Once upon a time, in the garden of paradise, there lived a boy. He had never met another boy, or another girl before. In fact, he had never seen another human being before. That was how he lived his life, protecting a grove. His greatest wish was to have another human friend, but that was not to be.
He had been given one task – to take care of a leper. The leper was a violent, nasty creature that defiled all animals that came in his path, but would take great pains to ensure that the animals were comfortable. So the boy didn’t understand the leper was a human being until the day he stared into the leper’s eyes. They were human, and they revealed the leper’s story in a way no words ever could. The leper’s disease was a divine punishment for a sin that could not be forgiven.
The next day, the boy woke up to find his skin peeling, and a passing bird gave him a queer feeling that he had never felt before. He was torn, because he realised the sin would be upon him if he continued his task. But as he approached the leper, a foul smell overcame him. With a sigh of relief, he buried the creature, thankful to have fulfilled his task.
His next task was to take care of a pair of weasels. They were such boastful, deceitful creatures. Every action they took was only to demonstrate how weasels surpassed all animals in beauty and wisdom. Once, the boy believed the weasels, and shooed away an injured dove who came to rest in his grove. The weasels had said that no other creatures were fit to lie in the grove but them, so this false belief caused the boy to send the bleeding dove on his way. The weasels praised him, for this was exactly what they wanted, to keep their domain to themselves.
But the next day, the boy smelt something familiar. He buried the dove, and the weasels knew that their own selfishness had caused the death of another. The boy could no longer trust the weasels, and he wanted to leave. But on the day that he wanted to ask his Creator for permission to leave his task, he found the weasels had gone. They had fled out of guilt, and were never to be seen again. The boy sighed in relief, thankful to have fulfilled his task.
So the Creator gave him a gift for being steadfast in his tasks. He gave the boy a pair of duck siblings, and a caretaker. The caretaker would show the boy how to care for the ducks, since he had never seen such creatures before. The boy was overjoyed with what he received, for the ducks had pristinely white feathers and golden beaks. The caretaker showed him how to keep the feathers pure and the beaks gleaming, and together they kept the ducks beautiful. Brother and sister, the two ducks were the grandest of all birds. The boy and the caretaker were proud of their work.
Until one day, the boy caught the ducks in an act of passion. But though the ducks said it was passion, he knew it was defilement – he had seen how the leper behaved with other animals. He knew that brother and sister could not consummate like that, and it pained him to see them in the act. The ducks knew of the boy’s task, and threatened to tell the Creator that the boy had forsook his task if he ever interfered with their love again. The boy kept it a secret, but the caretaker knew as well. And so the ducks continued their defilement.
One day, an orange appeared. The orange spoke to the brother, and angered the sister with her revelations. For while the brother had claimed he feasted on oranges, in truth he had defiled the oranges as well. He defiled this one orange so much, and put so much life into her that she, indeed, came to life. The orange caused disharmony among the ducks, the boy, and the caretaker. And the once beautiful ducks began to lose their sheen.
The boy cried in despair when he saw how far the ducks had fallen. Their feathers had turned putrid from their constant defilement, their beaks were scarred from their unnatural acts and the words they spoke were no longer that of the grandest of the birds. The boy had spoilt the gift that the Creator gave him, and the caretaker tried very hard to comfort the boy.
It was that night that the ducks and the orange decided to cut down the tree that the boy slept beneath. They fashioned an axe and cut the tree down. But the caretaker woke up, and confronted the three creatures. A violent struggle ensued, and the boy woke up as well. The brother, not willing to let his plan go to waste, swung the axe at the boy instead. The caretaker took the blow instead, and fell. The boy was livid, and pulled the axe from the caretaker, ready to destroy what the Creator had given him. The ducks and the orange fled into the boughs of the tree for protection. In their panic, they forgot that the trunk was weakened, and the tree fell, crushing all three creatures.
The boy knelt down, and apologised to the Creator for the death of the ducks, for the destruction of the gift that he had been bestowed. He had spoilt the gift, and it was an unforgivable sin.
The Creator looked down upon him, and smiled.
“My child, the ducks were not the gift. The caretaker was. Your greatest wish was always to have a human friend, and you did. You had a friend who was willing to give up living so that you could, and that is the greatest gift that a human can give another.”
The Creator raised the caretaker, and then the boy understood what the gift was.
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