The Deer-ostrich

             I saw a deer today. Well, it may have been part ostrich, as all I saw was a body with some legs and a neck disappearing into the snow. I've never actually seen a deer in the wild before. All my life, my parents have said “There’s a deer!” and by the time I looked, there were no deer anywhere.

            I have no idea where I'm going with this; that just seemed like a good way to start. After all, who doesn't love a deer-ostrich story? Now, of course, I have to write one.

            Once, there was a deer-ostrich. He was a beautiful fellow with a fine coat of fur and a long feathered neck. Life was good for him, since he could reach up high to eat from trees, or down to the ground to eat grass, if he pleased.

His only trouble was that he didn't know how to handle his fear. Two sets of instincts told him, simultaneously, that at the first sign of trouble, he should bury his head in the ground and run. As you can imagine, this resulted in some ungainly flights, often leaving deep trenches right up to trees.

            Now, the deer-ostrich was one of a kind, so he had no one to teach him what he should do if a predator were to spot him. So he decided to ask a deer for some advice.

            “If you see a wolf, run!” the deer insisted. “Don’t mind the lions, they prefer ostriches.”

            “Oh deer, but I am a deer-ostrich!” the deer-ostrich replied. “What if the lion prefers me?”

            “Ask an ostrich,” the deer said with a shrug.

            That’s just what the deer-ostrich did.

            “If you see a lion, just bury your head in the ground,” the ostrich said. “The lion will think you’re an odd type of bush and leave you alone. Wolves prefer to eat deer.”

             At that point in time, a lion happened upon them. Fighting his instinct to run, the deer-ostrich followed the ostrich’s lead and buried his head in the ground.

            The lion wasn't fooled, as the ostrich had claimed he’d be. What he saw was a tasty feathery meal next to a silly deer with its head in the ground.

            When the deer-ostrich emerged, he found himself safe and alone. Satisfied that he now knew how to survive when he was afraid, he went about his life, running from the wolves and burying his head around lions.

            The system worked for years, until he chanced upon a lion and a wolf at the same time. In a panic, the deer-ostrich had to choose one of his defences. Since the lion was closer, he buried his head.

            The lion went about its business, but the wolf was delighted to come across a deer who, with its head in the ground, couldn't see him coming. It was the easiest dinner the wolf had ever gotten, although upon telling others of his luck, he did have something to say.

            “But, my, did that deer taste fowl!”

            The moral of the story is: Don’t make up stories on the spot at midnight.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.