Once upon a time, there was this foolish traveller, who’d gone on a journey, why was he foolish, well because he was fooled by everyone he met. “Please some money for medicine” said an old lady, and he gave money to her. Everywhere he went people made up all kinds of sad stories to tell him, and the traveller fell for every one of them, “I have a sick younger sister” a little girl said to him, “I don’t have money to buy seeds to plant in my fields” a man said to him, and he gave to them each something of his. Pretty soon his money, his clothes, even his shoes had been cheated away from him, but the foolish traveller was always glad to help, and he always told people the same thing, he said, “I wish you happiness”. But by this point though, the traveller was completely naked, and with nothing left to cover himself, he decided to leave the main road and travel through the dense forest, where no one could see him. But soon he was discovered by the goblins that lived in the woods. The goblins wanted to eat the traveller’s body, so they begged, and they pleaded, and they used kind words to try and trick him, of course, the traveller was fooled, first he let the goblins eat one of his legs, then an arm, then more and more, before it was over, all the traveller had left was his head. He’d even given his eyes away to the last of the goblins, and as that last goblin was eating the traveller’s eyes, he turned and said “Thank you traveller, in return I leave you this present”, what the goblin left was a slip of paper with the word “fool” written on it. The traveller couldn’t see it, he didn’t know what it was, even so, tears began to float of his face. “Thank you” he said, “This is the first present anyone’s ever given me, I’m so happy, I’m so happy thank you”. Even without his eyes, he cried and he cried great tears of joy. Then the traveller died… the smile is still on his face. …I feel so sorry for him, see… lost, hardship, things like that, you can’t really focus on them. The traveller didn’t, he never thought about his own troubles at all, I imagine that it probably does sound foolish to some people, but not to me. I don’t think he’s foolish at all, even though other people would probably think he was being tricked, I don’t think he was, I think he did exactly what he wanted to do… I think more than anything he just wanted to make other people happy.
~ Fruits Basket
Rico*