Page 20 - Effable Encounters

Aesop’s Stables
(Fantastic Transactions 1, 1990)

“Aesop: wake up, you lucky fellow. And don’t make a lot of
noise—do you hear me?”
These imperatives, uttered in an upper-register hiss by a stork,
were directed toward a lumpy human figure curled up on a ragged
pallet in the corner of a roughhewn stable. The man groaned but did
not stir. The bird reiterated its command, punctuating it with a
moderately sharp peck at the sleeper’s posterior.
“Eh? Don’t beat me, master. I’m coming, I’m coming.”
“No.” The stork took a step backward. “Don’t get up. Don’t even
move. And don’t talk so loudly.”
The man propped himself up on one elbow. “What? Who’s there?
Do I know you? What do you want?”
A fox began pacing nervously behind the stork. “I don’t like it.
This old slave is going to panic and rouse the whole compound.
Maybe we should forget it and save our skins—now!”
“Oh, relax!” squeaked a mouse, although it had to stop chewing on
a crossbeam to speak. “Give him a chance to get used to it.”
Aesop’s rheumy eyes popped and swiveled, confirming what his
ears had faithfully reproduced.
“You—you’re animals! You’re talking: and I understand you! Must
be dreaming. Got to stop eating those rotten grapes at night. They’re
not fit for pig slops.”
“I resent that!” came a grunt from the shadows.
“Ooh,” moaned the terrified old man. “Great Bacchus, I promise
never again to touch that stuff! Just let me go back to less realistic
dreams, I beseech you, O god of the grape!”
“Forget it,” said the stork with a decisive snap of the beak. “Those
gods are dead. You’ll have to deal with us.”
Aesop blinked and wiped his nose. The panic-driven dilation of his
pupils enabled him to pick out many swaying, strutting, and sitting
creatures in the shed. He was surrounded. But not threatened; these
beasts of bush and barnyard were keeping their distance, and many
looked to be on the verge of flight.

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