The Folly of Desire
The mother dolphin suckles her child, yet cradle him she cannot. This, I discovered through many instructive years with my cetacean companions, was a constant source of grief to them, and the only quality of my humankind they envied. Though they could speed through the blue and tranquil sea with ease, catch their fill of fish with a skill and dexterity that would make even the greatest fisherman bespoil himself, though their realm was vast and their clan prolific, they ever coveted my fingers.
   Though I tried to dispel their envy with tales of digital horror, it was a fruitless endeavor. Many afternoons, as I would be weaving baskets to contain my supply of fish, I would find myself surrounded by an entranced dolphin audience, forming a pungent semicircle in the shallow water, their eyes following every tuck and twist of the fiber, every move of my talented and furiously sensate digits. It was sad to see the jealousy raging in their scorpions, yet appropriately reined in (a dolphin trait).
   "Not so unlike us," I would say to myself. We all desire what we do not have and seek to obtain that which we cannot possess. Then I told my covetous audience this tale of solubility, in hopes that they would abandon their lust for fingers and accept their beautiful flippers as they were:
  
   Many years ago I knew a young and fervent man in Allahabad. I had met him at the Maha Kumbh Mela, the great sacred festival celebrated on the holy shores of the Ganga, or the Ganges as the English name it. His desire was to be a sadhu, a Hindu holy man, though he was born of a caste not likely in this life to attain such a position. Yet, yearly he would stand in the shallow and noisome brown water, as the sadhus, in theatrical and terse acts of devotion, would impale fresh limes on the ends of silver spears, around which were wrapped gaily colored flowers. These righteous and fruity offerings would then be dipped ceremoniously in the feculent Ganga as gifts to the various and many-appendaged gods, this being only the prelude to the much anticipated ritual bathing that draws virtually millions of Hindus to gather in sodden loincloths in the virulent and septic holy river for their yearly cleansing.
   Fortune is, however, a fickle and sprightly mistress, ever fond of mischief, and on this occasion she smiled on my young friend. He had appeared, as was his rigid custom, at the Maha Kumbh Mela, but this time, daring to dream his dream of becoming a sadhu, he had purchased with his small wages, a filthy and spotted loincloth, of the kind worn by the holy men. Donning this brief apparel, he made his way to the dung fires of the nagas and further clothed himself in the gray ash, and joining the throng of holy men, made his way to the sublime Ganga, Sweet Mother of Cholera and Typhus.
   Amazed by his luck and strategy, the young man waded joyously into the sacred water, nobody apparently seeing through his most excellent and confounding disguise. "This," he thought happily to himself, "is what it is like to be a sadhu." Momentarily he was further elated when the bright, green limes were passed around and he was handed his very own to impale on the beautiful silver spear. "I am living my dream," he thought, and thanked the various and many-appendaged gods for his good fortune.
   The dream, however, was short-lived, as the young man, filled with boundless exuberance and eager to impale his lime, stepped on the newly-lain feces of the holy man next to him, slipped on the slimy morsel and fell forward, impaling not the lime, but his left eye on the flower-festooned and garlanded spear. Presently the unimpaled lime drifted silently away down the brown Ganga, a mute testimony to Man's desire to be what he is not.
   "Alas," I said to myself as the young man's limp and lifeless body was carried to the reeking shore, "that lime was denied its destiny by this young man's envy and foolhardiness. Now one of the various and many-appendaged gods will have no fruit and must needs go limeless until next year."
  
   I looked out at the dolphin faces gazing solemnly at me. They remained unmoved. "That's the story," I said. "That's all. You shouldn't want what you don't have. Don't you see?" But they just looked at each other. Frustrated, I sat back down with the intent of telling them the tragic but instructive story of the piglet that wanted to be a submarine captain, when I missed my footing and fell backwards to the sand. Reaching out to break my fall, I landed with my left hand on a large rock and broke my mid most finger. Howling in pain, I began to dance the Dance of the Man with the Horribly Injured Finger, hopping first here and then there and then back again in righteous agony.
   "We wish we had feet," chimed my audience with one, sad voice.

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