Anansi and the Sky-Blue Story Box (part 5)

Anansi climbed down from the tree. He picked up the sticky tangled mess of doll and unseen creature, being careful to carry them away from his body. Then he went home and collected the other items Nyame had asked for. He checked that the leather pouch and the gourd were tied securely to his belt. He made sure that he had a good grip on the log and that the molasses doll had a good grip on him.

The way was long and the climb was very difficult carrying so many things. Anansi stumbled and nearly fell several times. A crowd gathered at the base of his web to watch him, betting whether or not he could make it. Anansi smiled at the attention and put all his effort into climbing his web. He had learned from his first trip not to look down, and it was only due to that knowledge that Anansi finally made it to the top, huffing and puffing to stand again in Nyame Sky-Man’s great hall.

“Anansi,” said Nyame, “are you back so soon?”

“Yes, great Sky-Man,” Anansi said, still trying to catch his breath. “I have the items you asked for.” He presented the items in turn: the spots from a leopard, a hive of hornets, a rainbow python, and finally the unseen creature from the forest, still completely covered in molasses and snoring soundly after its long struggle.

“Very well, said Nyame after he inspected each item in turn. He idly wiped some of the molasses from his hand. “You have made the required price. This is rightly yours.” He lifted the sparkling sky-blue story box from its stand and gave it Anansi. “All the stories in the world are now yours.”

Anansi bowed low. “Thank you, Nyame Sky-Man,” he said. He carried the sky-blue story box to the very edge of Nyame’s hall where his web ended and held it up high so that everyone below could see his victory.

As he did so, his arms still sore from the long climb and the heavy load trembled. Just a slight tremor, but enough that the lid of the sky-blue story box flipped open and all the stories rained down on the crowd. Everybody cheered Anansi’s generosity and scrambled to catch a story for themselves. The rest flew to every end of the earth so that people all over the world had stories.

“Spider Man,” said Nyame with a trace of surprise. “You had every story in the world. They were worth quite a lot, yet you give them away?”

Well, it had been an accident, but Anansi couldn’t very well say so, not with the crowd cheering him below. Instead he just said, “They were mine to keep, so they were mine to give away.”

He went home and placed the empty box next to his bed. All his friends and neighbors came to him and thanked him enthusiastically. Everyone in the village came to listen to him even though they had their stories, and Anansi was quite pleased with himself.

Meanwhile, Nyame thought long and hard about what Anansi had said. The spots the hornets, the rainbow python, and the forest creature were his to keep. They were also his to let go.

Nyame set them all free. They headed straight to Anansi’s house to punish him, but by this time, Anansi had many friends who hid and protected him. Eventually Leopard, the hornets, Rainbow Python and the unseen creature realized that the world with stories was a much better place than it had been before, and they stopped hunting Anansi. They found their own stories and forgot their vengeance.

One day, Anansi sat studying the empty box. It didn’t quite sparkle the same way anymore and its blue wasn’t quite so bright, but it was still pretty enough. “I wish they’d saved me just one story though,” he muttered to himself. “After all that work. That silly crowd let them fly to the winds without saving me one for when I got down.”

Then Anansi heard a hint of a chuckle coming from the empty box. “Oh Anansi, Anansi,” the whisper of the wind said to him. “You still have the box. That is your story – the story of Anansi and the sky-blue story box.”