Story 3: The Shadow That Wouldn’t Leave
In a lively market town, there lived a merchant who believed one thing deeply:
“If something exists, it must be sold.”
He sold grain by the spoon, cloth by the thread, and advice by the sentence.
Nothing escaped his notice—not even silence.
One afternoon, when the sun burned like fire, a tired traveler sat quietly beneath the wide shade of a banyan tree near the merchant’s shop.
The merchant stormed out.
“Get up!” he barked.
“You are using shade without permission.”
The traveler looked up calmly.
“It’s only shade,” he said. “It belongs to no one.”
The merchant laughed sharply.
“That tree stands beside my shop. When its shadow falls here, it becomes mine.”
The traveler studied the ground, then smiled.
“Then sell it to me,” he said.
“The shadow.”
The merchant blinked—then grinned.
He named a high price, certain he had trapped a fool.
The traveler paid without argument.
A paper was written and signed:
The buyer owns the shadow of the banyan tree wherever it falls.
That evening, as the sun lowered, the shadow stretched.
It crossed the road.
It crept over the merchant’s doorstep.
It slid across the shop floor.
The traveler followed it and sat down inside.
“Out!” shouted the merchant.
“I can’t,” said the traveler gently.
“I’m sitting in my shadow.”
As the sun sank further, the shadow moved into the storage room…
then into the dining area…
then finally into the merchant’s bedroom.
Wherever the shadow went, the traveler followed.
The merchant paced, shouted, pleaded.
“You are ruining my home!”
The traveler held up the paper.
“I only own what you sold me.”
At last, the merchant begged.
“What will it take for you to leave?”
The traveler thought for a moment.
“Buy the shadow back,” he said,
“for the price of today’s earnings.”
The merchant paid—silently.
The next morning, the traveler left before sunrise.
The banyan tree stood as it always had.
But the merchant had learned something new:
Some things grow larger the more you try to own them.
🌟 Moral
Greed traps itself by trying to control what was never meant to be owned.
Continue Next Story 4 / Back to Story 2
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