A tale of Impetuous Youth

"I never should have gone there in the first place." These sad muffled words came through the blood-soaked bandages surrounding the youngster’s head.

“Well,” his father scolded, “Simon, I did warn you not to do it, didn’t I?” Nods from all the others surrounding the two of them agreed that he, in fact, had warned his son repeatedly. “But would you listen to someone older and wiser than you? No, you wouldn’t! Once again, you jumped in to fix something before thinking it through.”

“But it seemed like such an easy task, Father.” The son’s eyes pleaded for understanding. “All of you sat around for hours discussing the problem. You, Amos,” Simon said, glancing at one of his father’s friends sitting nearby, “finally came up with what seemed like such a good plan, but no one was volunteering to do it.”

His father just looked at him, wondering how he had produced such a simple son. “Okay, tell us exactly what you did.” He thought for a second, and then corrected himself. “No, start off with why you did it.”

The elders all sat quietly to listen to Simon’s tale. The little room seemed crowded with the father and his three ancient friends huddling around the wounded youngster, but all knew going outside was still too dangerous. The foolhardy son had failed miserably, and now the danger had intensified threefold. The noise coming through the walls of the room caused those inside to quake in fear, even as they listened to the Simon’s explanation.

At his father’s further urging, the son started out slowly, but his speech quickly became faster the further into his story he went. “I wanted to impress you, father. That’s why I did it.” Tears came through the bandages and dripped down his face.

“Go on.” This gentle command came from Amos, moving closer to the injured youngster. “Maybe we still can carry out my plan if we can figure out what you did wrong.” The others, except for Simon, looked at Amos as if he had lost what little sanity he had been born with, which obviously wasn’t much.

“Well,” Simon continued, “I found the item Amos had mentioned we should use and carried it outside. Our enemy was just a few yards away, sound asleep, or so I thought.”

Andy, another of the ancients, snorted in disgust. “We all know his sleeping can be disturbed by just the sound of a pin dropping. If you’d learned more about him or just asked one of us, you’d have known this, too.” Again, heads nodded at this sage comment. They knew, however, youth rarely took the time to learn all the facts and even less often asked for advice from those older and wiser.

“So, he woke up?” Amos asked this rhetorical question, but Simon answered anyway.

“Not only did he wake up, but he grabbed me quicker than I thought could be done.” The memory of that moment caused Simon to roll up in a ball, his still terrified mind causing his body once again to try getting away from his enemy.

“What happened to that item when this happened?” Simon’s father, as usual, was thinking logically, keeping his emotions under control about the danger his son had been in.

“It rolled away out of my reach. I couldn’t use it anyway since I was pinned down to the floor.” Simon looked around at the listening elders, looking so pitiful that all but his father forgave him his youthful and rash behavior.

He continued, now trying to gain his father’s sympathy. “I was pounced on by our now wide-awake enemy and tossed around. He bounced me off walls, stomped on me, and actually started chewing my leg.” Simon glanced down at his left leg, also covered in bandages. “I only escaped with my life when our enemy was called away for his dinner.”

His father finished his story for him. “That’s when we all ran out and dragged you back home. Well, Simon, have you learned your lesson? Will you ever try such a foolish thing again?”

“No, father, I promise.” The little mouse looked all around him and said, “Never again will I attempt to bell a cat.”

< End of my version of Aesop’s fable >

Microsoft Word Count = 716