-The Parable of the Sea Monster
A man was walking along. It was a bright and sunny day. He was alone on his walk, and he had no
sense of direction. However, he didn’t mind, for the man knew many easy ways in which he could
find his way home. On his walk, he found himself heading towards a lonesome merchant on the side
of the road. As he walked along, he decided to walk past the shop; however, as he did, the merchant
called out to him, “Where art thy headed?”
The man turned around and said, “I doth not attain the knowledge.”
The merchant gestured the man over to the stall and spoke, “Thus thou shall need nourishment.”
As they speak, they gesture to four different crates of food. There were apples, oranges, and two
boxes of what seemed to be bananas. “Why doth thy behold two boxes of thy delectable bananas?”
says the man.
The merchant answers, “Behold, for one box, thy is right, it carries but bananas. Yet thou are too
blind to see; one box holds but plantains. Thus, these nursing fruits hold a mystery. For each and
every banana will bring forth luck of favour, yet the plantains bring forth wretched luck for thy life.”
The man looks stunned, unable to tell the difference between the two. In his stubbornness, he
exclaims, “I see quite the peculiar differences!”
However, he does not truly see a difference, and he grabs a random fruit in arrogance. He pays the
merchant and walks away with his fruit, but he doesn’t realise that behind him, the merchant who
ran the fruit stand had transformed into an ugly sea monster. The monster shouted out to the man,
“Art thy foolish one!” and then the monster disappeared along with its stand. The man turns around,
hearing the shout, only to see (get it, sea) that the stand that had just stood before him was gone,
but in its place was a puddle of water. The man was surprised, but he didn’t wonder about it for long.
The man continued walking, and he looked upon his new fruit. He thought to himself, surely this is a
banana; it can't be anything else. With that, the man ate his fruit, and nothing happened.
“Crazy merchant,” the man mumbled to himself, and he continued on his way.
Soon, the man decides that it is time for him to turn back and go home, but he remembers how he
was lost without a sense of direction. The man pulls out his phone but drops it. At first, it doesn’t
break, but it starts to slide. Just as the man tries to pick it up, the phone slides right into a gutter,
which seems to have no end.
“Not to worry,” says the man, “I shall retrace my steps.”
As the man says this, the sky turns grey. The clouds began to form beautiful animals that danced
across the sky. As the man gazed upon the site, the animals began to come together; they started
swirling in a circle motion, and before the man could react, there was an animal tornado. There were
dogs, cats, lions, hippos, frogs, and many more animals making up the tornado. The animals would,
one by one, be dispatched from the tornado and steal bits of houses and trees, bringing them back
to the tornado. The man, at first, didn't move until he saw a sea monster in the middle of the
tornado that looked oddly like the person who ran the fruit stall.
“I ate a plantain!” the man realised.
He quickly began running away from the tornado, but it was too late. A cloud dog ran up to him and
picked him up, taking him into the tornado, where his life was cut short. The sea monster let out one
last evil laugh and disappeared with the tornado.
Morral: You can’t compare apples and oranges, but what about bananas and plantains?
