Deep in the jungle there lives a family of apes. On the
outside they seem to be the typical family. The father goes to work every day
picking bananas out of trees on the assembly line. The mother stays home with
her two precious twin boys. They seem to be an all around normal family. What
nobody else sees though is that one of the twins receives more favor than the
other. Jake and his twin Blake never really did get along. They fought and
wrestled and threw bananas at each other’s heads every chance they got.
Somehow, Blake always got away without any punishment, while Jake got banished
to the highest spot in the tree.
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| Baby Apes FromPixabay |
Jake and Blake followed similar paths until they reached the
age of college. They needed to learn what kind of jobs they wanted to do so that
they didn’t have to work the assembly line like their father. Jake had always
excelled at school, while Blake had a little more trouble. This never affected
Blake’s grades though, seeing as his mother would just do the work for him.
Jake had to learn for himself, and in the meantime he became very independent.
This is why when the twins got to college Jake was right at home. He made a ton
of friends, and was doing better than ever in all of his classes. Blake on the
other hand was failing miserably.
After a few months Blake couldn’t handle the work. He had
never had to do so much in his life! He didn’t know how to manage his time or
even how to do most of the work at all. He decided he would go home to mommy,
and she would fix everything like she always did.
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Two years later Jake was graduating early from college with
honors. He had so many job offers he didn’t know which to take. He also had the
perfect girlfriend, who was soon to be his wife. His life couldn’t be going
better, much to his mother’s annoyance. Blake on the other hand was the
complete opposite. He was still living at home, and his mother still babied him
to no end. He didn’t have a job, and did not seem to be wanting to get one
anytime soon. His mother was getting fed up with him, and couldn’t handle him
always being home. She decided it was time for him to leave the nest whether he
was ready or not. Blake was kicked out of his home, and was not allowed to
return.
In the end Blake ended up scrounging for food, and for
places to stay. He never really could function in society because everything
had been done for him. He had no work ethic. His brother, Jake, ended up
becoming the leader of the tribe, and going down in history for being one of
the best. He had taken all of his frustrations of never being good enough, and
turned them into success.
Author’s Note: I wrote this story based on The Ape and Her
Two Brats. In the original story she favors the one twin, and when terror
strikes she puts her favorite under her arm to carry him, and the other on her
back. As she heads down the tree her favorite’s head is smashed against a rock,
and ends up dying. She is left with the other child. I wanted to take this not
so literally, and show that it ended up hurting her to favor the one child. It
was worse in the end for the one she loved the most, and she saw that the other
went on to succeed despite her own role in holding him back.
Bibliography: An Ape and her Two Brats from Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists by Roger L'Estrange (1692).
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