Animal Fables
During the more years than I sometimes care to think about in which I’ve been blogging, I’ve developed something of a reputation for frequently indulging in the black art of obfuscation.
obfuscate
/obfuskayt/
verb make unclear or unintelligible.
- DERIVATIVES obfuscation noun obfuscatory adjective.
- ORIGIN Latin obfuscare ‘darken’.
Such a reputation is built on the fact that I don’t always like to say what I mean or what I’m thinking, or discuss in clear unequivocal terms what is happening in my life. So when, late one night in November 2003, I wrote a silly little story about a moth, the comments that greeted me the next day were mostly along the lines of “What’s all that about?” and “What’s the pretentious twit trying to hint at now?” I denied it all, of course. “It’s just a story,” I said. “A stupid, meaningless story. About nothing.”
I lied. It was about something. The only problem is that, after all this time, I’ve forgotten exactly what. Never mind. I’m sure it wasn’t important. Best left to the shifting sands of memory.
However, writing that one short story rather gave me a taste for coming up with more of them. I imagined that one day they might be read to children - maybe not just any children, but rather the sort of precocious and serious-minded youngsters with whom I could easily identify because I’d been one myself once. At least it wouldn’t give them nightmares, because the creations of their own subconscious minds were probably far, far worse.
So whilst that first story did undoubtedly mean something - a something now long gone - the other five were just strange little tales written for an imaginary child who is rather too intense for his or her own good.
Sweet dreams, everyone. Sweet dreams.
Illustrations: The beautiful pictures accompanying each story were drawn by the immensely skilled hand of The Goldfish. My favourite is the penguin. There aren’t enough grinning, recumbent penguins in this world.
See also: Animal Fables revisited, with the festive story of a particularly pugnacious robin called Reginald.
More stories: The Twelve Days of Christmas.