Nick Klaus's Fables

by Frederic Colier

be afraid,” shouted a kid from a boat. “Afraid, me? snickered the shark humiliated. He dipped the tip of his tail. With the wet suit the water was bearable. So the shark took a deep breath and dived headfirst. All the kids and their parents clapped and clapped and clapped. But soon the shark realized that the ocean looked boundless and had no walls. He was so used to be the king of his rounded tank. Here he was no more than just a small fish in an infinite ocean and was bitterly afraid to get lost if he swam out. Besides there was no one in sight, under water. If he swims alone and gets lost, who will find him?

  To add to his concerns, the sea was also eerily silent. Where were the kids that knocked on his windows and screamed at him making silly mocking faces for him to lay bare his sets of razor sharp frightening teeth? Hanging at the bottom of the ocean, he waited for a while for the boats to depart, so that he could go back to his hotel. But no one seemed to be in a hurry.

  To make the matter worse, after several hours, he got hungry, and his tummy made some funny noises. It was time for dinner. So he swam back around the boats, and around he went waiting for someone to bring his dinner. But no one did. Instead as soon as his fin appeared above the water, all the children and their mother started to scream. The shark rejoiced. “Here I am!” he growled from his cavernous throat, only becoming upset when the men leaning over their boats started to throw things at him to scare him off.

  “Wait,” he said, “I’m just coming to get my dinner.” Soon boats chased him with guns and harpoons for answer. He couldn’t explain what was happening. Why the same people would try to hurt him? Feeling victim of an unjust and cruel punishment, the shark swam away and hid until nighttime, and then quietly he crawled back to his hotel and called the aquarium and explained his situation, begging the owners to take him back. But the owners were not impressed by his type. They were looking for a terrifying razor-sharp teeth shark not one begging and crying on the phone.

  The Joyous Shoal of Fish (#27)

  A shoal of young blue and silver fish was swimming among the rocks of a nearby shore. They ate copiously, played hide and seek among the tall algae. No one of them seemed to pay attention that suddenly the current had changed direction. The tide was turning. But while the low tide was pulling all the largest fish away from the rocks back into the wide-open sea, the young blue and silver were having too much fun to fret over such a detail. Except one of them, a young girl with bright kind rounded eyes. She noticed the elders change the direction of their swimming and decided to share her concerns with her friends.

  “The low tide’s coming in,” she said. “We have to turn around, or else . . .”

  “Or else what . . .?” replied a couple of defying fish from the group. “What could happen to us?”

  The nervous fish could not tell. Since she had never swum against the tide she could not tell what would happen. But she was brave enough to fight for what she believed to be a danger and made up a lie. “My mother told me if I wanted to go and play with you among the rocks near the beach, I had to promise to be back home as soon as the current changed direction.”

  “Then you are already late,” blurted her friends without trying to hide their mocking laughs. Other reflected upon the mother’s judgment. It took very little to sway them back to the majority. They were there to have fun.

  “But that’s the signal for the change of tides,” she repeated.

  “Sure it is and you still can’t tell us why it matters.”

  “We must all go back into the sea!” she protested.

  “We’re already in it,” they laughed out loud without holding back, and they told her she was boring them and preventing them from having fun. Soon the loud and brash shoal of fish went back swimming among the rocks where they discovered a warm pool surrounded by high rocks, where they reeled and twirled and swirled among the seabed rock and the long algae. Sad about being left alone, she joined them but was not having fun. Instead she watched them convinced something bad will happen to them. Since her friends would not listen to her, she stood in front of them and shouted: “We have to turn around. The low tide is coming out now.”

  To no avail no one listened, and they stopped playing with her entirely. But at this stage she did not care. She turned around just in time to catch the last wave reaching the rocks, where the loud shoals of fish was playing, and swam back out into the sea. She stared open-mouthed when she heard her friends cried out in fear that they were stuck in the warm pool of rocks. Then she learned what happened to fish at low tide, when she saw from the corner of her eyes silhouettes of humans with fishnets in their hands culling the shoal fish into plastic buckets.

