Page 16 - Fables volume 1
P. 16
How the Hippopotamus Caught a God in Gridlock
to the old stories, the gods were always playing tricks on the animals,
and then acting offended when their victims got angry. Well, he
thought defiantly, I’ll just play one on them.
So Lumu formed an image in his mind. It consisted of a shadowy
creature with an immense cranium. And inside this imaginary being’s
head was the image of Lumu’s world, in every detail, including Lumu
imagining the shadowy creature.
Now I’ve got you! thought Lumu. You’re just as impossible as I am.
And if you stop imagining me, then I won’t be here to imagine you: so
there’s nothing to worry about!
And he launched himself up to the surface, paddling rapidly to
catch up with Borgo and the gang. He longed to tell them how he was
saving the cosmos, but without the egret as witness he had no proof:
the flower was gone. Perhaps he had eaten it in all the excitement.
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