The Pot of Oil

One day a merchant in the market had a big clay pot full of oil that needed carrying to a shop at the other end of town. “Who will carry this for me?” he called. “I will pay one silver coin.”

“I will!” said Sheikh Chilli, and he lifted the heavy pot onto his head and set off.

It was a long walk, and Sheikh Chilli's mind began to wander, as it always did.

“One silver coin,” he thought. “With one silver coin I can buy a dozen eggs. The eggs will hatch into twelve chickens. The chickens will lay more eggs, and soon I will have a hundred chickens! I will sell the chickens and buy a goat. Two goats. Ten goats! Then I will sell the goats and buy a cow, and the cow will give milk, and I will sell the milk and buy a buffalo.”

He smiled to himself as he walked, the pot of oil wobbling on his head.

“With all that money I will build a fine house with a courtyard and a mango tree. Then I will marry a beautiful wife, and we will have a son. A clever son. Every evening my son will run out to the courtyard and say, ‘Father! Father! Mother says dinner is ready. Come and eat!’”

Sheikh Chilli could see it all so clearly: the house, the courtyard, the little boy tugging at his sleeve.

“And I,” he thought, “will be a very important man by then. Very busy. So I will shake my head like this and say, ‘Not now, son, I am thinking!’”

And he shook his head.

The pot of oil slid off, crashed onto the road, and broke into a hundred pieces. Oil ran everywhere, all over the road and all over Sheikh Chilli's feet.

The merchant came running up, shouting. “You fool! You have broken my pot and spilled all my oil!”

Sheikh Chilli looked down at the mess with tears in his eyes. “You have lost one pot of oil,” he said sadly. “I have lost my eggs, my chickens, my goats, my cow, my buffalo, my house, my mango tree, my wife and my son!”

The merchant was so astonished that he forgot to be angry, and walked away scratching his head.