THE SELFISH TORTOISE

Once upon a time, there was famine in the animal land; they had no food to eat. Every animal is for himself competing for survival in the land. Some animals cannot survive the heat of the famine as a result they felt sick and eventually die. Most of they looked like Kwashiorkor, thin and dry. Hunger ravages the land. If any of the animals have some little food, they manage the food little by little until it got finished and they began to search for any thing called food in any way possible .They stole there fellow animal food .that is why every animal is on the look out. Some, who had small food to eat, wrote no visitor at the entrance of their house after the food had been prepared.

          At time, the famine got worst every where was dry there was no pinch of food in the land. Tortoise has been observing that the bird looked fresh and fatter each passing day. He had observe that the bird go out early in the morning when the other animals are still asleep. The bird flew out at that hour to another land to go and eat a lot of food to his satisfaction and come back to their land. So the bird secretly eats food and was not affected by the famine of the land. The bird flew cross ten rivers as the distance was too far from the land.

          So one day, tortoise went to visit the bird, he behaved nice to the bird. When tortoise knocks on the door of the bird, he was sleeping but woke up when he heard the knock and opened the door. He was surprised to see tortoise.

          “Welcome tortoise.” Said the bird.

          “Thank you.” Said tortoise.

          “What brought you to my house?”  The bird asked.

          “You know you are my friend.”

          “Of course.” Said the bird.

          “Please, I want you tell me how you have been getting food and I want to go with you. Said tortoise. The bird smiled. “I will tell you but I want you to keep it a secret.” Said the bird.

          “No problem, I won’t tell any other animal.”

          “Okay. It is far away from this land, we have to cross pass ten rivers before we get to the place.” Said the bird.

          “But how can I get there since I cannot fly?” tortoise asked.

          “You don’t have to worry. I will carry you on my back and fly pass the river to the place and you can eat whatever food that you like.” Said the bird. The tortoise became happy and went away.

Early in the morning, tortoise went to meet the bird and they set out for their journey. The bird carried tortoise on his back and they flew passed the ten rivers. When they got to the place, tortoise eyes became very wide; he saw different kind of food in surplus and was so excited. He ate and ate until his stomach was almost to burst. His greedy senses had wished he finished the food in one day not thinking about another day. When it was time to go, tortoise carried some food along with him. The bird warned him not to carry any food as it will be difficult for them to fly but tortoise refused. The bird told him that he would always carry him to the place to eat food everyday and the other animals would not know how he survived but the tortoise paid deaf ears and did not listen. The tortoise carried a lot of food, he told the bird that how can he go home without any food, that the food is too surplus and wasting in the place. He carried tubers of yam, rice, beans, fruits and oil. As they were about to leave, the tortoise stared again at the food after he had carried much, he stared with his selfish eyes and quickly added some yams to the ones he carried. The bird shakes his head and carried him on the back. They began to fly. The items became too heavy for the bird, he could not fly, and so he told tortoise to reduce the items that he could not fly and the tortoise grumble and threw one of the items into the first river. They continued to fly. The food was still too heavy for the bird, he told tortoise again to reduce and he grumbles and drop another one into the second river.

They kept flying but the bird felt as if nothing was reduced, as he still could not fly properly, the load were still too heavy. He told tortoise again and tortoise grumbled and reduce another one into the third river. The journey continued and the bird was still not comfortable and tortoise threw another food into the forth river. Tortoise was not happy with the reduction of the food; they are getting little in size. He kept reducing the food at the journey to enable the bird fly properly else the bird would refuse to fly or fly without tortoise.

Not until the last river which was the tenth one that tortoise became stubborn and refused to neither reduce nor throw any more of the food into the river. The food had became small compared to what he intended to carry home. The food are still much but he claimed they had finished, as the bird told him to reduce the food, tortoise shakes his head as a sign of no that he would not reduce any more of the food and he refused to reduce it. Left on him was some yams, some fruits and rice. The bird warned him again and he stuck to his words of no more reduction. The bird kept flying very slowly he could not fly properly as the food were still heavy on him and made him to fly in an unstable manner. As he was shaking in the air and flying uncontrollably, tortoise mistakenly slipped off his back and fell from the air to the ground with the whole food. Tortoise fell on a big stone on the ground and crashed his body and he died. He ate the food in his dead world that was the price for a selfish person. He was too selfish and he got what he wanted.

MORAL LESSON

The story taught us that we should not be selfish and stubborn. Tortoise was selfish and stubborn and that was why he died.

QUESTION

1.     How many rivers did they crossed pass?

2.     How did tortoise get to the place?

3.     What happened to tortoise at the end of the story?