An Opossum And A River Otter Welcome Spring

It was a fresh, beautiful spring day and a wise opossum was out for a walk along the river bank. The wise opossum was busy, very busy, sorting out all of the things he had to think about on this day while also keeping an eye out in case he found any berries to eat or fun snacks to uncover.

Joining him on his walk or, more accurately, swimming in the river alongside his walk, was one of the wise opossum's newest friends, Daisy. Daisy was a river otter and she was not only a new friend to the Wise Opossum but she was also a new friend to this world. So far she liked the world a lot, there were lots of things to touch and see and smell but there were still a lot of new things to learn too. That’s why Daisy particularly liked hanging out with the Wise Opossum, he seemed to have the answers to questions that other animals never did seem to have.

The wise opossum hated that the other animals called him this name - The Wise Opossum - This was not the name that the wise opossum called himself. If asked, the wise opossum would tell all the animals in the forest that he called himself William. They could just call him William too. He would have been happy to correct the record if he was ever asked, but no one ever asked.

Today, the question Daisy wanted to ask the Wise Opossum was making her a little nervous. She was nervous because every time she asked this question to any other animal they had told her to, “run along now, no time for foolishness!” Which did not answer her question at all and also made Daisy feel bad.

Still, Daisy thought this question was very important, too important to just forget and run along. So she worked up all the courage that she had before asking it of the Wise Opossum. First, she did all the things she knew for sure that she knew how to do - she swam in a circle, she dove all the way to the bottom of the river, then she counted forwards while swimming backwards and counted backwards while swimming forwards, all just to prove to herself that she could do some things and do them well. Then, she took a deep breath, looked to the Opossum and asked,

“Mister Wise Opossum, sir, why does it feel better to sleep than it does to be awake?”

William had never considered this question before. He agreed, certainly, but he was not sure the exact reason why. “A brilliant question,” William thought to himself, this young river otter has quite a bright future ahead of her. He contemplated her question carefully and took a long moment to respond...

"I assume it's because when we're awake we have chores."

Daisy liked this answer, she hated chores - that much she also knew that she knew for certain, and she's never had to do chores in her sleep, at least not that she remembers. The answer made sense. Daisy loved it when answers made sense.

In the time it took for William to answer Daisy’s question he had stumbled upon a bush of blackberries that were slightly hidden away from view. The berries were delicious and William had already begun to chomp away at them. He called Daisy up from the river to try these particularly delicious berries. Daisy was delighted, she had never had these berries before and they were delicious. The two sat together and they shared a nice snack on the first day of spring.