Percival Panther had always possessed a magnificent memory. He knew every path through the forest, every comfortable branch and precisely where he had hidden anything worth eating.

Then his thoughts began playing tricks on him.

One morning, Percival padded purposefully towards the river. Halfway there, he stopped.

“Where am I going?”

A passing tortoise looked up.

“You’re going towards the river.”

“I know where I’m going,” said Percival. “I can’t remember why.”

Things deteriorated.

He began sentences that never reached their destination. He buried lunch beneath a baobab tree and spent the afternoon searching beneath an acacia. Once, he stalked a particularly suspicious-looking rock for twenty minutes before remembering that rocks rarely required stalking.

The other animals offered advice.

“Concentrate harder,” trumpeted Elephant.

“Write everything down,” hooted Owl.

“Eat more bananas,” suggested Monkey, who recommended bananas for almost everything.

Percival tried concentrating harder. His head hurt.

He tried writing things down but misplaced the leaves.

He declined the bananas.

Eventually, Percival stopped trying to force his thoughts into behaving themselves.

He scratched important reminders onto a stone beside his den. He followed familiar routes. He did one thing at a time and rested beneath his favourite tree when his thoughts became foggy.

The forgetfulness didn’t disappear.

But the frustration began to.

One afternoon, Percival was sitting beneath his tree when Tortoise passed.

“Lost your thoughts again?”

“Possibly.”

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

Percival considered the question.

“Not as much as it used to. They usually come back eventually.”

He smiled.

“And if they don’t, I’ve written the important ones on that stone.”

Tortoise looked at the empty stone.

Percival stared at it.

“Ah.”

He glanced towards the river.

“I knew there was something I meant to do.”

Moral

When thoughts disappear into the fog, sometimes the wisest path is the one you’ve marked behind you.