A Misunderstood Mime

Jon watched, his brow furrowed in a valiant attempt at interpretive concentration. The villager, a woman with eyes as wide and earnest as a startled fawn, was performing a dance of profound significance. She’d started with a series of frantic, fluttering hand movements, followed by a low, guttural hum that sounded remarkably like a distressed hen. Then came a series of rapid, jerky steps, punctuated by a sudden, alarming squat. Jon, convinced he’d finally cracked the code of this peculiar village, beamed.

“Ah, I see!” he declared, puffing out his chest. “You’re telling me… that the path to the Giggle Gem is guarded by a flock of particularly aggressive geese, and I must, therefore, impersonate a… a particularly aggressive goose to ward them off!”

He launched into his own rendition, which involved flapping his arms with the uncontrolled abandon of a kite in a hurricane, honking with a reedy sound that was more akin to a dying kazoo, and attempting a sort of aggressive waddle that threatened to send him tumbling headfirst into a patch of particularly prickly-looking thistles.