Story: The Owl Who Knew Everything

As I was quietly sitting alone in my tree just past noon, I saw Monkey emerge through the brush. I noticed that he held something in his hand, nothing I’ve ever seen in all my years on this planet. It was beautiful: hand-crafted from wood, decorated with care. With each precious detail, you can see the countless hours that Man had put into it. When he flipped the mysterious item over, it almost blinded me. It seemed as if I was only an inch from the Sun, staring straight into it.

Of course Monkey was being his usual obnoxious self. For some odd reason, he always had to be the first for everything - the first to tell the others what he saw, the first to tell someone what they did was wrong, the first to show everyone what he had discovered - and he certainly could not be pushed aside. I always assumed that it was because he wanted the others to like him…how dumb.

So with Monkey doing the only thing Monkey knows how to do, he went around to all the animals and showed them what he found near where Man lives. They were all fascinated by his discovery, that is until they each flipped the thing over. Each animal, no matter how beastly they may be, cried. Bear questioned how he could be so unattractive; Wolf cried how he wishes he could look like Moose.

As I was up in my tree I had two thoughts. The first thought was how did they not know they were all such ugly creatures? I am disgusted by their faces; why else would I be in my tree alone all day? The second thought was this: how did they figure out what their faces looked like? Is this item that Monkey has magical? What does it show you?

Once all the animals looked into the magical, beautiful thing Monkey brought back from Man’s land, Monkey asked me if I would like to look. For just a moment I considered it. Would I be happy with what this item showed me? Would I cry like the others, wishing my face looked more like Eagle? Then I replied with breeze and said to the Monkey and all those that could hear, “Don’t you see how big of fools you all are? You are letting Man decided whether you are beautiful or not!”

We all decided to bury the evil thing that Monkey brought to us so deep in the dirt so that no animal would ever find it and believe Man’s deceptive plan.

Author's Note

For this retelling, I decided to base it off of The Monkey and the Looking-Glass from Indian Fables by Ramaswami Raju. One day, a monkey comes into a forest with a looking glass and he goes around to each animal showing them their reflection. Each animal cried and questioned why they looked the way they did. The monkey took the looking-glass to the owl and the owl responded by saying he did not want to look because in this case, knowledge is pain. The animals then decided to destroy the looking glass and exclaimed ignorance is bliss. I decided to retell this story from the owl’s perspective and I also changed the motto from “ignorance is bliss” to “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

Bibliography

“The Monkey and the Looking-Glass” by Ramaswami Raju. Web Source

Image Information

Photograph of an owl. Source: Web Source