A Fable - by me

The moles and the voles lived together in a very big yard. They tunneled to create homes, hunted for food, and raised their young.

Then the moles decided that they wanted more space. They tunneled and tunneled and made great big living areas for themselves. However, in doing this, they took space from the voles. The voles had to leave the yard, where the soil was nice and soft.

The voles now had to tunnel under the woods. This was a lot of work because the woods were full of roots and rocks that made it hard to maneuver. While the mole could move freely about, the voles were expending lots of energy in a much smaller space.

Eventually, the voles complained.

"Your tunnels are too big," the voles told the moles.

"So what?" said the moles. "You have all of the forest."

"But you took the best dirt," said the voles. "You left us with the roots."

"Not our problem," said the moles.

"You should share," said the voles. "We were here at the same time you were. You pushed us out."

"Ha!" said the moles. "We did all of this work. We made all of these tunnels. Why should you get any of the yard?"

The voles decided they couldn't really argue with that, so they went back to the forest, where they continued to work hard to make their meager, root-filled tunnels and feed their families. They often worked much longer hours than the moles had to in order to find the things that voles and moles eat.

The moles, meanwhile, had plenty of food and did not have to work so hard for it, so they grew rather fat and lazy.

Animosity became quite common and it was not unusual for moles and voles to turn their noses up at each other or show their teeth if they happened to accidentally stumble upon one another near the edge of the yard. Even though both were blind and you couldn't really tell a mole from a vole, each knew that their ideas were better than the others. And so they snarled at one another.

It looked like there would be a big fight. The moles, feeling superior, were sure they would win. They were fatter and had eaten better. The voles, though, were lean and trim, and had strong muscles from tunneling around the roots.

The day before the war, the moles and voles heard a loud noise. A great big machine came bearing down on the yard. To the horror of everyone, the machine was so heavy and the soil so soft that it smashed in all of the great big tunnels. The earth tumbled in on the moles, who were crushed by the soil and the machine.

The voles raced into their tunnels in the forest, fearful of what would come next. The machine rumbled into the woods, too, but the ground was much firmer and harder, and the trees were in the way, so they were safe.

And when the machine left, after a month or so, the voles slowly began to tunnel into the soft dirt in the yard, because they had forgotten the plight of the moles.

"We will live here," said some of the voles,"and we will make our homes very large." And they chased away other voles who also wanted to dig in the soft dirt.

And indeed, in a few months, those voles in the yard were so well-fed that they no longer looked like the voles in the forest. So the voles called them moles.

And the moon went through her phases and the sun danced around the earth, and the world continued on.