sheep travel in a herd; they hate loneliness. defenseless against predators, unresourceful in finding food and totally willing to accept any form of leadership, be it from the shepherd himself or his dogs, sheep are the epitome of helplessness. they amble around from pasture to pasture grazing, led by the shepherd dogs. the dogs tell the sheep when to leave, where to go, how to get there and the sheep obey; the sheep are otherwise, quite unable to find their way around.

there was a particular sheep. this sheep saw something shiny and pretty and cute one day and got distracted. following this shiny and pretty and cute thing, this sheep got separated from its herd, unknown to the sheep dogs. now, the sheep found itself rather lost. the sheep did the only thing that it could do, that it could think of in such circumstance and bleated, hoping that the sheep dogs would hear it and come for it.

it was dusk, and the sheep was still bleating. finally, the sheep saw an owl.

now owls are quite different from sheep. owls are wise creatures and are quite unaffected by solitude. while owls enjoy the companionship of other wise owls, they relish the times spent a lone as well. whilst sheep feed on grass, owls hunt.

it owl was leaving its nest for the night's hunt. since there wasn't anyone else around, and since sheep are more then happy to be prodded into the right direction, the sheep went and asked the owl for directions to get home. but the owl flew off into the the woods. alarmed, the sheep hurriedly followed the owl into the woods, stumbling and bleating and basically making a din. now the owl was annoyed. this noisemaker that was tailing him was ruining his hunt for the night. he decided to fly swifter to try and lose the noisemaker. propelled by desperation, however, the sheep managed to keep up with the owl, barely. totally frustrated now, the owl confronted the noisemaker. realizing that it was a sheep, the owl asked the sheep to state its purpose.

the sheep began its tale. the sheep dogs it said, guided them and it was happy everyday with grass to feed on... rambling on and on the sheep finally came to the shiny, pretty and cute thing that it got distracted by. then it gleefully started to describe the shiny, pretty and cute thing to the exasperated owl. at long last, the sheep came to the end of its chronicle. it felt a little sad that it cannot continue talking to this owl, that it cannot continue being to center of attraction. the sheep thought. finishing its last sentence of its narrative, the sheep asked for directions to get home.

utterly nettled by the sheep's monologue and nonplussed, since the owl had no idea where the herd was, he told the lost sheep to go back to the clearing where it first saw him, the owl, since the sheep was useless in his hunt for food, only capable of negating the advantage of stealth of his with the racket it was making. it's dark now, and traveling isn't safe for sheep at night. the owl said. tomorrow, in the morning, it'd think of a way to get this lost sheep home. then it took off, eager to carry on with his deferred hunt.

the sheep, horrified at the prospect of being alone, ignored the owls suggestion and decided to follow after it. in its mind, the sheep wasn't going against the owl's recommendation by not going back to the clearing. the sheep thought that it was following the leader, in the literal sense of the word, since it had been brought up to follow the sheep dogs wherever they go.

now indignant that his hunt was being disrupted so spectacularly, the owl confronted the sheep again, telling it once again to go back to the clearing. the lost sheep refused. losing its cool, the owl said that the sheep was not very bright, it was feeble and was a nuisance. the owl told the lost sheep, in no uncertain terms, to get lost.

hurt, the sheep went off on its own. then, it met a rabbit. a sympathetic rabbit that would listen to the sheep speak. the sheep whined to the rabbit about the owl. about how the owl flew so fast that it nearly couldn't keep up, about how tiring it was to follow the owl, about how the owl wouldn't talk to it as it was following him through the woods. astonished, the rabbit exclaimed, "but owls are predators! they feed on us rabbits, and are the antagonists of the woods! why were you with someone like that?".

agreeing that owls are indeed forest bullies, the lost sheep decided to stay with the nice rabbit. adopting the habits of a rabbit, the lost sheep started eating carrots and hopping (unsuccessfully) around.

one day, a pack of foxes came. the rabbit shot into it's burrow and into safety, but the lost sheep realized that it couldn't fit into the small burrow, made for a true rabbit.

and so the lost sheep was no more.

evey hammond: artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.
-from V For Vendetta