A Parable

Once Skeeter, the fly reporter, came upon a road sign:
Breadtown, Everyone’s Town. “Interesting”, he
commented and flew in. It was the middle of January,
2003. There were lots of people in the street, hustling
around the center crossroad. Some were carrying
signs. As Skeeter got closer he could see the
messages: Peace! No War! No Blood for Oil!



A big group was stretching out a huge, no, a humongous
white canvas, like the top of a mammoth tent. As
Skeeter watched, the men and women began to struggle
to raise the shiny canvas with sticks at first. Then,
he noticed there were special tubes hanging down from
the edge, long tubes, maybe eight.

Some of the people raised the tubes to their mouths
and began to blow and blow. Amazingly, Skeeter noted,
the canvas went up quickly, filled and firmed up. The
folks weren’t even blowing hard and besides there were
like a dozen at each post, relaying one another.

At the center of town there was a big oven and another
group was busy making bread. Skeeter found a crumb
with his name on it. “Umm, sourdough. Pass the
butter”, he muttered. Close by, little loaves were
piled high on a table covered by a golden cloth with
“Peace Bread” embroidered on it. People from town
were snapping up the bread. Other loaves, he came to
find out, were being vanned to neighboring towns.

Time went by and the people chatted and worked and
were friendly no matter how cold it got. They just
put on more clothes, rubbed their gloves and stomped
their feet. The canopy flew and the bread baked. And
people ate. Skeeter flew around each day and kept
marveling.

One afternoon he spotted from afar what he thought was
a man peering out from an old warehouse close to
Breadtown. But he wasn’t sure because the whatever it
was stayed in the shadows. And when he got closer, it
seemed to retreat into the darkness. And it was not
the first time that this had happened either.

Some time in the third month dark clouds rolled in and
winds whipped about and lightning shocked the sky.
The canopy held and kind of stopped the storm above
the town. Skeeter was taking notes. As he flew
around the next day though, he was surprised to see
that there were only six at each tube and that half
the bakers had not shown up. He went off scratching
his head.

But the canopy was still flying and the storm stayed
stalled. Townspeople ate the bread. As the days and
weeks went by, others left to work on related issues
or to pursue individual wants. They seemed to just
fade away, Skeeter noted. And again he saw some
activity in the warehouse doorway, ever so briefly,
less than a stare.

The canopy crew continued to dwindle and after a few
more weeks the oven went cold; the golden table,
empty. The remaining tent blowers began to falter
especially when only five , then four were left.
There was no bread. And as they had to man more than
one tube in succession they weakened.

The canopy slowly fluttered down on top of the
exhausted workers. The storm advanced, the dark
clouds engulfed the town, the ill winds sped over and
beyond, and the lightning went ‘crazy’.

At that moment our reporter flitted out from under on
the warehouse side, just as the shadowy figure,
cupping his eyes as if to see better, whispered:
“Gotcha”. And quickly retreated into the dark. But
not before Skeeter spied this on the back of the
jacket: Ari L. C. Heney.

Later, as Skeeter adjusted his scarf before bucking
the wind, he wondered... if he would ever come across
something like this again, and... whether the outcome
would be different or the same.