Monster

Once upon a time there was a man who strayed, from his own country, into the world known as the Land of the Fools. He soon saw a number of people flying in terror from a field where they had been trying to reap wheat. “There is a monster in that field,” they told him. He looked, and saw that it was a watermelon. He offered to kill the ‘monster’ for them. When he had cut the melon from its stalk, he took a slice and began to eat it. The people became even more terrified of him than they had of the watermelon. They drove him away with pitchforks, crying: “He will kill us next, unless we get rid of him.”

It so happened that at another time another man also strayed in to the Land of the Fools, and the very same thing started to happen to him. But, instead of offering to help them with the ‘monster,’ he agreed with them that it must be dangerous, and by tiptoeing away from it with them, gained their confidence. He spent a long time with them in their houses until he could teach them, little by little, the basic facts which would enable them not only to lose their fear of watermelons, but even to cultivate them themselves.

Told by Michael Cunningham on END OF THE GAME and sent by S. Arun Praksh

Read in an evening with Monsoon.

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