Chapter 1
The names are real, but the story is made-up.
Long ago in the city of Baghdad, there was a king named Maadhasafa3al. This is a terribly long and complicated name! Did you notice that it has the number 3 in it? Most people in the kingdom just called him “the king” and that is what we will do, too.
The people loved their king because he was generous. Everyone was happy, except for one man: the king’s brother. The brother’s name was just as long and complicated as the king’s, but he was still jealous. No one called him “the king.” Everyone just called him “the king’s brother.” That is what we will do, too.
The king’s jealous brother went to a sorcerer and said, “If you devise some way to make me the king, then I will pay you in gold coins.”
The sorcerer frowned and looked up in the air as he considered the offer. Then a smile flashed across his face. He had the perfect trick to fool the king.
A few days later, the king was in the street talking with his subjects as they passed by. He often did this. He was not only generous with his money; he was also generous with his time.
An old man hobbled up to the king. It was the sorcerer in disguise. He said, “Your Royal Highness, please buy this box from me. It costs only one silver coin.”
“No,” declared the king in a loud voice for all to hear, “I would never pay silver for a box such as this one. It is too beautiful! Please accept two gold coins.” He spoke the truth; the box was exceptional.
The jealous brother was watching from a distance. “Hah! Generous kings do not last long!”
Curious to look inside, the king opened the box. The old sorcerer quickly grabbed it back. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I should have wrapped this precious item for you.”
The old man closed the lid very slowly and delicately. He wrapped the box in a leather sack and tied it off with string. “His Imperial Highness would do well to look inside only when no one else is watching.”
That night, the king sat alone in his room. He untied the string, pulled the box from the sack, and placed it on his desk. When he opened it, he saw a couplet engraved underneath the lid.
Snap this box shut for wings to soar;
Say tughanniibilu6f for arms once more.
Situations like this call for careful deliberation. When it comes to magic, we must not be rash. As fun as it would be to have wings, the magic word to undo the spell is rather long and complicated. Did you notice that it had the number 6 in it?
What if you snapped the box shut, received your wings, and then were unable to pronounce ‘tughanniibilu6f’? If that were to happen, it would mean that you could never get your arms back.
Chapter 2
How do you say that ?
In this situation, I suspect most of us would shut the lid gently, careful not to make a sound. The king, however, had more confidence than most. He was not bothered by long, complicated words. After all, his own name was Maadhasafa3al.
He studied the magic word carefully. He stood up, held the box close to his face, and tried a few times to say that long and complicated word out loud. There was no way to know if he was pronouncing it correctly.
He walked over an open window. It was true that he could pronounce ‘Maadhasafa3al,’ but that was only because he heard his mother say it so many times. He had never heard the word ‘tughanniibilu6f’ before. How could he say it out loud?
He studied the word further and committed all the letters (and the number six!) to memory. He closed his eyes and, without moving his lips, he began to meditate on how this word might sound if someone else said it.
At this moment he heard birds chirping in the trees outside. He was distracted by their gentle song. His thoughts turned away from letters and phonetics.
He began to think about flying: the air rushing at his face, floating on wind currents like they were waves of water, the ground becoming optional!
Just imagine looking at the ground and telling it, “No, I don’t think need you now… but maybe later.” How exhilarating it would be to soar! It is no wonder that it is the creatures who fly who sing most beautifully.
“Tughanniibilu6f,” he whispered with his eyes still closed. Immediately, he snapped the box closed and — WHOOOSH! — there was swirl of feathers where the king once stood. He looked down and sure enough there were wings where his arms were. He stretched them the wide.
That is when he noticed that his legs had changed as well. They were very slender and yellow. Not only were the shape and color a surprise, but he was shocked to see that — even though he had two legs — he was only standing on one of them!
He raced across the room to a mirror. His fears were confirmed. The magic box had not only turned his arms into wings, but it had transformed him into a stork. “Oh dear!” he stammered, “This… this was not part of the plan!”
Now, the king was alone in his room. But if there had been someone with him, they would have only heard a stork clattering its beak and making this sound: “Clack clappety-clack! Clop… clop cluck clack-a-lack-a-shmack!”
