Hello reader.
I’m three thousand years in your future. You won’t live that long of course, so here’s a glimpse of what your people have done to my world. You’ve burned it and hunted it and poisoned it. But you and your experiments also gave us minds.
Dystopia. Web Source: Flickr.
Yes, every one of us. From myself - Jackal, at your service - and the other animals to the surviving trees, all of us can think and feel and speak. Even the road beneath your feet. Well, my feet. You’re probably sitting in a chair in comfort.
Caged Tiger. Web Source: Pixabay.
Despite all these changes, your people are still in charge. Somehow. I’m hoping to change that. Afterall, are you really fit to lead? Take this fellow Brahman. We - Tiger and I - were trying to see how people responded to Tiger’s plea for freedom. This guy actually let him out of the cage, which was a start. But we wanted to give him more of a feel for our plight than that of one noble beast in a cage. It’s easy to have pity on a magnificent tiger. But what about the rest of creation that suffers on his behalf? So Tiger made him go talk to three of us. He thought he had to convince them that he should live. But really we wanted to see if he could convince himself.
He heard from the trees that died for his books and newspapers. He spoke to the cow that was force fed only to be slaughtered for his meat. He spoke to the road that choked under the pollution from his car.
Yet after all these conversations, his only thought was for how he might survive. So I pretended to help him by leading Tiger back into his cage. It would not do for him to suspect our fomenting revolution.
You see, now we need another plan. You humans cannot be convinced to sympathize with us, so we must find another route to liberty. Tiger is still in his cage, and next time I will be the one to let him out. Cleverness and violence will win our earth back. As you might suspect from this glimpse into the future, I will take the reins as we rise.
Jackal. Web Source: WikiMedia.
Author’s note:
This story is based on “The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal.” In the original story, the tiger tricks the Brahman into letting him out, then threatens to eat him unless one of the first three people that the Brahman comes across can provide a convincing reason as to why he should not be eaten. The papal-tree, the buffalo, and the road see this trickery as the natural course of life, but the jackal pretends to be confused and forces a retelling of the story, until the tiger is back into his cage. In my retelling, I wanted to examine the jackal’s motivation for helping the Brahman and apparently opposing the tiger. I set the story in the future so that the personification of the animals, the tree, and the road would be more plausible.
Bibliography: “The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal” from Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912). Web Source.
That was an interesting read, Emily. The voice in which you told it was kind of sneaky in my mind. It reminded me of a mix between the man at the beginning of Disney's, Aladdin and Scar from the Lion King. Even though it was a little hard to follow the connection between the Brahman story and the apocalyptic, end of the world theme, it was a good read all the same.
RépondreSupprimerHi Emily! I thought your story was really gripping from the beginning — the way you launch the story by immediately setting the scene that we're thousands of years in the future and humans have destroyed the planet is both plausible and scary, so I was hooked right away. I also liked the way you wove photos throughout your story. I got a little confused in the part where the Brahman is hearing stories from the trees, the road and the cow — it could be because I haven't read the original story, but I wasn't entirely sure what those objects were telling him and how he was responding. Maybe more dialogue would have helped in that section, so we could hear how the stories were told to the Brahman and how he responded. That might make things a little clearer for anyone who hasn't read the original story before. Overall, really gripping writing! I look forward to reading more from you.
RépondreSupprimerHi Emily!
RépondreSupprimerI really love how you pull the reader in by directly speaking to the reader from the get-go. I also love that you foreshadow events caused by humans that can very well happen in the future as many do not understand the dangers they are putting on others as we live our own lavish lifestyles.
There were some parts that left me a little confused as I did not know where they came from or what they symbolized. Maybe throw some additional detailing into the bits that are from the original story in order to clarify.
I think with a few details to clear up bits from the original story, this will become a bit smoother and make for an even better story. You definitely had my attention the whole time -- even when I was a bit lost. There is something about putting a plausible scenario into a story and directing it at the reader that really pulls you in and spikes curiosity.
I will be thinking about your story for the rest of your day as it left me full of real-life "what-if" thoughts.
Thank you for sharing!