Wong Ping's Fables 1 brings together three disparate short stories: In the first, a turtle reminisces over the time he met his elephant partner while waiting for her to join him for food. Recalling multiple problematic aspects of their affair, including believing she was blind and being caught sniffing other women’s lingerie, to appropriating religious iconography as a fashion choice, the scene strikes a surrealist tone when they eventually meet and share some food. The next, a chicken’s Tourette syndrome is described in frank and somewhat ableist terms, but a story of the chicken's desire to transcend the limits imposed upon him by society is celebrated socially and he becomes an internet celebrity. Joining the police force and giving them a better reputation for inclusivity, he balances his live internet streaming activity with his important life-saving work. On one particularly high stakes rescue mission, to save a family from kidnappers, his physical tick, triggered by low viewer numbers on his live social media feed, causes the team to be ambushed. This results in great loss of life; the rescuers and victims are killed and only himself and his media crew survive. In the final story, tree boy overcomes a series of immoral, taboo and violent intrusive thoughts concerning a cockroach and a pregnant elephant who are both sharing his bus ride. This is achieved by seemingly communicating with the cockroach via telepathy to learn more about their own life experience. In the end, tree boy ponders if telepathy is possible at all and whether he really did have a dialogue with the insect. Each fable concludes with an intertitle that reads as a somewhat cryptic moral lesson.