Bedtime Story

expatbrit

Once upon a time, there was a farm.

It was a prosperous farm. The farmer and his family worked hard. The buildings and machinery were well maintained, the animals plump, healthy and well-treated, for the farmer and family were not cruel.

But what was most notable about this farm was that it had an amazing goose, a goose that laid golden eggs! No-one knew why the goose had started doing this, one day it had just begun. The goose was nothing special to look at. Indeed, it was a bit dowdy, and like most geese, sometimes it hissed bad-temperedly and waddled around in an ungainly fashion with ruffled feathers.

The golden eggs, on the other hand, were beautiful! They gleamed softly in the firelight, and the family loved to look at them. The eggs were treasured, and the farmer kept them all safely in the farmhouse.

One day the family received some bad news. A pack of wolves had moved into the neighbourhood. These wolves were rapacious; they would hunt an area, not just for food, but for pleasure, killing and killing until there were none left alive, and then they would move on to the next unfortunate place.

The farmer gathered his family together in the kitchen of the farmhouse and they considered what they should do.

"We need to protect the farm" said the farmer's wife.

"Yes, but that'll be expensive" replied the farmer. He looked sadly over at the golden eggs, glinting on top of the sideboard. "Perhaps we should use one or two of the golden eggs so we can afford the necessary things."

The family considered this and agreed that, yes, unfortunately this might be necessary. But when he heard this the dog, who had been hiding under the table, howled in protest.

"No!" He howled. "Don't think like that! If you give up even one of the golden eggs, it will never stop! Soon you'll have used them all and you'll have no golden eggs left at all! Let me protect the farm. I'll guard it and keep us free from the wolves, and we can keep all the golden eggs."

The family, who really loved the golden eggs, and were perhaps a little too distracted by their beauty, allowed themselves to be persuaded that the dog was right. And so they gave the safe-keeping of the farm into his paws. The youngest daughter, who was about as tall as the dog, put her arms around his neck and stared into his brown eyes with her sparkling blue ones and whispered "I know you'll look after us."

So that night, the dog took his place in the farmyard. Look, there he is now, sitting, and staring through the window of the farmhouse at the golden eggs. Why is that slight snarl upon his face, you say? Well, you see, all is not quite as it appears with the dog. Listen to his growling:

"Look at those eggs! That family doesn't appreciate them like I do. They'd give them up just to protect themselves against wolves. And here I am protecting them. I deserve better than they give me. They give me dog food while they eat the best produce from the farm. They give me a basket in the kitchen while they sleep in nice soft beds. Just because I don't work on the farm doesn't mean I shouldn't have everything they do. We should all be equals!"

The wolves were in the farmyard, and one of them crept up behind the dog and heard him muttering.

"Why do you put up with being treated like that?" it asked the dog. "It's fat cats like that family who have forced us to become scavenging wolves. Do you think we want to do all this killing? Listen, because of you, we wont attack this farmhouse, all we'll take is the chickens. That's all we want."

The dog thought about it, and agreed that the family could well afford the chickens and that since the wolves did look hungry, it wouldn't be right to deny them food. And so the wolves broke into the henhouse, and grabbing the terrified chickens between their jaws, they made off with them, enjoying the feeling of the warm blood running onto their tongues.

Next morning, the farmer shouted at the dog: "you said you would protect the farm, and all the chickens are gone!"

The dog defended himself. "They only wanted the chickens because they were hungry. Because of me, they wont attack the farm again and you can keep the golden eggs! You don't appreciate what I've done!"

Well, the dog went slinking off to his hiding place under the stairs, and the family decided that they would really have to do something, and give up one or two of the golden eggs, to protect the farm. But the golden eggs were so beautiful that they decided to give themselves just one more day to look at them.

The dog thought to himself: "The wolf was right. This family are just selfish fat cats. It's because of them that people like the wolves are poor and have to take other people's things to survive. And making me sleep in a basket rather than a bed is like a beating. They abuse me! I'm downtrodden and they want to keep me that way. I want to be free, like the wolves. I bet if the wolves moved into this farmhouse, things would be better and we would all be equal. I know that wolves can be a bit cruel, but they would listen to me, because we all share the canine soul."

Of course, that night the wolves returned to the farmyard, because you know that you can never trust the promises of a wolf. They roved around the buildings, killing animals, and ripping their flesh for the sheer joy of hearing the cries of pain. And finally, they reached the hut where the amazing goose lived. The goose you see, didn't live in the farmhouse. While the family loved the golden eggs so much, they had made the mistake of taking for granted the goose that produced them. And in one second, with a small sound of grinding teeth, the goose was dead.

The next day, the family wandered around the ruined farmyard, and cried in sadness and anger at the destruction. The farmer raced into the farmhouse to get the golden eggs so that now, right this instant, he could spend some of them to protect the farm from complete destruction.

But horror! There were no golden eggs on the sideboard in the kitchen. Without the goose that produced them, the eggs had become worthless. All that remained were fractured empty eggshells crumbling to nothing. The farmer sat upon the stairs in despair, and the cold fingers of hopelessness wrapped themselves around his heart as he stared at his youngest daughter, crying in the yard.

As for the dog, he lied low, and told himself that the family had got what they deserved, and that now they would know what he felt like.

And that night, as the wolves rampaged around the farmyard again, and as the dog crept from his hiding place to raise his paws to the latch and let them into the house, and as the farmer and his family huddled upstairs in terror, the farmer thought to himself "if only I had had the foresight to use some of the golden eggs! If only I had prized the goose that produced them, who would have replaced the golden eggs we spent and laid many more in the future! If only I hadn't been so shortsighted...."

But by then it was much, much too late.

What's that? What happened to the dog? Yes, I know you've always had a soft spot for dogs.

After the dog had opened the front door to the wolves, he ran back under the stairs. As the wolves ransacked the ground floor, and then leapt up the stairs, he comforted himself with thoughts that now he was free. And when the girlish shrieks began from upstairs, he flattened his ears and pretended that he heard nothing, and that those clear blue eyes hadn't really sparkled so much, after all.

And after that things were quite good for the dog, for a while. The wolves treated him as one of them. He got to eat the farmer's food, and sleep in the nice soft bed that had previously belonged to the farmer's youngest daughter.

But soon the food cupboards were empty, the beds were hopelessly soiled, and the farmhouse began to fall into disrepair. When that happened, the wolves gathered in the kitchen and began to make plans for attacking the next farm.

"But", protested the dog, "I thought that we could all live here happily, as equals. Everyone could contribute equally, and receive the things they need! We could all be happy and content!"

The wolves looked at him and laughed. "You pretended to be a wolf" they shouted, "but after all, you are nothing but a dog!" And with that they set upon him, and ripped him limb from limb.

See, over there in the corner is his head where they threw it. Next to it, one of the amused wolves has written the dog's name in his own blood. It's the name given to the dog by the farmer's youngest daughter, after she had watched him being born in the warmth of the farmhouse kitchen.

"Lucky".

THE END.

expat, do you ever suffer from nightmares?

Only when I think the socialists are letting in the wolves...lol

Expatbrit

Although, if you don't mind my saying so, I did find it lacking in the busty blonde farmgirl area

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