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| Mr. and Mrs. Crocodile |
"Hello, honey," said Mrs. Piranha. "How are you today? Those little guys giving you a hard time?"
"No, not bad. I'm just enjoying getting to eat all these delicious rolls... you know they're my favorite. All of these cravings have been so strange. Just the other day I had the most intense one for monkey's heart."
"Monkey's heart?! Those pests are impossible to catch, but oh so delicious if you can manage to snag a bite..." Mrs. Piranha had a wistful look in her eye, the same one in Mrs. Crocodile's just a few days ago.
"I know! I could hardly stand the craving, so I sent Mr. Crocodile to go find me one. There's this one monkey that crosses the river every day to get to that little island - - you know the one - - just by Mrs. Anaconda's house? Well anyway, the monkey is quite large, and it only takes two hops for him to reach the little island, for there's this rock right in between the island and the bank he jumps on. So I tell Mr. Crocodile I want some monkey heart, and he puts up a fuss about how hard they are to catch, how he's not as fast as he used to be, all that nonsense. I reminded him of that monkey who jumps to the island to get fruit every day, and told him if he didn't come back with some monkey heart he could be the one to tend the children when they're born and I'll be the one going out to find food. That scared him well enough."
Mrs. Piranha chuckles. "Well I should think so. Did he manage it?"
"Just wait. My dear genius husband decides the best way to catch this monkey is to wait until he's on the island, and just about to jump back to land. Mr. Crocodile got on top of the rock, apparently hoping the monkey wouldn't notice an entire crocodile, and jump straight into his mouth."
"Oh goodness... You know I'm fond of him, but he's never been the brightest, your husband."
"No, but he's been good to me and I can't imagine life with another. Anyway. The monkey of course notices my husband sitting on the rock, and tricks him into making himself known by calling to the rock. The rock. And my husband falls for it, calling back, pretending to be the rock. That facade is dropped pretty quickly, and he makes it known he's there to catch the monkey. Apparently my husband's reputation preceded him, because the clever pest told my husband to just open his mouth and wait for the monkey to jump in."
Mrs. Piranha: "Oh no..."
"Oh yes. And you know that insufferable thing Mr. Crocodile does when he eats! He opens his mouth as wide as possible and shuts his eyes tight, like he's afraid of his food jumping into them or something. So of course this is what he does, and the monkey just hopped onto his back as if he were the rock, and onto the bank! So now I not only continue to have the most horrible craving for monkey's heart, Mr. Crocodile won't stop saying 'I almost had him! Darn thing BARELY got away' and complaining about his back, which now hurts because the monkey jumped on it."
"You poor thing... I hope Mr. Crocodile heals soon! The last thing you need is a fresh brood of little ones and a husband moaning and groaning about his back."
Mrs. Crocodile just nodded and put on her best definitely-not-enjoying-the-pity face as the other ladies filed into Mrs. Piranha's parlor in the river bank.
Author's Note: I decided to write the aftermath of The Crocodile in the River (From Vanarinda Jataka, in The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers). I thought it would be funny to explore what inspired me for the meme I made in my other post (see below) about Mrs. Crocodile's disappointment at her husband's failure.
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| The meme I had in my previous post. |
Alena, I really enjoyed your addition to the story. Creating two completely new characters was pretty impressive and thoughtful. I had not caught your meme from the prior week and it is really creative! I think a lot of us girls can at some point relate that when younger we have dealt with a male who thought his solution to a problem was really clever and in the back of our heads we knew it was not but felt too bad to say anything before.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words! I had a lot of fun writing it, and yeah, it was definitely inspired by a recent interaction with my younger brother. He's smart and sweet, but sometimes I'm struck speechless by the nonsensical stuff he does.
DeleteHi Alena. I liked your characters in the story. It reminds me of my parents. My mom will tell my stepdad to go do something and he either completely messes it up or doesn't remember what my mom told him to do! The conversation between Mrs. Piranha and Mrs. Crocodile is also a typical cliché of a group of women getting together and talking about their husbands!
ReplyDeleteSame with my parents at times!
DeleteI absolutely love your writing style! Your characters have very strong voices, and the story was almost entirely dialogue-driven. Those are my favorite kinds of stories. The characters and their situations were very relatable, Mrs. Crocodile's pregnancy cravings, her goofy husband that sounds like the ultimate "dad" character.
