Page 6 - Fables volume 3

future to be both known and certain. Again, a calculated risk, if not
simply an expression of innate personality. You must see, Gemini,
that his situation and mine do not differ much in respect of morality.
We are both gamblers, betting selfishly on the present to the
exclusion of future possibility.”
Gemini cricket stood up and approached the ant. He could barely
hear Sarg now. “I suppose so. I wouldn’t put all my chips on one of
two extreme alternatives, but I don’t see what that has to do with
your last will and testament.”
“Ah,” sighed Sarg. “There’s the rub.” Gemini suddenly realized the
ant’s voice was being muffled by his own stridulation, a sign of
warmth and excitement. He suppressed his forewings and bent closer
to catch the tiny wavering voice. “Until I mistakenly ate some bait
and began suffering neurological symptoms indicating a fatal
condition, I thought that I had, in some sense, won. But it turned out
that my future would not be as known or certain as I’d gambled on.
In other words, I lost. Starry Wits has already won: he has enjoyed
life, whatever comes next for him. Why not give him the means to
enjoy more? He may squander it, but I can die knowing I have
compensated for all the times I self-righteously refused his piteous
pleas for help. That gives me a sort of victory, doesn’t it? Or at least
wipes clean my slate where virtue is concerned. All right. It’s difficult
to talk. Take care of things for me.”
And Sarg the ant expired.
Gemini cricket briefly reflected on mortality, then strode to the
door of Sarg’s tree stump apartment and threw open the door. There
lay Starry Wits, frozen to death on the doorstep. Perhaps he had been
knocking with his last bit of energy while the cricket was chirping.
Gemini picked up the grasshopper’s fiddle and bow, kicked the
corpse aside and returned for Sarg’s body. He threw it on top of his
fellow gambler; nature would perform the last rites. Then he went
back inside, locked the door and began a careful inventory and
appraisal of the collective property of the ant and the grasshopper.
Yes, he thought, stridulation at maximum pitch, the middle way is
much better.

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