Fable of theSleeping Lion, Parable of the Gangsta and Parable of the Man with the Gun in Hand

 

Fable of the Sleeping Lion

Once there was a lion who lived in a cage in a wilderness. He did not like living in a cage, but he was put in the cage by his master.

He was strong and he used to run free, but now he was in a cage. The master fed the lion food to make him sleep. Soon the lion began to like sleeping. He would sleep all day. Visitors came to the cage and wondered why this lion was sleeping all day.

The master had trained the lion so that he never growled anymore--he just slept all the time. He even had a sleepy look on his face when he was awake. Some people called him Sleepy. Sleepy wake up!

Don't bother me, he said, can't you see I'm sleeping?

One day Sleepy's friend, another lion, escaped from the cage next to Sleepy's. Sleepy could have escaped too, but he was busy sleeping. And when he got up and found the other lion gone, he was very angry. I'll never sleep again, he said. I'll never sleep again!

Now when it came time to eat, the master got angry because Sleepy wouldn't eat the food that made him sleep. Sleepy wasn't a fool!

The master couldn't understand his lion. Eat! the master told Sleepy. Sleepy growled for the first time in a long time. The master jumped back he was so shocked.

The master got his whip and went into the cage. Eat! he said, cracking the whip over Sleepy's head. Sleepy growled, turned and ran to the master and began eating him to death....
--Marvin X

Fable of the Sleeping Lion was published in Black World magazine, June, 1970. It was published in Woman, Man's Best Friend by El Muhajir/Marvin X, Al Kitab Sudan Press, 1973. Now printed in The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables.

PARABLE OF THE GANGSTA BY MARVIN X

Parable of the Gangsta

He wanted to be a gangsta since childhood. He watched his big brothers gang banging, in and out of prison, the funerals, parties with more wine than they had at the Last Supper. Females were always on hand serving the brothers, raising their babies, visiting them in jail and prison. Big cars, flashy clothes, bling bling, the little brother watched and waited his turn.

When it was time for him to join, he got ready for the initiation. On that day he was required to kill and rape. He was ready. No matter his mother was a hard working house cleaner who took the bus to work. She wanted none of her children's ill gotten gain. She was a Christian woman who tried to get him into college, rather than go the path of her other sons.

But he had other plans. He didn't want to be a square. He hated squares. They were, in his mind, suckers for the white man. He saw them with their suits and ties and brief cases, thinking they were all that and a bag of chips. He saw them in the dope house coping, along with their square girls. When the girls got sprung, they would leave the square nigguhs for the dope man.

He watched the square brothers get broke and turn tricks with the dope man in front of their women. He vowed to his dead gangsta brothers he would not be a square, but would be like them, even though they didn't want him to end up like them, in prison or a coffin early in life. Thursdays was gang initiation night in the hood.

Most people stayed off the street on Thursdays, unless people got off work late and had to walk home. Anyone could be a victim if caught on the street. He drove around looking for a victim, not far from his house. It didn't matter who it was. On a dim lighted street he saw a woman and snatched her onto the ground, tearing off her clothes. She screamed and yelled but he didn't care, especially since he was loaded on dope and out of his mind.

He didn't bother to look at the woman's face as he raped her. When he finished he turned her around and got the shock of his life. She was his mother! He ran to his car in shame and horror.When he got home he took out his gun and shot himself in the head and fell to the floor dead. He was now a gangsta.

--Marvin X

Parable of the Man
With the Gun in Hand

Once there was a man with a gun in his hand; he came to a land and made the native people slaves. The natives had lived on the land since the world began, but now they were slaves. "And," said the man who came to the land, "they shall be slaves 'til they are in their graves."

The land was ripe with everything: diamonds and gold, wealth untold--the land was fit for Kings and Queens. But the man with the gun in his hand wanted everything.

The natives did not know he had no soul, they even called him "brother." Even though the man with the gun in his hand had lynched their fathers and raped their mothers, they still called him "brother."

"Do you call a snake your brother?" one native asked another. "But I have a dream!" said the other, "even this snake is my brother."

"You are a fool," said the first, "you see this snake crawling all over the earth!"

So the man with the gun in his hand not only had the natives working for nothing, but he also had them fighting instead of uniting, while he stood in the corner laughing.

Time passed. The man who came to the land grew fat. "Look, he is a pig!" one native said. The next day this native was dead.

"Look, he is a pig," said another, and the next day they found him dead. No, the man with the gun in his hand didn't like being called a pig. Yes, he knew he was wrong for taking their land and working them down to the bone, but he was a pig doing his gig, so he went right on.

Now out in the bush a native said, "My brothers, the time has come! The time has come to seize our land from the man with the gun in his hand. The time has come. I know you are blind, deaf and dumb, but I have been raised from among you to show you the way. I have studied the nature of the man with the gun in his hand; he has the nature of a devil; his history is full of evil--surely he is a devil!

But do not fear, he is not so powerful. It is we, the people, who are really powerful. We know God helps those who help themselves, so let us rise up and do for self!

Unite! Stop fighting each other, stop fighting your friends for your enemy. Brothers, we are all victims of this beast. What can you lose, you are already on the bottom? Wake up! Stand on your feet. The time has come to stop being food for the pig to eat!"

--Marvin X
3/11/10

Parable of the Man with the Gun in His Hand was first published in Black World Magazine, June 1970. It later appeared in Woman, Man's Best Friend by El Muhajir/Marvin X, Al Kitab Sudan Press, 1973. Now appears in Wisdom of Plato Negro, parable/fables by Marvin X.

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