That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me 30 minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man a rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls pilled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife’s slain body in his arms.
(...)
“You liked it?” I said, getting my second taste – and how sweet it was – of a positive review.
“Some day Inshallah, you will be a great writer,” Hassan said. “And people all over the world will read your stories.”
“You exaggerate Hassan,” I said, loving him for it.
“No, you will be great and famous,” he insisted. Then he paused, as if on the verge of adding something. He weighed his words and cleared his throat. “But will you permit me to ask a question about the story?” he said shyly.
“Of course.”
“Well, if I may ask, why did the man kill his wife? In fact why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn’t he have just smelled an onion?
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