ReplyDeleteI genuinely don't have any criticisms to give, I enjoyed the story too much, although I'll give my "Let's Pretend" critique from the perspective of Mr. Crocodile:
"Hey, I liked your story. But do you think you could add some more details from my perspective? My wife made me sound dumb, but the truth is, my plan was honestly foolproof. If only I didn't answer the monkey I would have had him. Ouch, anyways gotta go lay down. My back is killing me."
Thanks so much for the comment! I really like your "Let's Pretend" critique - that's pretty much exactly how I pictured him talking in my head, and trying to defend himself to his wife and her friends.
DeleteI loved this spin! This lady crocodile had me cracking up the whole time I was reading! She sure knows how to get her husband riled up. I guess the only thing I was wondering, was Mrs. Crocodile pregnant? That’s what I was assuming by the end, but they also felt like an old couple. Either way would work great with the story, but I guess I needed a clarification there. Mr. Crocodile could be really old and cranky and that’s why he doesn’t want to deal with young crocodiles and his back is hurting from being old? Or they could be like me and call themselves old all the time despite being considerably young. These young crocodiles could be grand-crocodiles to this old couple? I think that would work too. Overall, I really enjoyed the tale. I was very amused, and these are now my favorite crocodile characters.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the feedback! I'll try to make her pregnancy more obvious!
DeleteWow, I really enjoyed this. It is essentially a satire of the trope in these moral stories where characters hold idiot balls and fall for tricks that are not clever at all. The solution to this dilemma is usually to devise a more clever ruse, such as camouflaging or maybe giving him a hippo suit, but this method actually addresses the issue very directly. The fact that the original crocodile "hoped the monkey wouldn't notice an entire crocodile" is pretty ludicrous. In reality, the crocodile (who acts vaguely human) should have realized how ridiculous his idea was. However, the original author left this in probably because he didn't have a better alternative. I thought your story was very funny, and genuinely have no criticisms to give, except for one odd detail. Crocodiles don’t give live birth, so I’m curious why you didn’t say that miss crocodile was getting ready to lay eggs. But this criticism is a minor point, I love your subversive storytelling.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment! I didn't actually know that crocs don't give live birth, but I didn't really look into the details of crocodile pregnancy; my main goal was to make her as relatable to us (human) readers as possible, so in this universe where crocodiles can talk, I guess I'm also going to pretend they give live birth!
DeleteHey Alexa! I thought your expansion of the Crocodile story was both funny and creative. The dialogue between Mrs. Crocodile and Mrs. Piranha was light-hearted and enjoyable to read. I especially liked Mrs. Crocodile’s sense of patience and silliness when talking about her husband. One suggestion I would like to make is having Mr. Crocodile enter the conversation, at some point, to relay (or perhaps defend) his side of the story. I wonder what Mrs. Crocodile craved about the monkey heart, are they nutritious? How are they prepared? I was also wondering as to what made Mr. Crocodile so unskilled, when attempting to capture the monkey. Your meme also made me laugh, that was a clever addition to the story. I hadn’t thought of using a meme for a story! It fit perfectly with the humorous theme you kept throughout your writing. Again, I enjoyed reading your post, and am looking forward to reading more as we continue on with the semester!
ReplyDeleteHi Alena!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a light hearted fun sequel to the original story! I thought it was so clever! I liked how you expanded on the crocodiles story. Honestly I loved reading it! I cannot rave about it enough! I also thought that the meme you has was so funny and sassy! I love all the added dialogue it brought the characters to live and makes me seem feel like I am listening to some house wives filling us in on their lives. Fantastic Job!
Hi Alena!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your interpretation of the original Jataka tale! I also really enjoyed your organizational method for your story. The structure definitely supports the style and the dialogue, and it flows really nicely when the eyes are reading it.
Hi Alena,
ReplyDelete(I read the version from your portfolio, but I figured I’d comment here since this is for general commenting not project feedback.)
Once again, your story is great and well written. I loved framing it as a stylized discussion between the wives, and while I agree with your Author’s Note that oftentimes such stereotypes can be limiting, in this case they just made it great.
Thanks for the read.
A.M.