Fable

I usually stay away from fables because my biggest flaw as a writer is that it can border on corny. (I should note that lately, I believe my biggest flaw is that it borders on boring)...

Anyhow, for this reason, I stayed away from fables for a long time because I believed them to be a perfect lure for cheesiness. However, I was inspired recently and wrote one. I don't hate it. The beginning is below:



Many years ago, in a country that no longer exists, there lived a very rich nation that flourished in everything it did. The inhabitants of this place enjoyed their lives, and shared their blessings with everyone they knew. Food was abundant, crimes were nonexistent, and life itself was generous and peaceful. There weren’t many problems, because everyone seemed to get along.

It just so happened that none of the people who lived in this land had eyes.

Eyes had been heard of, of course. But at this point in time, they were merely something to be murmured about. Someone would bring it up at passing, or while out to dinner with friends. “Have you heard about this new invention?” “Sounds like a right nuisance to me.” It was rumored that the trend had begun in the neighboring country, though only the elites had used them.

These people didn’t need eyes, after all. They heard with their ears, smelled with their noses, touched with their skin. Their biggest problem used to be that they were constantly bumping into each other, but that had changed with the invention of the energy sensor, an object that attached to the hip and buzzed the skin in the direction of oncoming energy. It could also give direction, record the location of objects, and warn of things in motion. While it may now sound archaic, the people had become quite well adjusted to walking in this manner. In fact, watching them walk, a person of today might be fooled into thinking that these people did in fact have eyes.

For this reason, most in the country felt that eyes were best left alone.