Eyes of the Night telling the story to youngsters
Cool water refreshed his throat as he drank at the water’s edge. Unfamiliar voices drifted from further down the bank. Young colts, barely past their gangly foal age, thought Eyes of the Night. Probably up to no good. Night listened without really paying attention to the good-natured joking and laughing until he realized the subject of their jokes.
Night walked along the bank until the two youngsters saw him. The guilty looks on their faces gave Night hope that maybe they weren’t beyond saving. “That sounds like quite the joke you played on your friend,” said Night.
They laughed. “Yea, he’s not really our friend,” replied the older colt.
“Did he get hurt?”
“He got a little scraped up, but he’s okay.”
Night could see that the older of the two was the spokesperson for the pair. The younger one's face began to appear worried.
“When I was your age,” started Night. He paused slightly when the colt who’d spoke, rolled his eyes. He knew what the youngster was thinking, 'here goes another old-timer's story’. “My friends and I would play jokes on others too.“
“There was one colt, a bit small for his age, he wanted so badly to be a part of our group. We made him do the most ghastly things, promising of course that he’d one day be one of us. But you know how that is, right? We never intended that let that happen.”
The younger colt’s face had brightened at the start of the story. Night guessed that he was one to always be around the storytellers at a gathering. The older colt's stance showed impatience.
“One day,“ continued Night, “we challenged him to play chicken with the crocodiles. It’s a game that most young colts have played. Usually on land, and if you’re smart, you pick a croc that has recently eaten.”
“The little colt tried to pick a small croc far from the water, but we forced him to pick a bigger one lying on the bank. He did well, kicking at it, leaping over it, doing all the usual taunts. We encouraged him to keep at it, long after anyone else would have passed the test.”
“He was getting tired, and we could see that he was, but we urged him on, saying that he was almost ready to join us. He stumbled and fell. Standing up, he looked so sad because he thought he’d failed the test. Then we realized he’d twisted his hind leg when he fell. He tried to limp back to us, but the leg caused him a bit of pain when he tried walk on it and he whimpered. And we were right there to laugh at him for being such a weak egg sac.“
Night paused. It was a story that he didn’t tell very often. It was painful to remember.
“The next instant, the river bank exploded like a wave crashing on the beach. A croc lying in the shallows had been watching the whole spectacle. When the little colt whimpered, the croc knew his prey was ready for the taking. He leapt out of the water, grabbed the hurt colt by his haunch and dragged him back into the water.“
“The small colt screamed to us for help, desperately trying to dig his front hooves into the dirt to keep from being dragged into the water. His eyes pleaded with us to save him. Once in the water, the croc pulled him under. The water churned while he thrashed for air. Then everything was still. The only thing left was a trail of blood leading to the water’s edge.”
“It all happened in a mere moment, but it seemed like an eternity that he stared back at us pleading for help. We were stunned and stood there doing nothing. There was nothing we could have done of course, it all happened so fast. But, if we hadn’t taunted him to play at the water’s edge, if we hadn’t taunted him to keep at it when we knew he was tired, he wouldn’t have died. Those pleading eyes are something that your mind will never stop seeing.”
The faces of his audience showed Night that the story had hit its mark. He hoped it was a lasting impression and that it would sway them in the long run to be kinder to the smaller and weaker ones that crossed their path in the future.
Without another word, Night walked past the two colts and followed the water’s edge. Behind him, the ghost of a young colt, not much bigger than a foal, trailed after him.
