The White Bison

Six conflicted animals in a western setting sought out a rare bleached bison so pale that he was thought to be a luminous sage. They wanted him to settle all differences that needed vetting.

            

Why did both deer and elk bed down in each other’s sites, when they knew only one of them had claimant’s rights? The skunk had a grudge against the porcupine, who had stuck a roving shepherd dog with his dagger quills, and that crazed or crazy dog kept coming back for more, always running down her skunk pups on the way. The marten and the weasel had their quarrel over who was to get at the squirrels, mice, and moles in the neighborhood.

            

All six stood before the blank mangy bison, who was really a scrubby beast, unfit for any judgments but ready to presume. Slowly and ponderously, he shook his shaggy head and said:

            

“What you have to do, in this subliminal world, is narrow your differences so that you have an absolutely clear-cut picture of exactly what’s irreconcilable.”’

           

“Did you hear that?” someone said.

           

“I heard ‘wreck.’”

            

Someone else said, “I heard ‘eerie.’”

            

“Wasn’t there a ‘submarine’ in there?”

            

Everybody heard what he wanted to hear, grateful for the leeway to go on doing what he was doing, and more so. What a wonderful wise old hoary bison they had.

            

Moral: People choose their leader to reflect who they are.