Page 15 - Fables volume 1

How the Hippopotamus Caught a God in Gridlock

there, and now it’s over here, too. Just as real, I might add. But you
can see that for yourself, can’t you?”
Lumu stared at the unusual flora, first the one right before his eyes,
and then the other at a considerable distance. “But—but—I don’t
understand! What can this mean?”
“Mean? Mean?” cawed the egret. “It doesn’t mean anything, you
silly hippo-pippo. It’s just the way it is, and you would never have
found it out if I hadn’t come along just then. Farewell!”
Once again Hakili-kono took off, this time laughing raucously as he
headed south to the forest. Lumu watched him go, his mind thrashing
with questions. He started to follow the egret, but found he had sunk
several centimeters into the mud. By the time he had extricated
himself, the bird was beyond his field of vision.
I’m so confused, thought Lumu miserably. If what Borgo said is
true, and the impossible can only occur in somebody’s imagination,
then nothing here is real: not me, not the river, certainly not those two
identical flowers! But I don’t want to be imaginary! Maybe I’m just
dreaming all this inside my own head, as Borgo says. No, that’s not
the case: this impossible phenomenon is clearly outside of me and my
mind. Oh, what shall I do?
Lumu went out into a shallow part of the river and submerged. He
could think better underwater, where things seemed solid and
continuous. If my world is imaginary, he concluded after some
cogitation, then it must be one of those gods that is imagining it.
Maybe a sky demon or a water spirit. Yes, one of my own divine
ancestors, if those old myths are true.
That idea was comforting to the young hippo, but it was soon
displaced by another, rather disquieting one: suppose the god decided
to stop imagining Lumu and everything familiar around him: what
then? Why, we’d all just disappear, he realized. Zip! Just like that:
gone! Or maybe only certain things that the demon was tired of, or
had simply forgotten about, like an old abandoned mud-hole, would
abruptly vanish. Nothing was safe!
Lumu became enraged. He bellowed and shook his head, and his
tail whipped about furiously. Suddenly he ceased his tantrum. Get a
grip, he told himself sternly; don’t let them get away with it! According

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