Prompt: Rewrite a fable from an unusual perspective.
Piece:
We were a quarrelsome bunch, my siblings and I. We sat under the sun’s fierce rays and fought, prodding and nudging each other for a little more room. My siblings teased me mercilessly. I was the runt of the litter, slower to grow. My brothers and sisters outpaced me, swelling out luxuriantly in the light, while I had to content myself with the little light that peaked past their shadows. The heat, though it fueled their growth, made them irritable and boastful.
“Wine! That’s what I’ll be! A fine, red wine! I’ll delight the heart of a king!”
“I’ll be the crown jewel on a plum pudding!”
They turned to me cruelly. “You’ll be lucky if you’re ever picked at all. Perhaps you’ll become a raisin, but more likely you’ll be left on the vine to rot.”
I sweated silent purple tears but kept my mouth shut. I had learned not to argue, and I had long ago accepted my place at the back of the bunch.
At that moment, we felt the ground shake beneath us. My siblings fell dreadfully silent. I could not see past their swollen, round bodies, but I could feel them sweating sticky purple drops of fear!
I heard a sly and sickly voice below us.
“Grapes! Just the treat to quench my diabolical thirst on this hellishly hot day!”
I reeled from a rush of air propelled from beneath. We felt the chilling breeze of something swipe by below us, just inches from my oldest sibling.
Thud! Something landed roughly on the ground below.
“Missed!” hissed the sly voice.
We felt another sinister rush of wind beneath us, and the sweep of fine hairs brushed my undersurface. This time, my two eldest siblings were plucked mercilessly from the stem. The rest of us rebounded with a sickening lurch.
We heard a slurping sound below. I guess my siblings would never become a fine wine or grace a magnificent plum pudding.
We sensed the animal coil for another attempt. Brace, brace, brace! I screamed to myself.
This time it swiped off my other three siblings. The sharp point of its claw gently grazed my undersurface. But I had been hidden behind the others, and when I opened my eyes, I was still attached to our vine.
More slurping below. I was all alone. I held my breath. One acid red tear escaped from my stem and dropped on the animal’s snout.
It licked its snout with a sinister slurp. “Haha! Those were good but I need a little more juice!” it cackled, as it recoiled, ready to spring. The animal lept viciously and confidently. I prepared myself for death.
But nothing happened. The animal lept, again and again. I felt the puff of wind as it swiped at my vine, but, relieved of the weight of my larger siblings, my vine now hung much higher from the trellis.
Finally, the animal, panting and cross, licked its paws and sauntered off, muttering to himself, “That one was probably sour anyway.”
It is easy to despise what you cannot have.
It’s not always bad to be the smallest.
What I was reading / watching around that time:
Sully