The Old Lady and the Fish Basket
A.Mizera
June 25, 2022
Mindfulness Poems and Stories, Mindfulness Stories
There was once and old lady who lived by the shore.
She made her living by buying fish from the fishermen there and carrying them to the town several miles from the coast, where she set out her stall in the local market, selling fresh fish from her basket. She had good friends at the market, especially the flower seller who had the stall next to hers. These tow old friends would laugh and gossip together all day.
Life was good. There was only one problem – the bandits. The road between the coast and the market town was notoriously bandit infested, and anyone coming home in the dark, especially an old lady who had earned several coins selling fish in the market, was an easy prey for them.
For that reason, the fish seller made sure always to leave the market before dusk so she could get home, to her safe hut by the shore, before it grew dark. The road was safe in the daytime. There were too many people about for the bandits to operate.
One day, though, she got so absorbed in her conversation with her friend, they were having such a good time together, that she quite forgot the time and suddenly she looked up. It was growing dark. “Oh no” she said, “the bandits! I don’t dare to walk home now. What shall I do?”
“Don’t worry yourself, dear” her friend, the flower seller replied. “There’s plenty of room at my place here in town. Come home with me. You can bed down in the room where I store my flowers”.
So the two friends spent a happy evening together – chatting and laughing.
Come bedtime, the fish seller was given a bedroll and a quilt in the flower storeroom and she turned in for the night. But she couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned – there was no comfort to be found anywhere.
And then she suddenly realised – it was the sweet smell of the flowers. That’s what was disturbing her. So she took her smelly old fish basket, with its comforting smell of old fish, put it over her head, and quickly drifted off to sleep.