Dusty: A Short Parable About Family, Respect, Prairie Dogs, and Black Holes

You wanna hear a story? I can tell you one. About a prairie dog, a time travel, and family. You might even learn a few life lessons. I could always surprise you. 😁 I mean it has everything anybody could want! Black holes, time travel, prairie dogs! And you can even say you learned something! It’s a win-win! You hear a story, I tell a story. I know hearing stories is amazing. Trust me, telling a story can be pretty spectacular, fantabulous, awesome, great, and all around nice. Especially if it has a life lesson. Those are the best ones. Makes your English teacher happy. Yeah, telling stories is pretty nice. But enough yapping. Let’s dive into the story of Dusty!

Once upon a time there was a tiny prairie dog named Dusty. He lived in Nebraska, in the year 1995 with his older sister Mae Belle. Mae Belle frequently went out of their burrow because she was a messenger for the Elder. The Elder was the most important figure in the community. Dusty was fascinated by the outside world, but the Elder didn’t let the little prairie dogs leave, because they had not yet learned to protect themselves from snakes, ferrets, and hunters. Every morning, as Mae Belle was leaving, Dusty would try to sneak out with her. He never got very far before he was shooed back inside. It was boring in the burrow, or at least Dusty thought so. To anyone else, however, it would have been fascinating. They learned all sorts of amazing things about nature and tunneling and music and art. Apparently prairie dogs are actually super advanced. Every Friday, the Elder would come to teach. The Elder was teaching about surviving out of the burrows. Dusty couldn't care less about the lesson. He thought he knew everything he needed. He couldn’t care less about the Elder either. He resented him for not letting him leave the burrow. The elder was always kind to him, no matter how rude Dusty was. One day, an urgent call came from the Elder. Mae Belle rushed out of the burrow, not noticing Dusty slipping out behind her. He surfaced into a sea of chaos. Prairie dogs running everywhere screaming about a “flattened flaming tornado whirlpool in the sky”. Wind rushing through the prairie, blowing dirt and grass everywhere. Dust stinging his eyes, Dusty scurried towards where everyone was running from, confident they were overreacting. As he approached, the wind blew stronger. He stumbled into a clearing, and stared, horrified at the sight before him. In the center of the clearing was a black hole, and along with everything in the clearing, he was being pulled into it. He tried to back away, but felt the already irresistible pull strengthening. With one final gust, he flew headfirst into the black hole. He got spaghettified (not comfortable) and suddenly found himself handing a box of popcorn to a finely dressed woman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the year 1920. The lady screamed, and then fainted, seeing he was a prairie dog. “RAT!”, her friend screamed, whacking him with her handbag. He whimpered andscampered into a barbershop. “Hello sir, do you know where Nebraska is?” Dusty asked the barber. Now, seeing as Dusty was a literal prairie dog, the human barber couldn’t understand him. It would just sound like a bunch of chittering. To be honest, the barber probably thought he was going crazy. After staring for a moment, the barber chased him out with a broom. He ran through the streets, cries of “Rabies!” and “Rat!” echoing after him. Rabies was still relatively common in the 1920s. You can’t blame them for being scare. It’s pretty scary, and I’ve never had that threat. You all probably know about the whole “foaming at the mouth” thing but that’s not even the scary part. You can go insane, get insomnia, hallucinate a bunch, and can get like hydrophobic which is the fear of water. You can also get paralyzed. Then you die. Scary. If this interests you you should look it up. It’s really cool, in a scary sort of way. (Hey, if you don’t get any life lessons out of this then you can just say you learned about rabies.) Finally, he curled up, shivering, in an abandoned alleyway. “I’m sorry!”, he cried, “Please forgive me. I should have… I should have listened. I was wrong.” He was on a roll now. “It’s my fault. I should've obeyed you. You knew, you know what’s best for me. Please help me. I’m all alone. Elder, I’m scared. Please help…”, he drifted off to sleep. After what seemed like an eternity, he woke up to whispers coming from somewhere close by. He groaned, turning over in his bed. His bed? But he had fallen asleep on the harsh cobblestone streets. He shot up in bed opening his eyes wide to see Mae Belle, puffy-eyed and crying, and the Elder. They gave a great shout of joy and rose up, hugging and smiling and laughing. Dusty smiled surrounded by family and friends and love. There would be explanations later, of course, but now it was time for joy.

Wowza! I mean, what are the chances. Get sucked into a black hole, come out in one piece, in the same country no less. Learn some life lessons. I mean, I know that basically everything he believed in turned out to be wrong, but he did learn what actually matters, so that has to count for something. Now wait just a minute! Did we just learn something? Yeah, we got to learn some important lessons too! What?! Aww, come on. You know some. Like how we should always respect our elders, remember that? And the most important one, how we can always run back to the Father. And that’s true, you know! Jesus loves you and He will never stop loving you. Ever. “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) God bless!