waste time on arguments with someone like that.

“There are those who, no matter how many facts or how much evidence we present to them, are never willing to consider or accept it. And there are others who are so blinded by ego, hatred, and resentment, that all they want is to be right even if they are not.

“When ignorance screams, intelligence is silent. Your peace and quiet are worth more.”

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. photo credit: Arleen Wiese @ Unsplash.

Note: This fable is not original. I saw a version of it published on Facebook a while back and when I saw the photo in Sadje’s prompt, it reminded me of the fable, so I rewrote it here…mostly from memory. Please excuse me for not writing something original for this prompt, but I’m on vacation, so cut me some slack, will you?

Fandango’s Story Starter #65

Fandango13 Comments

It’s time for my weekly Story Starter prompt. Here’s how it works. Every Tuesday morning (my time), I’m going to give you a “teaser” sentence and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a story (prose or poetry) around that sentence. It doesn’t have to be the first sentence in your story, and you don’t even have to use it in your post at all if you don’t want to. The purpose of the teaser is simply to spark your imagination and to get your storytelling juices flowing.

This week’s Story Starter teaser is:

She was confused when she opened the letter addressed to her recently deceased father and what she found inside was…

If you care to write and post a story built from this teaser, be sure to link back to this post and to tag your post with #FSS. I would also encourage you to read and enjoy what your fellow bloggers do with their stories.

And most of all, have fun.

FOWC with Fandango — Transfer

Fandango12 Comments
FOWC

It’s September 27, 2022. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “transfer.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.