What We've Got by George Marshall
Once upon a time there was a two headed omnipede who lived in the
blue mist covered mountains. An omnipede, if you’ve never seen one,
looks much like a centipede but with a very distinctive head on each
end. His many feet travel in any direction. They move from one side to
other or forward or backward.
Like all omnipedes, the head that traveled backward often closed its
eyes, otherwise it grew dizzy. There was much that it did not see.
Many times he started on a long journey, though never traveled far
from his home.
“Let us go over the mountains to the green valley below. It would be
so nice to get out of this mist for a while.”
He began his journey, on his many feet, traveling over the blue
mountains to the green valley, but after a time, a shorter or long time,
the head that was traveling backward grew tired of it.
“I’m so bored going backward” he cried, “now it is my time to go
forward.”
The other head, the one that was moving forward, stopped and said,
“well, fair is fair” and off they went in the opposite direction, traveling
over the same ground, but of course, the other way.
Sooner or later, depending on how far they traveled, they came to
their home.
“Shall we stop and have a cup of tea?” One said to the other.
“A wonderful idea” came the refrain.
The tea kettle whistled, the tea brewed and around the great round
table his body curled, so that his two head sat facing one another, all
the better to converse.
The head that had gone backward in the morning when the journey
began, asked the head that had gone forward.
“What did you see today?”
He told him all that he had seen from the first to the last and when he
was done with his telling he asked,
“And what did you see?”
“All of that,” the second one answered,
“But differently.”
-----the end------