  The Rat Who Knew Better (#28)

  A city rat, who had made a fortune renting sewage pipes to thousands of families decided to move by a beach. He was tired of the endless city noise, the endless crowds of tenants and their endless complaints, the endless cold weather, and above all tired of living in the endless dark underground. He wanted to see the blue sky and the sun climbing up in the sky his parents talked so much about.

  He scouted the coast for a long time for the perfect and safest place to build his house. His long expertise in lodging came handy. After days of running around, he came across the ideal location, a magnificent patch of land behind a sand dune.

  “That’s a very nice place, no wind, no waves or rain,” he told the local rats who came to meet him. “Trust me the last thing you want is to have a habitat, which leaks when it rains, which invites the cold winter drafts blow through your kitchen and bedrooms.”

  Being polite the local rats clapped. For them of course this was obvious. No one in his right mind would live in such a place, especially in the winter months. Delighted to have the support of the local rats, the city rat asked them to build his house, which they did in no time.

  “Look at this beautiful blue sky and this glorious golden sun.” he said standing on his patio, pointing at the sky. But soon his voice quickly turned to irritation. The city rat lamented that he could not watch the sunset from his patio. “The dune,” he said, “the dune stands in my way. Shave it!” he ordered the local rats. The local rats advised him against it. He needed the dune to sleep in peace. But the city rat was combative and used to get what he wanted. He amused himself with their concerns. He had heard all types of grievances from his tenants and was no longer willing to put up with any of them. No one would stop him. Not used to be reasoned this way, the local rats were intimidated. The city rat had reasons they never heard, and they obeyed and shaved the dune.

  Proud and firm, the city rat brought an armchair on his patio and watched at long last the enchanting sunset diving behind the blue ocean’s horizon. The local rats sat by and watched the city rat enjoy his barbecue and his most worthy possession, and shook their heads in confusion. But not for long.

  When the winter days came, they went back to their sad and unglamorous shacks, cradled behind the dunes. The wind rocked their abodes, and the rain sought way to drown them. But their houses were protected, unlike the city rat’s, which trembled and wobbled. The city rat got scared and ran for help, but it was too late. The merciless winter winds grabbed his house and shook it, and wringed it, and rattled it until the whole construction crumbled like a castle of feathers. The city rat remained alone, hiding under his patio and watched his lifetime possession blown away, as the cold winter winds snuck their nimble fingers under his coat, and the rain dumped torrents over his head.

  The Satellite and the Stars (#29)

  Once a satellite with two long arms tiled with solar panels and two large funnels where the engines could warm up his feet, was getting bored going around and around and around the earth. He did not mind so much going around. He was just bored of never meeting anyone.

  “How come I’m the one who has to go around all the time? How come no one else goes around me? It would be nice to wake up and know that someone has been watching over me while I sleep.
That would be nice to have someone to talk to when I want, and play with when I’m bored, and eat with when I’m hungry.”

  Feeling moody, the satellite watched the sun rise over earth, and instead of feeling excited about the brand new day, he kept his long arms folded and did not collect the cosmic dust for breakfast.

  “This space is dull,” he repeated to himself. “I’m sure if I . . .” and he didn’t finish his sentence. He had just made a secret and did not want anyone to hear it. Within seconds however, snappy flames burst from his large funnels. An anxious voice called him from earth, “Satellite, what’s going on up there? You’re not supposed to move from your orbit.”

  The satellite never responded and never turned around again anyway. He zoomed right towards different planets in the large open black cosmic universe, waving goodbye with long arms to the earth.

  First he approached the moon, which looked rather pale and sedated. He stood in front of her and waited for her to go around him. The moon had no time for a small satellite like him and was not interested in going around him at all. She had other businesses to attend to. Going around the earth and hiding from people’s sight, and that was that. He approached other