Tell me a story.

Ousman asked me to tell him a story. I should specify that this particular Ousman is an adult, and that the request for a story was entirely disconnected from anything we’d been talking about.

 “How are you at telling stories?”
“Telling stories? I don’t know.”
“Tell me a story.”
“Heh! What kind of a story?”
“Any kind of story.”
“Umm…let me think.”

I think.

“Okay, have you heard ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”
“No, I have not heard that one.”
“Okay, there was a little girl…”

Not wanting to learn what the judgment on my story-telling skills would be, I finished "Little Red Riding Hood" and immediately requested that he tell me a story. He hesitated, realized it would be unfair not to, and began.

Here is the story (as told to me in English, as best I can remember):

Once upon a time the rabbit and the hyena decided to go out hunting. And the rabbit said, “But when we get something let’s just keep quiet and then go home and meet here. Let’s not call each other over; we’ll wait until we return.”

Then the hyena began hunting insects, lizards, frogs, grasshoppers, lizards, and this thing, the tortoise. And he filled his bag and went to his house. And the rabbit was hunting cows, lions, deer and honey, you understand? And when he was finished he went home.

The hyena was home and he said to himself, “I know this rabbit was not able to hunt anything” and then the hyena put his bag with the insects and lizards and grasshoppers and butterflies under his bed. And the hyena said, “When the rabbit comes, let me just say that I have not caught anything.”

But the rabbit did not go directly to the hyena’s house. He stopped at his own house first and put the bag with the lions and cows and the honey under his bed and then he went to the hyena. And he asked the hyena, “Now show me what you have” and the hyena said, “I was not able to catch anything. What of you?” And the rabbit said, “Me too, I did not get anything. But I see that you have gotten something because your eyes are shiny.” His eyes were shining as if he had just eaten something. And the hyena said, “No, I was not able to get anything.”

Then the rabbit when home and grabbed the bag with the cows and the lions and the honey and brought it over to the hyena’s house and he opened the bag and the hyena saw all that was inside. And the hyena couldn’t believe that something as small as the rabbit was able to capture all those things.

And the rabbit said, “Now show me what you have because your eyes are shiny so I know you have something.” So the hyena took the bag out from under his bed and the rabbit saw all the insects and lizards that were inside.

The End.