Greed, they say, is a vice possessed only by man. Animals, apparently, never suffer from immoralities such as greed. Tigers and such predators also possess the ability to take life at will; even so, a tiger will hunt only when needed, and at all other times, won’t hurt a lamb - not even if you stuck the docile fellow up the feline’s jaws. Life, it seems, devours only whence it is needed. Man, is an obvious exception - it would seem that his intelligence makes him eligible for such misconduct, for, there is no creature above him, that may set right his fallacies.
Now i’ll narrate a small observation, one i made over a sultry afternoon, not too long ago.
Even though hunger hadn’t quite been the cause for my gnawing it, the apple had obliged my stomach althesame. Having exhausted it of all it had to offer, i had no option but to dispose of it. Now, a dustbin is what a normal person would have looked for, innit? Not me. Being the complete jerk that i am, i just took aim at a car and shot the remnants out of my window. Predictably, i missed my target. By a few miles, maybe.
What i did manage to hit, however, was an innocent little mynah, some 20 feet away from the vehicle. It was understandable, then, that it recoiled, shrieked, and within an instant, had darted off in whatever direction it could - quite possibly, to get as far away from the assailant, in the event that i tried to aim for the car with some other sinister projectile, the next time around.
Now, mynahs, as everyone knows, never arrive alone. So, when the apple hadn’t done anything interesting for long enough a period of time, the victim’s accomplice flew in to investigate the projectile i’d ejected onto his friend. He’d been a silent observer all this while, but now that he smelled an opportunity in the midst of all this delirium, he decided to use it to his advantage - if there was food to be had, he’d have it.
It seems that i hadn’t done good-enough a job, and there was still something edible left in that apple. I whacked myself, and apologised to my tummy for my fickle behaviour. While i was preoccupied, the adventurous mynah also discovered that the impact had caused my apple to disintegrate into two, and a tiny bit was lying some distance away. His friend was still reeling from the shock of the impact, so the mynah dug into the larger bit, obviously hoping to cash in on his companion’s cowardice.
His misdemeanour might have gone unpunished, had i been the only observer to this silly turn of events : The errant human, his disposition unto the aggrieved mynah, and the mynah’s industrious friend - as they all performed this described set of events, a wily crow looked on, with no intention of letting the mynah’s have their fill. He, too, wanted to join the party.
Crows, they say, are probably the most intelligent things there are, after humans. Which, really, is not much of an achievement, if one were to go by the standards set by some humans. Anyway, crows are smart, and that’s all i need to tell you for now. I’ll return to this point in just a short while. Until then, go on reading, i wannah finish the tale i’d begun.
The crow was, as all crows are, much larger than the mynah, and his prescence wasn’t quite endearing to the little fellow. So, as the crow flew in, the mynah, though displeased, was forced to beat into retreat, and join his friend, just beyond the reach of the crow’s beak. The black bird had made a bee-line for the larger morsel of the apple, and seemed to possess far too much pride to associate itself with the littler piece, even though the latter had been lying unattended, and could have been procured without a fight.
The former mynah, by now, had fled - first, an errant projectile whammed into his stately self, and then, just as he had begun to regain his composure, a crow stepped in to threaten his companion - this was too much to take for our feathered fellow. The mynah scampered, out of fear that the black beast may tarnish his bodily self if he were to persist around its future meal. His friend, however, persisted, and even in retreat, he tried to treat himself to a share of the spoils, and silently moved in on the smaller fragment of the apple, whilst the crow was occupied elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the crow began to realise that the larger piece, had, by now, been stripped almost-bare, and only the endocarp and the seeds remained in it. Enraged, it turned around fuming, looking to hack the mynah, and win the small piece it had been eyeing. Pity, however, for the mynah was long-gone. And with it, the crow had lost what could have been, a delicious meal. Greedy for more, and unstoppable, it’d given up the smaller piece, allured by the seemingly larger, but hollow, morsel.
Crows, they say, are probably the most intelligent things there are - certainly the smartest birds. Humans, are the smartest mammals. It’s lucid, then, that both would take to greed almost naturally, and lay their hands (or beaks) on whatever they do not possess and scarcely need. Little wonder, it is, that they tend to abandon the littler joys in life, questing for abject largecies, and ultimately, die, still searching for more, and possessing none of value.
Crows, and Men.
Similarly intelligent. Similarly foolish, even more so.
This fallacy in men has often been employed, down the ages, by wiser men, to bring about the downfall of the greedy. An attractive woman, consorts with the lad, and whilst he lusts for her, he scorns his trusted lover. The wanton, meanwhile, moves on to another fellow, leaving our hero shattered - in his failed quest, he’d given up on his one true love. The legendary tale of Pandora’s Box, is yet another striking example of what greed can do to a person. I wonder if Men will ever stop lusting foolishly. I wonder.
