Friday 5 July 2019

Creative Writing Exercise #7



by Laura Lai/Uncategorized

Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson are competing to become the next British PM. They both ‘threaten’ the Britons with Brexit. Some Britons believe this threat, some others don’t, some others don’t know what to believe… . But yesterday, the 4th of July 2019, as I was listening Radio LBC ('Leading Britain's Conversation) – as I regularly do, due to the diversity of opinions and multitude of thoughts one can hear in a 1-hour show – I heard that Jeremy Hunt took a short break from Brexit discourse and focused on hunting foxes with dogs as being part of Britain’s heritage and countryside. Thanks to the LBC I was inspired to make this creative writing exercise by adapting a fable of Aesop ‘The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf’ that I have in French, but a very good version in English I found on the website of the Library of the Congress.


THE SHEPHERD BOYS AND THE 'BREXIT' WOLF[i]

Jeremy and his cousin Boris were two politicians who shepherded a flock of sheep near a village in the beautiful Britain’s countryside. As life in the countryside and with the sheep was sometimes quite dull, one of the two shepherd boys, Jeremy, thought of a plan to amuse themselves. One day, at the end of March, they run to the village shouting ‘Wolf! Wolf! Help!’ And as expected the villagers dropped their work to come and save the flock of sheep from the wolf. The boys amused themselves for weeks, even months. And at the end June, they tried this farce again: they run towards the village shouting again as loud as they could ‘Wolf! Wolf!’And the villagers gathered again to protect the whole flock of sheep from the bad wolf.

But one chili and raining evening, at the end of October, the wolf truly came. The shepherd boys were terribly frightened to see the wolf. It was huge and black, had scary claws and a frightful look in his eyes. This was the most terrible of all wolfs, as he was from the no-deal breed. In terror the boys run again towards the village and shouted ‘Heeelp! The Brexit wolf! Please heeelp! The Brexit wolf! The villagers heard the two shepherds shouting, but as they were already fouled twice by their fake news, they didn’t come. And the Brexit wolf became the shepherd of the flock of sheep.

The moral: People don’t believe the politicians not even when they speak the truth.



[i] If any of the characters feels offended by this creative writing exercise, I would like to apologize in advance.

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