Broken Sapling

Written by: Abdullah Fazli

Mirdad and Gulab were close friends living in a village. They were always taking their sheep and goats to the pasture together.

One day they took their axes with them and went to the mountainside for cut some firewood. The sky became cloudy and a wind was blowing. Heavy rain turned into sleet. Mirdad and Gulab wanted to hide behind a big tree. They sat under the tree. Meanwhile, Mirdad heard a horrible voice and a big branch of the tree threw Mirdad away. Mirdad cried and went home. His sister, Mariam asked about Mirdad’s worry. Mirdad told her the whole story and added that the tree saved Gulab but it threw me away the sleet hurt me.

The next day, Mirdad and Gulab took their sheep and goat to pasture near the same big tree. Mirdad was very sad. Gulab asked the reason. Mirdad replied that he did not know why the tree was angry with me.

Meanwhile, Gulab’s sheep ran away. Gulab wanted to cut a branch from the tree to hit his sheep but Mirdad prevented him and said that now he remembered why the tree threw him away.

Gulab went near Mirdad and saw that Mirdad was talking to the tree. When Mirdad saw Gulab beside him, he asked Gulab to go back home with him and added that he would tell him what he heard from the tree.

When Mirdad reached home, he started to plant a tree in his house yard. Mariam asked why he is so eager to plant a sapling. Mirdad replied that he was always cutting branches from the big tree and the big tree did let him sit under it during the sleet and the sleet hurt him and the tree saved Gulab. Mirdad promised that he would never cut branches anymore from trees.