Once upon a time, deep in the rocky hills of a wild forest, there lived a wolf named Winston. Now, Winston was an ordinary-sized wolf. But he had an extraordinary imagination.
One beautiful summer evening, Winston crawled out of his cosy stone lair. The air was cool, the first stars were beginning to twinkle, and Winston was in fine spirits indeed. He stretched his long legs, let out an enormous yawn, and noticed that his stomach was rumbling. He had an excellent appetite, and he was ready to go and hunt his dinner.
As he set off down the mountain path, the sun was setting directly behind him, hanging low and pouring warm golden light across the ground.
Winston happened to glance down at his side — and he stopped dead.
Because the sun was so low, it threw his shadow far, far out across the valley. And what a shadow it was! It stretched over rocks and climbed up bushes and made him look a hundred times bigger than he really was. To Winston’s eyes, it looked like a monstrous giant, as tall as a pine tree.
The Giant in the Mind
Winston gasped. He rose up on his tiptoes. The giant shadow rose up on its tiptoes too. He shook his head, and the giant shadow shook its head with him.
“Why — look at me!” Winston exclaimed, and his voice filled with sudden, enormous pride. “Look how big I am! I am not merely a wolf. I am a giant. I am the biggest beast in the whole forest!”
He began to march down the path with his chest puffed out. He forgot all about hunting for rabbits. His head was full of grand and foolish thoughts.
“To think that I have spent my entire life running away from that puny little lion!” Winston laughed, and let out a haughty howl. “AOOOOO! How ridiculous! With a body as massive as mine, I should be the one ruling this forest. I shall march straight up to the lion tonight and show him which of us truly deserves to be king.”
Winston was so busy admiring his magnificent shadow — so taken up with how long and dark his legs looked stretched across the grass — that he stopped paying any attention at all to the real world around him.
He did not hear the rustle in the dry leaves. He did not catch the heavy scent of another hunter close by.
The Reality of the King
Suddenly, the golden light was blotted out.
An immense shadow — a real one — fell across the path and swallowed Winston’s silly one entirely. The air went perfectly still.
Winston blinked. And before he could even turn his head to see what could possibly be casting such a shadow, a real, breathing giant stepped out from behind a boulder.
It was the lion.
The lion needed no setting sun to make him look large. He was massive all on his own, with a thick heavy mane, muscles like blocks of stone, and eyes that flashed like gold. He looked down at the boasting wolf, who was by now trembling so hard that his paws shook against the ground.
The lion raised one enormous paw and struck him down with a single blow.
BAM!
Winston tumbled into the dust with his head spinning and his ribs aching. And as he lay there looking up at the towering, real-life king of the forest, his foolish dream of being a giant popped like a bubble.
The Silent Retreat
The lion did not even trouble himself to roar. He simply looked at the shivering little wolf with disapproval, shook out his heavy mane, and walked away majestically into the trees.
Bruised and battered, Winston got slowly back onto his feet. His magnificent shadow was gone now, swallowed up in the dark, quiet night. He tucked his tail between his legs and scurried home to his little lair, having learned that a long shadow on the ground does not make you a king.
The Moral of the Story: Do not let your imagination make you forget what is real. It is a fine thing to dream big — but never let your wishes blot out the world in front of you. Believing you are something you are not leads only to a very hard fall.