Pay Heed To Sound Advice
A short story
By
J Sankey
This is the story of a grumpy old lion that just wanted to be left alone. But unfortunately, Mr. Grumpy was caged in a zoo, as one of the attractions for people to stare and mock him, throw trash at him, and say all manners of bad things about him, which he did not deserve.
The zookeeper, Mr. JP Wybitch, could see that the lion was at his wits-end with all the traffic cluttering up his domain and all the sly insinuating remarks thrown at him, as people walked by filled with curiosity at his ferociousness.
Sympathetic to the lion's feelings, Mr. Wybitch, out of respect for Grumpy, phoned his wife Jean, and asked her kindly not to let their children play around the lion's cage when she came to pick him up from work. But Jean was a stubborn woman. She would not heed anything Mr. Wybitch said. In fact, whatever he asked her not to do; Jean would do the complete opposite to prove she had the upper hand in the relationship. It's just the kind of woman she was, obstinate and insolent. She raised their three daughters to be the same way; they too disrespected their father, as mommy did, for she was the archetype upon which the insolent brood copied. But Wybitch loved his family, so he overlooked their disrespectful behavior, and did his best, always to provide sound reasoning and good advice. Hoping it would sink-in, one day.
"Honey, didn't I ask you nicely not to let the children play around the lion's cage? He's dangerous." Mr. Wybitch spouted calmly.
"Humph, you don't tell me what to do. I wear the pants around here, not you. Now hurry up and finish working so we can all go home," remarked Jean sarcastically, in a bold stance, with both hands planted on her hips.
Mr. Wybitch — spineless — tucked his tail between his legs, hung his head in shame, and went back to work, sweeping the grounds.
Meantime, Jean plopped down on a park bench 20 feet away from the lion's cage, and began to crochet and talk steadily on her cell phone. The three kids, ages 5, 11 and 12, all girls, began to throw rocks at Grumpy's cage, while he napped. The cocky 12-year-old decided to throw a rock that hit him in the head, to wake him up. Mr. grumpy did not move a muscle; he just raised an eyebrow in frustration, and burned like a towering infernal in anger.
Jean, unaware her kids annoying behavior toward Grumpy, continue to crochet and talk on her phone, while the kids drew closer to Grumpy's cage, until they were so close, they could reach inside. Like mommy, the trio was incapable of heeding sound advice. Sarcasm and annoyance gave them pleasure. That's why they decided to taunt grumpy more closely. Foolishly thinking, he was secure in his cage. They thought if anything were to happen, their mother would come to their rescue and save them, in a snap, which just goes to prove how naïve the children were, not to mention the foolishness on the part of their mother for allowing them to taunt the old lion.
In the meantime, however, Grumpy grew weary of the children taunts, and decided to move a little closer to the bars that held him inside his cage. Within attack range, while the children frolicked around his domain, totally unaware of his movement and malevolent objective, to rip them to pieces.
Mr. Wybitch finished working and started back toward the grounds where his wife waited, and his children played. About two hundred yards away from his family Mr. Wybitch became frantic, because he saw his children playing near the cage that he had asked his wife on several occasions to keep their children away from. He began to yell, "honey, honey, move the kids. They're too close to the cage." But Jean couldn't hear him, because she was too busy talking on her cell phone and enthralled with crocheting, not to mention, if she had heard him speak. She wouldn't have listened anyway.
Mr. Wybitch dropped his push broom and started to run toward his family waving his hands back and forth hollering at the top of his lungs, "Kids move away from the cage, now." But like mommy, they too were hardheaded and chose to do the opposite of what their father asked, especially the oldest girl. In fact, she saw her father imploring them to move away from the cage. But because of her stubborn yin-yang nature to respond to her father's will, she stuck her arm inside the cage in defiance. Mr. Grumpy, lying dead, for one of the insolent broods to make a wrong move, got his chance. In one swipe, he ripped her fragile arm right out of the socket. Blood gushed out of her like the torrential waters of a typhoon.
In a state of shock, mommy fainted. The 11-year-old tried to retrieve her sister's arm from the lion. But before her father could snatcher her away from the cage to safety the lion roared in anger, and ripped her head clean off. The child was dead before her frail body hit the ground. The oldest child, the defiant one, bled to death before the paramedics made it to the scene of the attack. The police, however, were there lickety-split; long before the paramedics arrived, and upon authoritative command by their superiors, the offices euthanized grumpy on the spot, by shotgun blast.
Mr. Wybitch, dismayed, shook his wife in horror, dropped to his knees; put his head in the palms of his hands and started wailing at the top of his lungs, "Jean why, oh-why couldn't you listen to me? It wasn't much to ask. I just wanted you to keep our children away from the cage, but you were too stubborn and foolish to listen. Two of our children are dead, and it's your fault for not heeding my word. Now we will have to live the rest of our lives with the consequences of our actions, and with the pain of knowing that you could've prevented their untimely demise. Perhaps next time you'll listen." But Jean was in a state of shock, which eventually led to a complete mental breakdown, from which. She never recovered.
Now boys and girls what is the moral of the story? That's right, pay heed to sound-advice, because your life may depend upon it.