The Parable of the Damaged Deer

Josh lives.  Josh walks.  Josh breathes.  Josh speaks. 

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, why is it that Israel is Israel, and Palestine is Palestine, when Isreal is plainly Palestine and Palestine is clearly Isreal?”

Josh spoke thus:

There was a man who walked into a shop in a town, and in this shop were deer.

These deer were dead.  These deer were stuffed.  Some were mounted on plaques that hung from the walls, just their heads.  Some stood on wooden plinths.  Some sat.  Some balanced on two hind legs, others bowed on folded forelegs.  All were incomplete.

All, of course, were disemboweled.  They were stuffed.  I do not mean they had no viscera when I say they were incomplete.

The mounted heads, of course, were disembodied.  But all those deer with bodies had bodies with body parts not there.

Some had no heads.  Some no tails.  Some were missing midsections--just fronts and backs, with no middles, placed the proper distance they would be apart were their middles not missing.  Some lacked forelegs, some rear feet.  Some had fronts but no backs.  Some were backs with no fronts.  They were an incomplete grouping.

Behind the counter of this shop stood a shopkeeper.  A complete shopkeeper.

“Why do you mutilate these deer?” the man asked the shopkeeper. 

“I do not mutilate the deer,” the shopkeeper replied, “I am a shopkeeper.  The deer man brings me the deer.”

“Why does the deer man mutilate the deer?” the man asked the shopkeeper.

“The deer man doesn’t mutilate the deer,” the shopkeeper replied, “These deer are mutilated before the deer man rescues them.”

“From what does the deer man rescue the deer?” the man asked.

“The deer man rescues the deer from meaningless death,” the shopkeeper told the man, “These deer were not food for the hungry pack.  These deer were not trophies for the sporting game man.  These deer were slain by cars.”

“They’re roadkill?”

“When the deer man found them, they were roadkill.  Now they are beautiful art.”

“Weird art.”

“It is a difficult thing to make beauty of roadkill.”

“Why roadkill?” the man asked, as the shopkeeper wrapped the man’s purchase.

“You mean, why not songbirds?” the shopkeeper offered, “Why not pheasants, why not grouse, for example?”

“For example,” the man agreed, “Why not butterflies?”

The shopkeeper replied, “Have you seen what happens to a butterfly when it’s hit by a car?”