The eye, the ear, the hand and the leg
The eye, the ear, the hand and the leg lived in Gabon, a small country on the Atlantic coast of Africa. One day the four went into the jungle. The ear heard a noise. The eye saw an animal.The foot ran after it. The hand caught it and killed it.
While they were carrying their prey back to the village, the ear said,
“I heard it, so the animal is mine.”
The eye argued,
“I saw it first, so it's mine, by rights.”
And the leg responded,
“Yes, but I had to run after it, so it really belongs to me.”
The hand then said,
“In fact it's mine because I trapped it and killed it.”
They argued and argued but couldn't come to an agreement. They arrived at the village and called a general assembly.The tribunal was presided over by the mosquito. It listened patiently to the arguments of the eye, the ear, the hand and the foot. When the four had finished speaking, the mosquito declared,
“This animal belongs to the ear.”
And although the eye, the hand and the foot did not agree with this, they had to respect the sentence.
That night, the mosquito approached the ear and whispered,
“That animal is indeed yours.”
The hand tried to swat it away, but the mosquito returned to the ear and repeated,
“That animal is yours, by rights.”
The mosquito, of course, was looking for its pay-off.
And, ever since then, the human hand has always tried to swat away the mosquito from the ear.
Text: Koldo Izagirre
Translation: Joe Linehan
Voice: Tim Nicholson
