“Keep your head down, or you will be destroyed,” cried the reeds as the storm approached. Their neighbour, the alder, heard their cries. “I will stand tall and protect you, as I have always done,” it said. But days and weeks of rain had softened the soil around its roots and the vicious storm brought the tree crashing to the ground.

“What did we tell you?” the reeds lamented. “What did we say?”

After the storms came drought. Not a drop of rain fell all summer. The stream dried up, the earth cracked, and the shallow roots of the reeds were exposed. It took only the lightest gust of wind to pluck them from their dusty bed.

“Better to sink your roots deeper, or spread them wider, than to cringe at the first sign of adversity,” whispered the fallen alder, but there were no reeds left to listen.

© Richard Parkin 2026

Further reading: Misadventures in the Land of Fables #65