This is a story from the book of jackals, written for when Sycophant's laughter rings from every screen, when the comfort of received opinion is preferred to the onion-stink of fact.

Man and Jackal differ. A jackal who doesn't love truth doesn't eat, which is not to say That Jackals don't lie.

In the umber savannah, a golden Jackal is just a gilt point in a vast tract of dry brown.

At noon, two Jackal sit under a tree, panting.

The first Jackal: "Have you heard the lion has lost his lust for life? Called Kalila, this wild dog's eyes are hunger. "The Lion sits before a thicket all day, afraid of an infernal noise that whoops out from the branches."

The second Jackal, called Dimna, asks dryly: "And what business is that of yours?"

"I wish to become the king's advisor."

replied Kalila, "I will help him solve the mystery" "The lion will devour you." replied Dimna.

"There was once a man," said Kalila, "who was being chased by a wolf. He tore through fields with the hollow eyed canine close at his heels. The man met a river, raging, jumped right in and made it across without drowning, barely. On the river's far side he found a shepherds hut and leaned on its wall to catch his breath. The wall collapsed and killed him."

"Verily," said Dimna. "He who is born to drown shall never hang." "I was not born to be devoured" replied Kalila, and went off to the lion."

In the pitch dark jungle, a jackal is a small point of golden light.

That evening, Kalila returned to the great tree where Dimna sat. He was in much pain and with a great wound in his side.

"What happened?" asked Dimna.

"I convinced the Lion to let me help him. In the thicket there was a giant ox. It was the ox making the terrible noise.I convinced the ox to follow me back to the Lion. As the ox exited the forest, the lion attacked us both."

Upon seeing the jagged wound of his fellow jackal, Dimna told Kalila the story of the Lioness and The hunter.

"They say that a lioness lived at a river's edge. There she was raising her two

cubs. One day a hunter came and killed her children, and skinned them, and wore their pelts as clothing.

When the Lioness saw what the hunter was wearing, she wept for days, until a curious jackal came upon her.

The lioness told the jackal what had happened, and he asked her if she had not made her life possible through terror, by killing others, by slaying for sport;

if she had not caused the same pain she felt now to countless.

And the lioness agreed with, and realized

the jackal was right, and she became a vegetarian and joined a convent."

• Mario Ariza