‘How can we forget you’, they answered. ‘You woke us up from a long sleep'!

Li Bla Fi - 3 or

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