Mrs. Crocodile Needs to Vent

Mrs. Crocodile sits in Mrs. Piranha's parlor, waiting for everyone to arrive for her weekly women's group meeting. The room was beautifully arranged as always, with the armchairs pulled into a circle around the edges. As she snacks on the river eel and algae rolls her dear friend always sets out for her, she thinks about everything she has to tell Mrs. Piranha. They had so much to catch up on... Mrs. Crocodile was getting bigger every day with the little crocs growing in her belly, and her husband had been up to more of his usual antics. She loved Mr. Crocodile, but sometimes she wondered how he managed before they were married.

"Hello, honey," said Mrs. Piranha as she came into the room, carrying yet another tray of food. "How are you today? Those little guys giving you a hard time?"

"No, not bad. I'm just enjoying getting to eat all these delicious rolls... you know they're my favorite. All of these cravings have been so strange. Just the other day I had the most intense craving for monkey's heart."

"Monkey's heart?! Those pests are impossible to catch, but oh so delicious if you can manage to snag a bite..." Mrs. Piranha had a wistful look in her eye, the same one in Mrs. Crocodile's just a few days ago.

"I know! I could hardly stand the craving anymore, so I sent Mr. Crocodile to go catch me one. There's this monkey that crosses the river every day to get to that little island - - you know the one - - just by Mrs. Anaconda's house? Well anyway, the monkey is quite large, and it only takes two hops for him to reach the little island, because there's this rock right in between the island and the bank he jumps on. So I tell Mr. Crocodile I want some monkey heart, and he puts up a fuss about how hard they are to catch, how he's not as fast as he used to be, all that nonsense. I reminded him of that monkey who jumps to the island to get fruit every day, and he was still protesting... But then I told him if he didn't come back with some monkey heart he could be the one to tend the children when they're born and I'll be the one going out to find food. That scared him well enough."

Mrs. Piranha chuckles and looks over from where she was fussing over the arrangement on the table. "I should think so. Did he manage it?"

"Oh just wait. My dear genius of a husband decides the best way to catch this monkey is to wait until the creature is on the island, and just about to jump back to land. Mr. Crocodile got on top of the rock, apparently hoping the monkey wouldn't notice an entire crocodile, and jump straight into his mouth."

"Oh goodness... You know I'm fond of him, but he's never been the brightest, your husband."

Mrs. Crocodile resettles in her seat, trying to find a comfortable position. "No, but he's been good to me and I can't imagine life with another. Anyway. The monkey of course notices my husband sitting on the rock, and tricks him into making himself known by calling to the rock. The rock. And my husband falls for it, calling back, pretending to be a rock. That facade dropped pretty quickly, and Mr. Crocodile makes it known he's there to catch the monkey. Apparently my husband's reputation preceded him, because the clever pest told him to just open his mouth and wait for the monkey to jump in."

"Oh no..."

"Oh yes. And you know that insufferable thing Mr. Crocodile does when he eats! He opens his mouth as wide as possible and shuts his eyes tight, like he's afraid of his food jumping into them or something. So of course this is what he does, and the monkey just hopped onto his back as if he were the rock, and onto the bank! So now I not only continue to have the most horrible craving for monkey's heart, Mr. Crocodile won't stop saying 'I almost had him! Darn thing BARELY got away' and complaining about his back, which now hurts because the monkey jumped on it."

"You poor thing... I hope Mr. Crocodile heals soon! The last thing you need is a fresh brood of little ones and a husband moaning and groaning about his back."

Mrs. Crocodile just nodded and put on her best definitely-not-enjoying-the-pity face as the other ladies filed into Mrs. Piranha's parlor in the river bank.

Author's Note: I decided to write the aftermath of The Crocodile in the River (From Vanarinda Jataka, in The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers). I thought it would be funny to explore what inspired me for the meme I made in my other post (see below) about Mrs. Crocodile's disappointment at her husband's failure. This is such a common stereotype for married couples - the man doing something foolish and woman just kind of sighing and laughing it off. Normally I would try to avoid such stereotypical or cliche stories, but I've seen this one acted out in real life between different couples so many times that I had to write about it. The Crocodile in the original story gave the impression that he would be exactly the sort of man who regularly gets into things like this, but is also good at heart and just trying to do what he needs to do for himself and his family. This is the kind of story I want to write for my other portfolio - looking at it from the perspective of an unseen or even nonexistent character from the original tale and exploring what the story would have looked like for them.

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