Page 13 - Fables volume 1

How the Hippopotamus Caught a God in Gridlock

Borgo gulped down a mouthful of half-chewed weeds and belched
loudly. “No good. By the time you could walk that far in the mud on
those tiny trotters, those possibly delectable morsels over there would
be old and shriveled—or eaten by some enterprising hippo already on
the other side. Nope, you can’t get there from here, Lumu. Forget it.”
He turned slowly and began moving through the water toward a
small overgrown sandbank close to shore. He submerged until only
his eyes, ears, and nostrils were visible. Lumu followed suit, and the
two quickly paddled over to this new piece of riverine pasture.
Once there, Lumu chewed absently for a few minutes, and then
said, “I don’t really want to get across the river, Elder Brother. I just
wish the plants over there were over here, as well.”
“What?” replied Borgo sharply. “Don’t you mean over here instead
of over there? Haven’t I told you a hundred times to think logically?
How do you expect to hold an intelligent conversation?”
“I’m not greedy,” said Lumu. “I don’t have to have it all.”
“That’s more like it. The same stalk of grass can’t be in two places
at once. Get that straight, Younger Brother.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s impossible, that’s why not.”
“But I can imagine it. I can imagine the grass is over there and over
here, all at once. My imagination isn’t impossible, is it?”
Borgo stopped eating and rolled his protruding eyes skyward. “Now
look, you silly hipporamus: you can imagine anything you want inside
your own thick skull. That’s the only place that impossible things can
be considered. Only there. If you ever saw something impossible
outside your own head, do you know what that would mean?”
Lumu looked around in confusion. “Uh, no, I guess I don’t.”
Borgo leaned very close to his sibling’s bulbous face. “It would
mean,” he rasped, “that you, and your entire world, were imaginary.
Impossible things only occur inside an imagination. So much for grass
on the other side of the river. Now it’s time to meet the gang down by
the lagoon. Let’s go.”
With that, Borgo shoved off downstream, bobbing slowly in the
swirling current. Lumu was about to join him when he felt a short

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