From The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
This is from one of my favourite books.
It has many ACT relevant moments in it, this is just one of them:
The next planet was inhabited by a tippler. This was a very short visit, but it plunged the little prince into deep dejection.
"What are you doing there?" he said to the tippler, whom he found settled down in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full bottles.
"I am drinking," replied the tippler, with a lugubrious air.
"Why are you drinking?" demanded the little prince.
"So that I may forget," replied the tippler.
"Forget what?" inquired the little prince, who already was sorry for him.
"Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head.
"Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
"Ashamed of drinking!" The tippler brought his speech to an end, and shut himself up in an impregnable silence.
And the little prince went away, puzzled. "grown-ups are certainly very, very odd," he said to himself, as he continued on his journey.
I think this makes some nice ACT-relevant points about fusion, experiential avoidance and the futility of avoidance/control strategies.
The tippler is fused with his feeling of shame to the extent that he must avoid it by drinking. However, the costs and consequences of his drinking is further shame that he also fuses with and must avoid, also by drinking.
The tippler is essentially drowning in an alcoholic quicksand. The more he drinks to escape, the more bad stuff shows up, so the more he has to drink to escape a little bit more.
The Little Prince, who is essentially a child who has lived alone and has not been exposed to a verbal community where fusion and avoidance repertoires have fully developed sees this as being very odd indeed.