Here’s a short fable I’ve written for our dark times.
 |
| Photo: ginger on Pixabay |
There was once a magnificent herd of deer living in a
forest. Hunters came after them and
those who didn’t die were blinded in one eye.
Eventually the alpha stag lost an eye and then it became a badge of
honour when other deer also lost their sight.
As the hunters started to cut down the trees, the situation
became more threatening. The stag leader
said he preferred having only one eye, as restricted vision meant there was
less cause to be frightened. The deer
who had become blind agreed – if they couldn’t see the danger, it wasn’t there.
More trees were felled and more deer died or were blinded,
until the warnings from those who still had two eyes were ignored by the others as being
fanciful and alarmist. The watchful deer
became such a nuisance with their constant alerts that the herd shunned them,
as they only wanted to graze in peace, not be constantly harried about by
anxiety and fear. Thus it seemed
reasonable to them that the sentinels should become blind too, as it would
benefit the herd if everyone was the same.
Everyone would feel safer if no-one could perceive any threats in the
undergrowth.
Meanwhile the forest got smaller and smaller until the
hunters had killed all the deer – except for one or two of those who had kept
their eyes open, and had escaped to tell this sorry tale.
