The Flying Trunk

The Flying Trunk

Once there was a wealthy merchant who understood money better than anyone in his town. He bought wisely, sold honestly, wasted nothing, and over many years built a considerable fortune. When he died, everything passed to his only son. Unfortunately, the son was nothing like his father. He loved whatever was bright, noisy, and expensive. He gave parties, bought things he did not need, entertained people who called themselves his friends, and never thought about tomorrow. One year passed, then another. Money vanished as though his bag of coins had a hole in it. One morning the young man looked into his money box and found only a few coins at the bottom. His friends had vanished too. “How strange,” he said. “There were plenty of them when I gave feasts. Now there's nobody.” Only one old acquaintance felt sorry for him. He sent a wooden trunk with a note: “Pack your things and make a new start.” The young man laughed sadly. “What things? I've hardly anything left.” He opened the trunk, sat inside, and joked: “Well, then, I'll pack myself.” As soon as he pressed the lock, the trunk shuddered. Then it jumped. Then it flew straight upward. “Oh!” was all he managed to say. The trunk swept over the rooftops, above the bell towers, above the clouds, and away over fields, forests, and sea. The young man peered through a crack. “Now that's a present!” A few hours later, it landed in a forest near a great city in a distant southern country. He hid it under branches and went to explore. Above the white houses rose a palace, with windows high up near its roof. “Who lives there?” he asked a passing woman. “The king's daughter,” she replied. “Her parents are very protective. Someone once foretold that a careless suitor would bring her great sorrow, so the princess receives hardly any visitors.” The young man immediately thought of his flying trunk. That night he returned to the forest, climbed inside, and flew straight to the high palace window. The princess was astonished by a visitor who had arrived from the sky. “Who are you?” He hesitated. He had often enjoyed exaggerating, but this time he decided not to invent more than he needed to. “A traveler brought here by a magical trunk,” he answered. “And surely the luckiest traveler in the world, now that I've seen you.” The princess laughed. “At least you're more interesting than half the people at court.” They talked for a long time. He was good at making up stories, and she loved listening. He told her of cities he had never visited, fish wearing golden crowns, and trees that whispered to the moon at night. “Come on Saturday,” she said. “My parents will be having tea with me. If you want them to like you, tell them a story. Mother likes stories with meaning. Father likes ones that make him laugh.” The young man returned to the forest and began to think. Inventing the right story was much harder than spending his father's money. He walked among the trees, sat on a stump, stood up again, began one tale, and abandoned it halfway through. At last he had an idea. On Saturday he flew to the palace. The king and queen were waiting. “Well, traveler from the sky,” said the king, “what will you surprise us with?” The young man bowed. “I'll tell you about a kitchen where, one evening, every object decided it was the most important thing in the world.” And he began. A box of matches lay on a shelf. The matches were extremely proud of their ancestry. “We come from an ancient forest!” they said. “Our ancestor was a tall fir tree. We were made to bring light!” Beside them stood a heavy iron pot. “Light is all very well,” it grumbled, “but try cooking supper without me.” A jug declared that no one could live without water. The kettle considered itself the most musical, because it could whistle. The coal tongs boasted of their dancing, and an old brush insisted that without cleanliness no kitchen deserved a kind word. Their argument grew louder and louder. “Let's have a competition!” cried the matches. The jug told a story. The tongs danced. The kettle attempted a song. Even the wood basket delivered a long speech about how everything ought to be reorganized. Just then a maid entered the kitchen. Every object fell still. She took a match, struck it, lit the fire, and placed the pot on the stove. The match flared brightly. “See?” it seemed to say. “I really can bring light.” A moment later, its flame went out. Meanwhile the pot heated the water, the kettle waited its turn, the jug stood nearby, and the brush lay beside the door. And if the kitchen things could have drawn a lesson, they might have realized that each was useful in its own way. Arguing about which mattered most was simply silly. The queen smiled. “That story has something to say.” The king laughed aloud. “And I liked the kitchen! Especially the kettle.” The princess looked at the young man so happily that he felt like a real storyteller. The king and queen agreed that the young couple could marry if they still wished to, and a wedding day was set. On the eve of the wedding, lanterns decorated the whole city. The young man wanted to do something extraordinary too. He bought fireworks, put them in the magical trunk, and rose into the night sky. Gold, silver, and green lights blossomed above the city. People ran into the streets, pointing upward. “Look! The sky is celebrating!” He flew above the rooftops, thoroughly pleased with himself. Then he returned to the forest, left the trunk beneath a tree, and went into town to hear what people were saying about his display. He heard dozens of wonderful explanations. Someone had seen a fiery bird. Someone else had seen a ship made of stars. Another person insisted the moon itself had come down closer. The young man laughed. Tomorrow I'll return to the princess, he thought. After the wedding, we'll fly anywhere we please. But when he reached the forest, all was quiet. The trunk was gone. Only a heap of ashes remained. One little spark from a firework had stayed inside and slowly set the dry wood alight. The young man sat on the ground. For the first time, he truly understood that carelessness had a price. The magical trunk had given him a second chance, and once again he had failed to take care. Now he could not reach the palace. The high window remained far above the ground. The princess waited on the roof for one day, then two, then three. The young man set off on foot. He had neither his fortune nor his flying trunk. But he still possessed something he had scarcely valued before: the gift of telling stories. From then on, he traveled from town to town, earning his living with tales. People laughed, wondered, thought, and asked: “Tell us another.” And whenever he began the story of a magical trunk, he remembered the princess and the evening when the sky had blossomed with fireworks. He always ended with these words: “The most precious gift can be lost in one careless moment. So if life gives you a second chance, take better care of it than I took of my flying trunk.”

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