The ant and the grasshopper - an updated fable

Cherry

By Terrence Oblong

Sun, 01 Jan 2023
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5 comments
 

One summer’s day, a grasshopper was working in the field, gathering food for the winter. When he had filled a barrow full, he was called over by the local ant, who was lounging in the sun outside his house.

“The food will get wet and rot if you leave it outside,” the ant said. “You can store it in one of the spare rooms in my house.”

“Thank you,” the grasshopper said. “Come and eat with me first, I have lots of food and it’s sunny today.”

The ant and the grasshopper spent the summer this way and by the end of the summer the ant’s cupboards were bulging full of the corn and grain the grasshopper had collected.

When winter finally came and the snow was on the ground, the grasshopper had no food, and went to visit the ant for his share of his summer’s labours, but the door was locked and bolted.

“Please can I have some of my food?” said the grasshopper. “You’ve locked and bolted the door so I can’t get to it.”

“That’s because it’s my food now, you owe me rent for storage. I’m not giving you anything.”

“But I worked so hard all summer, and all you did was lounge around.”

“My ancestors worked hard to build this house, I have the right to profit from renting it out. If you hadn’t eaten so much avocado toast over the summer you would have been able to buy storage facilities of your own.”

So, the grasshopper was hungry all winter. He learned a very hard lesson – that this country is completely fucked.

Certificate 15
Story
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by Ewan on

Very neat and tartly done.

I wonder if you need the last sentence? Or at least the explanation of what the lesson is? Not because it's sweary, but because fable and allegory generally aren't so obvious. It's quite clear what the the fable's about without it, no?

And yes, it probably is, completely.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Terrence Oblong on

Thanks Ewan. I took a version of the original fable and stuck as closely to it as I could, so the last sentence (bar the obvious oblong addition) is from the original fable. Happy to remove it if other people agree

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

I think the last line works well from a technical point of view, because it provides such a contrast with the rhythm and mood of everything that's gone before. It's also very specific, and changes the piece from a fairly generic fable into a particular bit of commentary. 

So two completely different views on the last line. That's helpful, isn't it??

However, I think we all agree with your conclusion. 

 

Submitted by Terrence Oblong on

Many thanks.

The truth is, there are hundreds of versions of the original fable, with slight differences in the emphasis and wording of the ending. My story took a version and changed as little as possible, so it's logical to assume that if I'd use a different version as the base my own ending would have been different.  

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Agree with Airy, but maybe because I'm fired up from reading your poem, Ewan