Cautionary Tale
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer

Prompt: an old man talking to a child about writing

Thumbnail art by  Major Matt Mason


“Grandpa?”

The old gray tabby put his book down and smiled at his granddaughter. “What is it, Alice?”

The eight year old kitten raised her arms, and her grandfather made a lap for her. She clambered up and settled herself comfortably before she said, “My English teacher wants me to write something for class on Monday.”

The old man thought, primarily about how he really had to stop allowing her to sit in his lap. She was starting to get heavy. “What do you want to write about?”

“I dunno.”

“What did your teacher tell you what you should write about?”

“She just said to write something.”

“Ah. Hmm.” He started to think, and after a few minutes, he said, “Write about what you know.”

“Will you read it, Grandpa?”

He smiled. “Sure will.”


***


So it happened that on the next Monday, little Alice read a very nice story about how she loved her mother, and she liked her mother’s girlfriend, and how they would go to the beach and swim and have fun.

The story was immediately destroyed, and Alice was expelled. Two weeks later, she was admitted to another school several miles away.

Her grandfather was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Although the charges were dropped a few days after the newspapers covered his arrest, he was ostracized on social media and shunned by his onetime friends.

Alice’s mother was harassed online, and death threats were mailed to her house.

And the moral Alice learned from this was to keep your mouth shut, because there are intolerant people in the world, and if you dare express yourself, you and the ones you love may be attacked.

Because ‘cancel culture’ is a two-sided coin.


end