An Arabian tale:

Kassim the miser

 

There was an old chemist named Kassim who had distanced himself from his neighbours merely on account of his miserly and unsociable traits. This rich but stingy man always treated his neighbours with contempt and became the center of disdain and mockery by those around him. While he was strolling on the street, people used to pass indirect remarks about his wealth concealed under the floor of his house with no use whatsoever, for himself nor for any other. He seemed to consider it absurd to "waste" money on new cloths and soap and he was typically seen in ragged clothing with an unbearable stench. He busied himself stitching up the holes in his worn -out clothes and mending his twenty year old pair of shoes. The shoes had no look of shoes all but Kassim still wore them and his neighbours poked fun at his buffoonery shoes!Kassim used to have a bath only once in every year! One day he left his terrible old shoes on the doorstep of the bathroom and went inside with his attendants. It had become entirely a nightmarish experience for the attendants to wash the miser with soap, remove the dirt applying hard brushes and smear. His body with aromatic oils to make him fresh and clean again.

Meanwhile, another man was preparing to go for the baths. Therefore he took off his shoes to leave them on the step but on seeing Kassim's horrible shoes he cried out to a servant and said. "You scare away everybody if you leave Kassim's shoes here. Pick them up with a long stick and put them somewhere." When Kassim came out of the baths, he got enraptured to sight the other man's shoes and was driven in to exclaim, "The God has looked on me. These are the ideal type of shoes that I've always wished for. How amazing! This definitely is the God's own answer to my prayers."The sudden disappearance of shoes astounded the other man when he came out of the baths, but he quickly sensed the chemist's flagrant act of taking away his shoes. He smelt Kassims shoes in the dark corner and unhesitatingly made for the chemist's shop with the tattered shoes in his hand.

"Come out, you spoilt rogue! Give my shoes back!" roared the man unable to keep his anger suppressed. Kassim's self respect and image were plunged into a dire straits by the man's reproachful wording and the chemist had to bribe him some money to keep the matter hushed up.

"Now take back your horrible shoes. Next time I'll go to the police" Threatened the man. This funny episode filled Kassim with such a humiliation, shame and irrepressible anger that he impulsively hurled the old shoes over his garden walls on the street. The shoe scanned to hit an old woman on the head, making her fall up side down on the stony road. The fall had dashed her brains out - which made her family to shout "Murder!" and run to the police weeping. The police arrived on the scene for an investigation which later proved that the shoes were those worn by Kassim. Immediately the miser was taken prisoner by the police who took him before the judge.The judge, together with the executioner, commanded, "Make your choice right now. You must pay the old hag's family or die. Decide!" As the legal authorities pressured him to pay 20,000 gold pieces to free himself from the crime of murder, he decided to pay the cost and get rid of the "shoes" for good. He threw them into the river. Kassim's shoes in the river not only killed the fish that bit at them, but also got caught in a fisherman's net. The fisherman was overjoyed to see his net going down with weight. So he pulled the net with all his might.The weighty shoes had torn the net and all the fish had escaped! He inspected the shoes to establish their ownership.

"Aha. Kassim's shoes! He will rightly pay for this" he grumbled. Then the heavily built fisherman ran to Kassim's shop to threaten him into balancing the bad effect of loss of fish. The fisherman threw the shoes on the glass shelves of the shop from which glass bottles fell broken on the floor. "Your shoes tore my net." The brawny fisherman lifted the chemist with one huge hand and shook him like a rat.

After Kassim had wiped the blood off his face, he made his final resolve to dump his disastrous shoes in the garden. While he was busy burying the shoes some inquisitive people were keeping him under secret observation because they smacked of something suspicious. "Kassim is burying treasure". At once the news of treasure flew around the area and in no time Kassim found himself surrounded by a mob who insisted that they wanted to see the treasure supposedly being buried by him. There's no valuables under this. Only my shoes are there!" Kassim replied. Yet the dubious crowd were persistent in their belief and finally Kassim had to pay everyone a gold coin to make them disperse.

Kassim felt as if he were being driven to madness. He frantically scurried to judge's mansion with his shoes and made this serious appeal,

"Please send my shoes to prison from now on, I have no shoes. Kassim doesn't own any shoes. Mark this in your report. But if these shoes kill or hurt anybody, don't come to me since they aren't mine any longer."