Micro Stories by Paulo Coelho

I like Short Stories by Paulo Coelho. I came across these micro-stories (another name for Flash Fiction)- Paulo Coelho's  Stories for Parents, Children and Grandchildren, on a book website and loved them so much, that I instantly wanted to share them here. In the future, this is going to be my referral point. 

Enjoy the stories. He is so good at them!

Rebuilding the world

A father was trying to read the newspaper, but his little son kept pestering him. Finally, the father grew tired of this and, tearing a page from the newspaper - one that bore a map of the world - he cut it into several pieces and handed them to his son. 'Right, now you've got something to do. I've given you a map of the world and I want to see if you can put it back together correctly.' He resumed his reading, knowing that the task would keep the child occupied for the rest of the day. However, a quarter of an hour later, the boy returned with the map. 'Has your mother been teaching you geography?' asked his father in astonishment. 'I don't even know what that is,' replied the boy. 'But there was a photo of a man on the other side of the page, so I put the man back together and found I'd put the world back together too.'

The bugle that drove away tigers

A man arrived in a village carrying a mysterious bugle decorated with red and yellow rags, glass beads and animal bones. 'This bugle can drive away tigers,' said the man. 'From this day forth, for a modest daily fee, I will play the bugle every morning and you will never be eaten by those terrible animals.' Terrified by the threat of attack by a wild animal, the inhabitants of the village agreed to pay what the newcomer asked. Many years passed, the owner of the bugle grew rich and built himself a magnificent castle. One morning, a boy who was passing through the village, asked who the owner of the castle was. When he heard the story, he decided to go and talk to the man.
'I was told that you have a bugle that can drive away tigers,' said the boy. 'But there are no tigers in this country.' The man immediately called together all the villagers and asked the boy to repeat what he had said. 'Did you hear that?' cried the man as soon as the boy had finished speaking. 'There you have irrefutable proof of the power of my bugle!'

Where the monkey puts his hand

I said to a friend: 'It's odd that proverb, "An old monkey never puts his hand in the pot".' 'Yes, but it has its own logic,' he replied. 'In India, hunters make a small hole in a coconut, put a banana inside and bury the whole thing. A monkey finds the coconut, puts his hand in the hole to grab the banana, but then can't get it out because his closed hand is too big for the hole. Instead of letting go of the banana, the monkey stays there wrestling with the impossible and gets caught.' The same thing happens in our own lives. The need to have a particular thing - often something small and useless - ends up making us prisoners of that need.