The Minnow and the Moon-Peel

A long time ago in a forest as vast as the great sea, in the river lived a foolish little fish that didn’t even have a name; all the other aquatic creatures called him Minnow. He was always dreaming of things beyond his stream. One day he looked up at the yellow Moon and thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

‘If only I could get near to it,’ he sighed.

Then he saw the golden rays filtering through the river water, and he thought, ‘It is so close!’

He spent months trying to leap high enough to touch the Moon. But as he tried, he only splashed back into the water, wet and shivering.

His friend, a wise old Carp, would say, ‘Minnow, the Moon is not for you. Be content with your clear stream. You are a creature of the water.’

But the Minnow wouldn’t listen. His foolish heart desired the impossible.

‘I just need the right vehicle,’ he said to himself.

One morning, Minnow saw a cluster of bright yellow bananas floating in the river. They had fallen from a passing cargo ship. He was convinced that their colour came from the Moon and that they were his ticket.

‘If I fit inside, the banana’s moon-magic will take me straight to the sky,’ he reasoned.

The foolish Minnow spent days labouring until he managed to partially wriggle into one of the empty banana peels floating near the bank. But as he thrashed in excitement, his frantic movements tipped the buoyant peel up onto the dry, sun-baked mud. Suddenly he was trapped in a terrestrial fruit, a dry and woody husk outside of water. The bright sun, which was not the gentle Moon at all, began to dry his delicate, slick skin. He was trapped in a thing not of his world. As his last gasp of air left him, he saw the deep, cool water below him and realised his folly. He had traded life for a shadow.

The wise Carp swam by, seeing the Minnow, and sighed, ‘He wanted a golden shell, and now he has one.’

The Moral

True contentment lies in appreciating one’s own nature. To desire another’s colour is to lose one’s own life.