Challenge 19: Ancient Tale

Father and I enter the bedroom, my glasses slightly sliding off of my face. I push them up as I lie down in my simple bed, a mattress with a blanket and pillow. Simple, and yet I could not help but be satisfied with it. It used to be my father's when he was a child as well, so I feel honored to be using his old bed. I lay my glasses on the table by my bonsai tree as he tucks me in.

Father leans down and kisses my forehead. He rises and turns to leave.

"Father…" I call to him. He turns around and smiles.

"Yes Phoebe?"

"Can you read me a bedtime story?"

He smiles and shakes his head.

"But you're almost 7 years old. Aren't you getting a little too old for a bedtime story?"

"But I get scared and can't sleep without one" I say as I pull the blankets up, my eyes dashing around to shadows and nightmares that my mind was making in my imagination.

Father shakes his head and walks to my bed, sitting on the other end of my bed.

"Well, what story would you like then?" he asks.

"Tell me the one about the sparrow again."

"Again?" sighs Father as he lays down next to me.

"It's my favorite."

He chuckles, "All right."

I bounce up and down. "Oh joy! Oh rapture! Thank you Father!" I hug his neck and then lay down again.

He pulls me closer and begins his tale.

"Once upon a time, there lived a poor old man with his arrogant and avaricious wife…"

"What is avaricious Father?" I interrupted. Father gave me a disapproving look at my interruption. "Sorry Father." I looked down in shame as he answered.

"It means greedy. Please don't interrupt."

I nodded as Father continued his story.

"The old man was honest and kind, but his wife was not. One morning, the old man went into the mountains to cut timber and saw an injured sparrow crying out for help.

Feeling sorry for the bird, the man took it back to his home and fed it some rice to try to help it recover. When his wife found out about the bird, she became annoyed that he would waste precious food on such an insignificant creature. The old man, however, continued caring for the bird.

One day the man had to return to the mountains. He left the bird in the care of the old woman, who had no intention of feeding it. After her husband left, she went out fishing. While she was gone, the sparrow got into some starch that was left out and eventually ate all of it. When the old woman returned and found that the sparrow had eaten all the starch, she became so angry that she scared the bird and sent it flying back into the mountains.

When the old man found out about what his wife had done, he went searching for the bird in the mountains. He eventually found his way into a bamboo grove where the sparrow lived. A multitude of sparrows greeted him and led him to his friend. The sparrows brought him food, sang, and danced for him.

When it came time for the man to leave, the sparrow presented him with a choice of a large basket or a small basket as a present. Being an old man, he chose the small basket because he thought it would be the lightest. When he arrived home, he opened the basket and discovered a large amount of treasure inside. The wife, learning of the existence of a larger basket, scolded the man for not choosing the larger basket and ran to the grove in the hope of getting more treasure for herself. She found the larger basket and stole it from the sparrow.

Greed consumed her as she traveled back home, and soon she could not resist opening the basket any longer. To her surprise, the box was full of snakes, spiders, and demons. They startled her so much that she renounced of her greed and reconciled with the sparrow and her husband.

And they lived happily ever after on the treasure the kind sparrow had given them."

Kyo looked down at his daughter, sound asleep against his shoulder. He smiled and lightly kissed her head. He lightly took her off of him and he rose, trying to leave his little sparrow in her nest.

He silently tip-toed to the door, checking out of the corner of his eye to see Phoebe laying so sweetly in her bed. He opened the door and closed it, leaving Phoebe to dream in peace.

This isn't the original version of the story, I changed it a little to suit the fact that Phoebe's so young in this story. The story is called Shita-kiri Suzume, so enjoy it if you look it up for the original.