A Folktale from America

WHY THE SKY IS SO HIGH

By Endang Firdaus

Long time ago, the sky was quite low. If we stood on a stool and stretched our hands up, we could touch the sky. Far on the horizon, where the sky was low, there was a village. In that village, there lived a bent old woman in a little mud hut thatched with straw.
The old woman was so old she no longer remembered any other way of being. She lived alone in her little mud hut. She had neither friend nor family left in this world. She had nowhere to go and no one to talk to. All day long, she would potter round her hut, first cleaning this corner, now dusting that, now scrubbing this bit of floor, now sweeping that. She thought of nothing else any more, except more and more ways of sweeping and scrubbing her little mud hut.
One hot summer, the land was dry with thirst. There was dust everywhere. The old woman's hut was also covered with dust. The old woman swept and swept the little hut with her broom. She swept the inside of her hut, she swept the outside of her hut, she swept the front step and she swept the front yard. But the dust rose all around her in great brown clouds. The more she swept and plied her broom, the more the dust that rose from the earth.
The sky choked with all the dust that the old woman was raising with her broom. The dust got into its throat and tickled its nose and made it sneeze. A great big sneeze that shook the world with its thunder. People covered their heads and ran indoors in fright. But the old woman barely noticed. She kept on sweeping with her broom.
The sky sneezed and sneezed. The dust became unbearable. It got into its eyes and made them water. Then, heavy drops of rain began falling into the dry. A big raindrop fell.
The old woman glared at the sky and scrubbed the raindrop away. But another raindrop fell and fell. The old woman could bear stood up and shook her fist at the sky yelling at it to stop raining on her nice clean front step. She cursed the sky and threatened it. But, the sky couldn't stop raining because its eyes were still so full of dust.
The old woman was so angry. She picked up her broom and thwacked the sky with it. The sky sneezed and jumped out of her way. The old woman kept thwacking it with her broom, again and again and again. Sneezing and coughing, thundering and raining, the sky flew up, up and away and swore never to come down again. That is why the sky is so high now.