by Antonio Napoli
On a full moon night, a young man from an African village wandered, burdened by the need to be esteemed by others.
“If I had wisdom and good judgment, I wouldn’t feel as if my head were broken, as others say about me.”
He was walking with his head down when his path was blocked by a sorcerer who walked on his hands and lived in the forest. Seeing him reflected in the moonlight of his torment, the sorcerer questioned him. Then, he picked up an old milk bucket from the ground, its bottom pierced, with a frayed bamboo cord, and cast his spell upon it.
“What you gather in this bucket will make others reconsider their opinion of you. But know this: only an intact bamboo cord will allow you to lift it.”
The young man went to the well to draw water, and despite the bucket’s holes, the water did not spill. He filled it to the brim: “If it doesn’t fall from below, the water won’t overflow,” he thought. And so it was, but the bucket was too heavy.
As he walked home, suddenly the strap gave way, and the bucket fell, spilling its contents into a hollow in the clay path. The boy widened his eyes: trembling among the tiny ripples of that puddle, the moon appeared, seemingly trapped. He raised his gaze to the clear night sky: the moon was gone—had it truly fallen? But, preoccupied with other matters, he picked up the empty bucket and continued his wandering, even more confused.
The night air vibrated with a lament rising from the puddle. The young man retraced his steps.
“Come, gather me with the bucket and return me to the sky,” said the moon.
“And how could I do that, if I don’t even know how to repair this bamboo strap?” he replied, showing his difficulty in tying a firm knot.
“Fetch the water with the magic bucket and pour it over the roots of the great baobab. I will use that tree as a ladder to climb back into the sky.”
But the young man could not lift the bucket; only then did he understand the spell of the strap. He was confused and powerless and asked for help. The moon gifted him a broken mirror.
“Cracked mirrors are special: they reflect not only what we are now but also what we could be, deep within, in the future. Use the mirror to mend the broken strap: just bring it close to the mirror, and you will see it whole. Your gaze into the mirror will be like the very being of what you do not expect.”
It happened just as the moon had said.
The young man gathered the water that had not been absorbed by the clay and poured it around the nearby baobab. Then he lifted his gaze: among the tree’s branches, he glimpsed the moon climbing like a serpent, returning to the firmament.
From the sky, the moon guided the young man, his eyes lifted high, to understand things just as lofty and difficult.
“I am constantly falling toward the earth,” the moon explained. “But everyone is too distracted to see it, this fall of mine: they are awake, yet it is as if they were sleeping. And if they do see the moon fall, they say they are dreaming.”
“And why do you fall, O gracious moon?” asked the young man, feeling dizzy at those words.
“So that each may know the truth about themselves, learning to see in reality what seems possible only in dreams,” was the reply.
“And why didn’t you return to the sky on your own this time?” the young man asked.
“It is the sorcerer’s doing. He is powerful, and he cast a spell on me—perhaps to help you. Because the moon, as I told you, does not return to the sky without giving something to men and women.”
“Am I to believe that the sorcerer is so powerful that he can even change how people judge me?” the young man asked, his voice filled with yearning.
“He is powerful, the sorcerer, especially because he speaks the truth about others. The truth that walks on its hands—the one that makes people reconsider—not the truth that walks on its feet, masquerading as such.”
The moon bid him farewell, expressing gratitude to the young man and reminding him that the mirror would help him find the difficult truth of things. The young man smiled, convinced that he had accomplished something extraordinary.
Back home, he found his father sitting on the doorstep, waiting for dawn. With a thirsty expression, the man said, “Give me some water.” The boy lowered his head and showed the empty bucket.
“The bucket is full of holes,” he excused himself. “But I saved the moon!” and he recounted what had happened.
The father sighed. “My son, you should have brought a good bucket when going to the well. But on the road of your life, there is no moon to light your way… What will become of you?” he concluded, letting out a long sigh.
His mother, entering the kitchen, stroked his head and kissed him. She alone believed in him, in his words, in his dreams. She had never doubted him. And she never would.
The tale of the boy who had saved the moon spread throughout the village, and his reputation worsened: he became the target of cruel jokes. He felt even more disheartened.
Meanwhile, a serious problem afflicted the village. No one dared to harvest the bananas: among the bunches lurked the green mamba, and fear made people believe it was hiding in every tree. Who would dare challenge fate?
One morning, the mother went to wake the boy and handed him a broken mirror. He rubbed his eyes, looked into the fractured reflection, and saw in himself a bold courage. Then he lifted his gaze and found in his mother’s eyes that silent light that had always sustained him in moments of despair.
He decided to capture the snake with what he had: a broken mirror and a broken bucket. But how to discover in which tree the dangerous mamba was hiding?
He raised the mirror toward the forest, as if he could peer beyond its cracked surface. To his astonishment, among the reflections, he spotted the tree and its venomous occupant.
Without hesitation, he climbed the banana tree. Armed only with a thin bamboo cord, sinuous like a snake, he swung it in the air to lure the mamba, which was in its mating season and mistook the cord for another serpent.
The mamba fell into the bucket and, in its struggle to escape, tried to push its head through the hole in the bottom. But it became stuck, and as it writhed in fear and rage, it lost all its venom, which dripped to the ground, drop by drop—just like the old proverb says: “As long as the milk bucket is pierced, it drips.” The mamba was now harmless.
Everyone was astonished at the scene. And among the murmurs, someone whispered, “But isn’t that the boy we used to mock? Could it be that he, of all people, dared to challenge the deadly mamba? How much we ignore in our disbelief!”
From that day on, the young man was treated with admiration and great respect. With broken things, he had saved the village, earned a good reputation, and taught everyone not to trust appearances—because often, what seems useless or fragile hides an unsuspected power.