The Little Black Fish
By famed fabulist Samad Behrangi
So here we go again, on the third
part of the Li Bla Fi series…
Li Bla Fi thus far [Part II]…
The neighbor
looked at the
little black fish’s mother and cried, “What kind of talk is this?”
The mother fish
moaned, “I never would
have thought that my only child would have turned out this way. What terrible
person has poisoned my darling child’s mind?”
“No one has
poisoned my mind,
Mother,” said the little fish, “but I have eyes to see with and a brain to
understand with”.
Suddenly, the
neighbor said,
“Sister, do you remember the twisted old snail?”
“Yes, I do
indeed,” replied the mother.
“He was always tagging after my dear little child, the devil take him!”
“Please mother,
don’t say that,” the little
fish cried. “He was my dear friend”.
“Well, I never in
my life heard that
fish could be friends with snails,” the neighbor said. “They just aren’t our
kind of people”.
“And I never in
my life heard that
the snails must be the enemies of fish. But you people, in your cruelty chased
him out of our village”, cried the little black fish.
To make a long
story short, the
sound of their argument brought all the fish to the door. The little fish’s
words angered everyone, for no one had ever wanted to leave before.
Li Bla Fi continues…
One old fish
asked her, ‘Do you think we’ll be indulgent with you?’
Another said, ‘She
only needs her ears twisted’.
But the little
black fish’s mother cried, ‘Get away from my child. Don’t touch her’.
Somebody shouted,
‘Lady, when you don’t bring up your children as you should, you’ve got to take
the consequences!’
The neighbor said
solemnly, ‘I am ashamed to live next door to you’.
Someone else
suggested, ‘Before this thing gets out of hand, let’s take her to the judge’.
And so the older
fish tried to catch her but her friends surrounded and led her out of the
crowd. As they were leaving, the mother of the little black fish was flapping
her fins and crying woefully, ‘Good Lord, what can I do? I am losing my little
girl’.
The little fish
called to her, ‘Mother don’t cry for me, cry for these tired, old fish’.
‘Don’t you insult
us, you little punk’, somebody shouted.
‘You will see,’
said another, before long you will be dangling on the line of the fisherman and
what a sorry dinner you will make!’
[For the fishes
of the village, like those in all villages in their stream, were always afraid
of the fisherman. Whenever someone suggested that something should be done
differently, it was said that it was better not to do it because it might get
the attention of the fisherman.]
The old fish
continued hassling her. One said, ‘If you go and regret it later, we won’t
allow you to come back’.
Another chimed
in, ‘These are the follies of youth, don’t go!’.
‘What’s wrong
with right here?’ and old fish grumbled.
‘There’s no other
world,’ shouted another. ‘The world is here. Come back’.
Somebody else was
bargaining with her. ‘If you come to your senses and come back then we’ll
believe that you are really a very wise little fish indeed’.
But the little
black fish knew there was nothing else she could say to them.
Her young friends
accompanied her to the waterfall, to see her off on her journey. ‘Friends, I
hope to see you again’, she said at the top of the falls. ‘Don’t forget me’.
‘How can we
forget you’, they answered. ‘You woke us up from a long sleep. We hope to see
you again, too, courageous friend’.
The little fish
was carried over the waterfall and dropped in a pool below. At first she was
dizzy, but after a few moments she regained her balance and began swimming and
strutting around the pool. She had never seen so much water in one place
before. Thousands of tadpoles were wandering about in the pool. As soon as they
saw the little black fish they began making fun of her saying, ‘Look at her
shape!’ ‘Look at her shape!’ ‘What kind of a creature are you?’
The little fish
sized them up for a moment and spoke. ‘I beg you, don’t insult me. My name is
the little black fish. What are your names? Why don’t you tell them so we can
be friends?’
One of the
tadpoles drifted forward and said, ‘We call ourselves tadpoles’.
Another added, ‘The
keepers of nobility and grace’.
Another said, ‘One
cannot find more beautiful creatures than us in the world’.
‘We are not ugly
and mis-shapen like you are!’
The little fish
just stared at them in surprise and anger. ‘Where on earth have you gotten such
inflated ideas of yourselves? Never mind, I forgive you because you are
ignorant’.
The tadpoles now
became very angry also. They shouted at once, ‘IGNORANT?... you mean… US?’
‘Of course’, the
little fish continued. ‘If you weren’t ignorant, you would have known that
there are others in the world who also regard their own shapes as pleasing’.
Li Bla Fi continues…
image: theguardiandotcom
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