Of Eagles and Bugs

A hare was running for his life across a field while a wide, dark shadow was hovering above him. It wasn’t a cloud covering the sun, it was an eagle and it had been pursuing the small hare for quite a while now.

The hare kept changing directions and skipping about the obstacles in the field to make the hunt as difficult as possible. He darted this way and that, trying to get away.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t escape the eagle’s grip and soon the bird held him tightly in his huge claws. As the eagle took off into the sky, the hare knew his days were numbered. There was no hope of escape now, and even if there was, the little hare could never survive the fall from such a height.

All of this time, a small brown bug had been watching them from a distance. He had long been a friend with the hare and they had agreed to protect each other, even though the hare couldn’t imagine how such a tiny bug could ever protect him from anything! But now the time had come for the bug to show where his strengths lay.

He shouted as loudly as he could at the eagle in the clouds: “You’d better take that hare right back down to the ground! He’s under my protection!”

But the eagle only laughed at him. He had no intention to let the hare live. The teeny bug was furious. He made his way to the tree where the eagle nested, climbed all the way up to the nest, and while the eagle was gliding through the sky with the hare, he pushed the bird’s eggs from the branch.

One by one they fell to the ground and cracked and splatted. When…