Page 2 - Fables volume 1

How his Son-in-Law Earned the Great
Lizard’s Displeasure

Not long after history was terminated by nuclear holocaust, the
Great Lizard called his family together. One by one they scuttled
across the sand, heading for the escarpment where he waited on a
rock at the back of a shallow cave in the cliff wall. It was his favorite
spot for holding court: shady but well-lit, a former venue of insect
siestas. He crouched in front of his portrait, a large and highly-stylized
image daubed in ochre, madder, soot and chalk on the curving rock
wall. A local artist, to whom the August Reptile had briefly revealed
himself, had perilously descended several dozen meters by vine-rope
to execute the mural.
Son-in-law was the last to arrive. The others were arrayed around
the walls, ceiling and floor of the cave. The late-comer darted in,
noted the Great Lizard’s angrily flicking tail, and did a quick series of
push-ups to gauge the distance between the patriarch and himself. He
judged the interval adequate for retreat; at worst, he’d suffer a nip in
the cauda if he slipped in making a hundred-eighty degree leap to the
mouth of the cave. But his judgement would soon be called in
question.
After a long and embarrassing silence, the leader blinked, swung his
head around and surveyed his assembled relations. “We do not meet
so often,” he observed drily, “that tardiness may be excused. Nor shall
I ignore the failures resulting in the necessity to reconvene so soon.
Before I reassign your areas of responsibility in the new cosmogony, it
will undoubtedly be instructive to review our past performance.”
A ripple of claw-flexing and scale-shrugging passed through his
audience. One of its smaller members piped up, “Uncle, couldn’t we
create some food first? The radiation killed off the last of the gnats
and fleas a week ago.”
“I’m just as hungry as you are, Nephew. But our haste in assuring
ourselves a good diet is precisely what brought this epoch to a
premature conclusion.”
“I don’t understand, Uncle.”

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