Stories for Another Day
One day, in a great sandy desert, there was a stirring in the sands and a small creature poked her nose out, and then climbed out of the hole she had made. The brightness of the sun did not blind her eyes, for she had no eyes, and she felt no thirst, for she never drank. The sun burned down fiercely, but the creature only smiled and went back into her hole.
The sun was angry. He said to the Maker of All Things, “This creature, the mole rat, does not bow to me the way all other creatures do.”
The Maker of All Things replied slowly, “Why should this creature bow to you?”
“All things bow to me,” the sun said proudly. “I am the oldest, the first of all created things, the most powerful, the most glorious! This creature does not show me the respect that is due to me. It cannot be.”
The Great Maker pondered what the sun had said.
“And the creature is naked,” the sun added. “To appear naked before you, the Great Maker of All Things, is very disrespectful.”
“Are you not naked?” the Great Maker asked.
“I am clothed in fire,” the sun said loftily. “Any covering would burn away in an instant. But all other creatures wear some kind of skin, or fur or feathers. Even the alligator wears his armour plates.”
The silence stretched for so long that the sun feared the Maker had gone to sleep.
Then in a deep rumble, the Maker said, “What do you propose, First of All Created Things?”
“A competition,” said the sun, who loved contests of every kind. As the most powerful, he always won, and this pleased him more than anything. Why, this very desert, barren and empty of anything except sand and rocks, had once been a rainforest until the sun had won a competition with the Rain to see who had the most endurance.
The silence this time was even longer. Then, “As you wish,” said the Maker, and withdrew into silence.
The sun thought hard. This competition must show his overwhelming power so that the disrespectful mole rat would be truly humiliated, and acknowledge the sun’s superiority in all things. That night, while he lay in the darkness below the horizon, he thought through many different plans.
He recalled one of his first contests, with the moon, when she had challenged him to see who was the most beautiful. It seemed that he would have no chance of winning since the moon alone made people stop and gaze into the night sky. But the sun, even from below the horizon stirred himself up and made the aurora, the northern lights, appear in the sky in swirling colours of red and green and blue. People turned away from the moon to gaze awestruck at the glimmering lights. To this day the moon was so embarrassed that she only dared to appear in her fullness for a few days each month, and appeared as a mere sliver at other times.
But he must be careful. He remembered all too well challenging the thunder to see who was loudest. The thunder rolled and boomed across the sky triumphantly while the sun boiled and crashed and exploded with all his might, only to find that not a whisper of sound reached the earth, so he might as well have stayed silent. Thunder was rejoicing in his victory over the sun when the sun thought of another way to defeat him. He stirred up the solar winds and sent out cosmic rays that caused a rumbling volcano to explode with the loudest sound ever heard on the earth. Thunder was soundly defeated. From then on he stayed in the shadow of his friend, the lightning, and only rumbled when she flashed.
The sun chuckled to himself. Nothing so powerful would be needed to defeat a mere desert mole rat. He had the perfect plan.
“O mole,” he called, “come up and stay a while, and chat with me. There are questions that are troubling me. If you can answer them, then I will declare that you are even wiser than I am, and more powerful, for it is well known that true power comes from wisdom.”
The mole rat put her head out of the sand and considered what the sun was saying. She could not afford to make the sun angry. His blazing heat on her naked skin was like being roasted alive, and she had young ones to think about.
“Very well,” she said, “But I am very busy this morning. Three questions only.”
The sun smiled. He was sure that one question would be enough to win the contest. A beam of golden light struck the desert, and the mole rat felt a scorching pain on her back.
“You are a creature of the dark,” the sun said in a humble voice, pretending to be seeking knowledge. “Then tell me, what is darkness made of?” For in truth, the sun hated darkness, and every day he burned as fiercely as he could, in order to keep the darkness away.
The mole rat said, “I live in the darkness, it is true, but I am blind. I have never seen darkness. How can I know what it is made of?”
The sun smiled on the other side of his face. Clearly he was going to win this competition. But the mole rat went on, “I think darkness must be made of nothing, the emptiness left behind when light leaves.”
“A ridiculous answer!” the sun said crossly. “How can anything be made of nothing?” He thought carefully before he asked his next question. “Can you tell me,” he asked craftily, “where is the best place to hide from the dark? For if one is afraid of the dark, where can they possibly hide?”
“Some might say they should hide in the light,” the mole rat began, and the sun smiled, thinking of how her answer gave him more glory, but she continued, “but that is impossible. To know where to hide from the dark, you must ask my little one. For when he is afraid, he hides in my pouch. He knows that there is no need to fear the dark, for his mother’s love dispels any fear.”
The sun was angry with her clever answer. The leaping pools of fire on his face boiled and rolled. He blazed his fiercest and the mole rat felt her skin turning red. Angrily, the sun threw his last question at her.
“What sound does the darkness make?” he asked.
The mole rat thought, then she answered, “It makes the same sound as the heart beating, the eye closing and the ear listening.”
“That is no answer,” the sun said angrily. “It has no meaning!”
“It is enough answer for a meaningless question,” said the mole rat. “And now that you have asked your three questions- “
“Wait! One more question,” said the sun, anxious to win the contest. “Where is the darkest place of all?”
“There is nowhere darker than a proud, wicked heart,” the mole rat said coldly. The sun was so confused and embarrassed by this answer that he pulled the clouds over his face. Even then his red face glowed through them and spread across the whole sky. Seeing this, he slid below the horizon and hid himself out of sight.
In the soft new evening, the voice of the Maker of All Things was heard. “Itjaritjari, little mole!” came the voice.
The mole rat bowed low, her face in the sand.
“Itjaritjari, you have spoken well,” said the Maker. “From now on you will have a coat of finest golden fur, so that anyone seeing you will know that you have my favour. And it will protect you from the burning rays of the sun, for he will not take this defeat easily and will always seek to harm you.”
Itjaritjari smiled, and bowed again. “May it please you,” she said, “and my children after me?”
“And all your children,” said the Maker. “And one more gift: you and your children will have strong paddles on your front and back feet so that you can dig more swiftly than any other creature, and no longer be troubled by those who would ask foolish questions.”
Itjaritjari laughed, and in the space of a short breath, she dug herself out of sight.
A Wombat Named Benson 