Bertolt Brecht, revisited
There is one particular story in Stories of Mr. Keuner that I want to put up here. I wrote about Bertolt Brecht’s book of short stories in an earlier post, but I forgot to mention one of my favorites:
Mr. Keuner and his niece’s drawing
Mr. Keuner looked at the drawing his little niece had made. It depicted a hen flying over a farmyard. “Tell me, why does your hen have three legs?” asked Mr. Keuner. “Hens can’t fly, of course,” said the little artist, “and so I needed a third leg to give it a lift.”
“I’m glad I asked,” said Mr. Keuner.
There is something quite breathtaking about the way children think. I often find that when I am speaking to a child, my brain has moments of complete upheaval- a very healthy exercise I believe. The last toddler I spoke with told me she was a horse. I asked her what kind of animal I was- she told me she didn’t know. I offered a suggestion: how about a raccoon? She told me that I could not be a raccoon, because horses are allergic to raccoons and, obviously, she wasn’t having allergic reactions.
After that she proceeded to bludgeon me with a pillow.
-Tom