Continued from here:
That day, too, the workless man stood on a side.
The girl asked, “What do you want?”
He said, “I want more work from you.”
“What work shall I give you?”
“If you agree, I will make a ribbon for your plait by knitting together colourful threads.”
“What would that do?”
“Nothing at all.”
A ribbon of many different colours was made. Ever since, it takes the girl a long time to tie her hair into a plait. Chores are left undone, time passes by.
4
On the other hand, with time, big gaps started appearing in the working people’s heaven. Tears and songs filled those gaps.
The heavenly elders became deeply concerned. A meeting was called. They said, “Such a thing has never happened in the history of this place.”
The heavenly messenger came and admitted his mistake. He said, “I have brought a wrong man to the wrong heaven.”
The wrong man was brought to the meeting. His coloured headgear and waistband were enough to tell everyone that a grave mistake had been committed.
The chairman said to him, “You will have to return to earth.”
He tucked his bag of colours and brushes to his waist and with a sigh of relief said, “Off I go then.”
The girl came and said, “I will go too.”
The elderly chairman became a little abstracted. This was the first time he had witnessed something that had no meaning at all.
THE END
Image source: http://threadsofatattinggoddess.blogspot.com/
(Short Story by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by Bhaswati Ghosh)
