Texts for Translation
  Michael Kerins

YELLOW

The magician was overwhelmed with gratitude and could not understand why his friend would take no reward for helping him sort out the health problems of his young daughter. The girl had been gravely ill she was at deaths door and some of the herbal medicines that the toyshop man had suggested worked so completely that within one or two applications of his potions, the girls health was fully restored. What the magician wanted was to be able to repay him wit some thing of monetary value but there was nothing that the toyshop man wanted or indeed needed. So the magician said, you need money that’s why you have a business,

Yes indeed sir he said but I make enough money from buying and selling toys that it is not right for me to profit from medicine unless I was a trained apothecary or a doctor.

The magician asked, why then are you in business?

To fill the hearts desire of every child said the toyshop man.

The magician thought for a moment and said then, that is what I will give you, I will concoct my potions and you will have every child’s desire as a special item for sale.

Three days later, the magician returned to the shop with a beautiful box, it was large and tall and wide and bright, bright yellow. The lid of the box was attached at one corner by a small soft flexible golden chain. When the lid was lifted, it would never be fully separated because the chain held the lid in check.

In this box, said the magician, is every child’s desire, whatever a child will want, they will find it here, but my dear friend, said the magician, you must sell this at a handsome price because it is not right to have ones hearts desires met on the cheap. What price, asked the shopkeeper? I think around a thousand golden ducats.

The shopkeeper had his display window cleared, a table fully draped with a cream damask tablecloth and matching back panels were the only items in the window. There was nothing else there as the shopkeeper and his assistant carried the box and placed it at an angle on the table. A tiny stand was put to the right of the table and a small card that said, one thousand golden duckets. The toyshop man had flyers made up and they were distributed about the town and people came from all around just to see such a prize. It was not only the most expensive item in his shop; it was the most expensive single item in the whole town. Senior advisors and wealthy ambassadors, men who were fathers and grandfathers came to look at the box. One of them a self important but hugely influential foreigner was the first to look inside the box. Slowly he lifted the lid and he was aghast if not shocked to find the box was completely empty.

His laughter was stilted and awkward. He stuttered and stammered in the way self important men do when they are caught on the hop, but it did not stop him from denouncing the shopkeeper because he laughed louder and in a much higher pitch than usual when he said you are a fool and a disgrace to the noble art of selling toys to children, how can you expect people to pay any money never mind these outrageous amounts, you should be ashamed. It was at this point, that the shopkeeper looked for the first time, inside the box, it was completely empty. He was confused, and cleared the shop and went immediately to the magician’s house. The magician was in the garden, playing with his daughter, the shopkeeper was angry and a little embarrassed. The magician explained that a child’s hearts desire cannot be ignored nor can it be seen so, when someone who is not a child looks in the box, the box appears to be empty, but if a child looks in, the child’s hearts desire will be in full view.

Needless to say, the shopkeeper had to rearrange the display so the children would be able to see inside the box. The next day, the big yellow cube was on a small table in the front sales area and child after child lifted the lid and looked in and ooohhd and aahhd in amazement, sometimes they would whisper just a single word “Dolly” or “Soldiers”, other times and other children would exclaim, “Just what I always wanted, a bicycle!” or they would dance and sing and shout and demand the train set that they could see as their hearts desire. And every time the accompanying adult would look inside, nothing could be seen. So the shopkeeper kept the box for a year and a day and after that time, he went back to see the magician and told him that it was impossible to sell the beautiful box for a thousand golden duckets, could he perhaps reduce the price.

The magician agreed but told him that the box was his and he could sell it for whatever he wanted. The shopkeeper left and on his way back to his business, he wrote and rewrote in his minds eye, the new price tag so that a year and a day after the box went on sale for a thousand golden duckets, a new small card replaced the original card and it bore the legend, 500 Golden ducats At five hundred Golden Ducats, there was a lot of interest, one woman brought her spoiled grandson and told him in front of everybody in the shop that he may have any item at any price and the boy said he wanted a railway set. His granny agreed to this and the boy looked at all of the sets and from the two or three that he chose, his granny interrupted and asked in her loud theatrical voice, what’s the very dearest thing you have in the shop? She really meant, model railways but the assistant pointed out the five hundred Ducat box.

The boy pushed his grandmother to the side, ran over and lifted the lid and everything he wanted was there. And he pleaded with his granny that this was what he wanted. But when she looked in the box, she told him it was a practical joke, there is only a few days left before April Fool’s day and the boy threw such a tantrum that the most practical solution to buy him every train set lay out in the shop was the only way to calm him down. The grandmother, who had other grandchildren but this was by far her favourite, was a good customer of the shop and she remonstrated with the shopkeeper and told him that playing tricks on children and playing with their hearts desires, was a horrible and nasty thing to do.

The shopkeeper tried to explain to the woman that she was in a special place where complaining people go when they will not listen to explanations that are being offered and she said, “if that box is on display in this shop when I come back, I will never shop here again.

The shopkeeper apologised to the woman and there and then removed the box from visible display, he tore up the tiny card and got his assistant to write on a small card the following, special offer, have your child’s heart desire filled, no reasonable offer refused, enquire within.

He then stuck the card in the window and asked the assistant to handle all enquires. Her concern was what was reasonable. The shopkeeper told her, there is no bottom price and after three months the box remained unsold. The shopkeeper was frustrated and his assistant asked if she could buy it, not for golden duckets or even silver sous, she said, may I have this box, but I don’t have much money so may I please pay just two small bronze pennies?

The shopkeeper agreed and the girl said she would take this home for hats and photographs and pencils. When the girl got the box home, there was no possibility that the hats would go inside the box, the hats, as if they had a mind of their own, flew all around the room, they whirled and whizzed.

By Michael Kerins, Storyteller