The Man and the Artillery Shell, An Adaptation of Aesop’s Fable “The Farmer and the Snake”

Publius Lucretius Scholasticus

Dim light crept into the cold apartment as Pierre; a French soldier opened the front door. He had been released of service with the French army for a couple of weeks so as to bury and mourn his family. His apartment was in disarray, broken glass scattered across the floor along with pieces of the walls that had come loose during one of the many bombings. The ceiling was riddled with cracks and the floors groaned as he moved about. What was once a home filled with joy and life was now nothing more than an empty tomb, holding a man who was dead on the inside.

As the days passed by, Pierre’s mental and physical condition degraded. With no family, no money, and no food, he was forced to take on a lifestyle of begging and scavenging for food, a lifestyle that many would consider disgraceful.

One numbing winter day, Pierre was walking through a recently bombed town. As he made his way through the rubble, he noticed an unused artillery shell. Seeing the ammunition reminded him of a flyer he had seen the previous day.

The flyer read, “Are you looking for a quick way to make some cash? Look no further! Trade in any old ammunition you find for real cash! Ten euros for every pound of ammunition you trade in!”

As he held the shell in his hand he thought to himself, ‘Surely I can trade this shell for some money! I can get something to fill my stomach and maybe even some new gloves!”

Pierre started back down the road; the shell grasped in his hand. As he hobbled along, he began to come to his senses and realized the danger of what he was holding. He instantly dropped the shell and jumped back, but there was no explosion. He looked at the shell as it lay there in the dirt. His stomach rumbled and he was reminded of his hunger.

He thought to himself. “Well, if it hasn’t gone off by now, even after I’ve dropped it, what reason do I have to believe that it will explode at all?”

Pierre picked up the shell once again and started back towards the main city. Suddenly he tripped on a stone, and the shell was knocked from his hand. He watched as it flew through the air and smashed into a nearby tree. There was a sudden flash of light and then complete darkness.

The man had been blown to pieces.

This narrative is a reminder to not let your desires blind you from danger.

One response to “The Man and the Artillery Shell, An Adaptation of Aesop’s Fable “The Farmer and the Snake””

  1. Publius Docitius Praeceptor

    This is a good start to a narrative. The reversal, recognition, and suffering faithfully reflect the “Farmer and the Snake.” You added the other six elements of narrative. What I want you to do next is to develop them more.

    “A homeless man” is a simple substitute for the farmer. Develop this character more for the reader. Where does he come from? What was he doing walking along a dirt road? Can you develop this “one day” more? What was the day like? What season, weather, or was there something else relatable about this day in relation to any other day or any event? Where was this dirt road near an old World War II battlefield? Was this in Europe or the Pacific? Was this man a poor Russian outside Stalingrad? A gypsy wandering the Ardennes? A hobo bumming around Omaha Beach? Or is he a Melanesian Islander on Guadalcanal?

    Consider telling the reader more about how and why the man is hungry and thirsty. Does he have a practical hope of trading the artifact for money? Does he know a pawn shop or an antique dealer that will pay for it or is he just deluded like someone whose mind is destroyed by drugs or alcoholism and thinks they can profit from a rust relic like some packrat attracted by a shiny object within reach?

    The bicyclist collision is most plausible somewhere in France as opposed to Stalingrad or Guadalcanal. To lend this part of the story plausibility, you may want to develop the story of the bicyclist in parallel until the two stories collide. Consider writing alternating paragraphs beginning with one character and then alternating to the other. Develop the bicyclist by answering to the reader, who he is, what he’s doing, when he is doing this (is he training for a race that’s days away, or is he riding in recovery for the first time after a previous crash?)

    In a sense, the grenade is the snake, but the bicyclist also takes some of the snake’s role. Could you make an allusion to the snake in describing how the cyclist rides the twisting countryside roads?

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