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Whispers and Words #12 | Slow and Steady

The tale of the hare and the tortoise is as old as time. Everyone knows the tale and the moral associated with it.

Slow and steady wins the race.

But there is a side of the story that nobody delves into. Let me be the one to enlighten you. It's as if I was there.

I was the hare.

I reached the finishing line with reckless abandon, only to find my pity for the poor tortoise turn into utter disappointment for myself. The tortoise had won the race.

I was in a state of shock until I received a smack on the back of my head. I turned around to find my friend bearing a judgmental look.

"There's no way a tortoise can beat even the slowest of us in a race. You slept on the way, didn't you?"

I nodded, then bowed my head in shame. My friend continued, "You lazy, good-for-nothing, arrogant rascal. You have disgraced our entire community. They'll make an example out of you, talk about this for centuries to come, make a moral out of an isolated event."

I said nothing. Meanwhile, my friend went on and on.

"Why did you agree to race the tortoise in the first place? If you had won, it would have been business as usual. In fact, they would have praised the tortoise for his valiant efforts. You had nothing to gain from this race and everything to lose. Also, what kind of idiot are you to fall asleep in the middle of a race?"

Yeah, I was beyond redemption, but I needed to shut up my friend somehow. In an attempt to make light of the situation, I replied, "But Rumi, the poet, said, 'Sleep deeply wherever you are on the way. Maybe some traveller will wake you.'"

It was evident from his facial expression that my friend was now more pissed off than before. He took a long pause to think before replying, "And Joseph Stalin said, 'All the poets should be hanged by the neck until dead.'"

Wait, what was happening?

How come two hares are quoting Rumi and Stalin?

Suddenly, I wasn't the hare anymore. Instead, I was facing the two of them, both giving me a weird look.

I was filled with an urge to get out of there.

I eventually did when I woke up.

***
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