An ox befriends a jackal who flatters his music, only to be betrayed to a lion. The ending is not neat; it is educational.
The ox discovered song late in life—lowing at dusk to hear the river answer with a copy that sounded older and braver. A jackal, who tempers hunger with compliments, praised the ox’s voice until it grew an inch taller. “The lion loves music,” whispered the jackal, “sing in his meadow and you’ll be famous.” The ox, who had known only yokes and river mirrors, believed the world wanted to listen. He walked to the meadow where the lion kept his naps and sang until birds forgot to judge. The lion woke to a melody he translated as intrusion. He charged. Hooves learned choreography they had never studied; the ox fled, skin scored with punctuation that meant “never again.” The jackal, who had hoped for leftovers, hid in a euphorbia and invented a story about being elsewhere.
Days later the ox healed and did not sing. He watched the river return his silence with another silence and understood that some songs are for private use. When the jackal sidled up with fresh praise, the ox turned his head so slowly the air could keep up. “Your ears are too sharp for my music,” he said gently, which is another way of saying that some audiences are traps. The jackal found new projects, as flatterers do. The lion kept his naps and woke, on occasion, to a different music—hoofbeats running not from danger but toward friends.
The ox did not become cynical; he became specific. He sang again, but only when the river stood by to keep him honest, and never near meadows that mistook art for invitation. When calves asked about his scars, he told the story without making himself the hero or the villain. “I learned where to put my voice,” he said, and the calves practiced humming into cupped hooves until the sound returned to them soft and square like a house they might one day build.