The king hurried back to the box. “Tughannibilu6f!” he shouted. “Tughanniibilu6f, tughan…oh it is hopeless.”
There were no recording devices in the king’s room that night. But if there had been, it would have recorded this peculiar noise: “Tughan-clappy-bi-clack, tclack-ghannib-cl6f, clack clap clug clug glug…oh cluuuuck!”
Chapter 3
He is a bird now.
Like his arms and legs, the king’s ears had turned into stork ears. So, to him, his voice sounded perfectly normal.
He called out, “Help! Help! Guards! Come quick!” His attendants rushed in. They did not come because they heard their master in distress; they came because they heard a horrible clacking sound coming from royal bed chamber.
“Go away!” they cried when they saw the stork. “Get out of here, you filthy bird!” So, it came to pass that the beloved king was chased from his castle by those servants who cared for him the most.
He flew away fast. At first, he only wanted to escape the broom sticks and fire pokers his servants were chasing him with. Soon, however, he was pumping his strong shoulders because he wanted to see how high he could ride the wind currents into the sky. It was a dream come true to view his kingdom from the air.
Every day, for months and months, he soared from one end of his kingdom to the other. He never tired of seeing the spectacular sight. Over the course of a year, he slowly realized something new about this this marvel he beheld from the air. It was unquestionably a great kingdom, but it was no longer his kingdom.
That day, upon reaching the edge of the kingdom, the border did not mean what it used to mean. He kept flying. What other marvels are there to behold in the world?
Not far into the foreign lands he heard a beautiful birdsong rising from a quiet grove. The stork descended slowly in wide circles. He closed in on the melody until he landed on a branch next to a nightingale.
“You sing so lovely!”
The nightingale had encountered suitors before. She had rejected them all, and she certainly was not interested in a gangly stork. She simply ignored his comment and continued her song as if she were all alone.
Sometimes the nightingale sang; other times she stopped. Always the king listened intently.
After an hour, the king interrupted the nightingale in the middle of a tune. “You simply must explain it to me!” he cried. “I have heard nightingales before, but your song carries something unique within it. There must be a reason!”
“Yes, there certainly is a reason,” she chirped, “but you would never believe it if I told you.”
“Well, then, make up the most absurd story you can imagine,” smiled the king, “and just see if I can’t make myself believe it. Then you can tell me the truth later.”
“I wasn’t always a nightingale,” she warbled, “I used to be a princess.”
Chapter 4
She wasn't always a bird.
“From an early age, I was trained in all the fine arts,” explained the former princess, “but I excelled most in my voice lessons. My father sent me to train with the greatest instructors in all the world. During these travels, I met the love of my youth, the crown prince of Samarkand. We were supposed to be married, but shortly before the celebration something terrible happened. An old man came up to me on the street and gave me an ornate box.”
All the stork’s feathers bristled at the mention of the box. He took a quick breath in through his nose.
The nightingale noticed his anxiousness. Singers, like storytellers, pay close attention to their audiences. “He told me it was a wedding present. I thanked him for his kindness and started to open it, but he grabbed it back. He apologized for it being unwrapped and tied it up tight in a leather sack. Then he said—”
“I already know!” interrupted the stork, “he told you that you would do well to look inside only when no one else was watching.”
“No, not at all! He said no such thing,” chirped the nightingale. “What the old man said was that there was no reason for me to thank him. He was just a messenger. The gift was from my sister. He requested payment of one silver coin for the delivery.”
The king felt awkward for interrupting.
“In those days, I adored my sister. It had devastated me when I learned that she would be unable to attend my wedding. So, in my joy, I gave the man two gold coins.”
The stork dropped his lower beak in amazement. Was this her story, or was this his own?
“I raced back to the palace to show my beloved our latest treasure,” continued the songbird. “He opened it and noticed an inscription engraved underneath the lid. It was in a language he did not recognize, so he handed it to me because—”
“Because you have a terribly long and complicated name!” shouted the stork.
“No! And what makes you think you can tell my story!” snapped the nightingale. She was cross because singers, like storytellers, do not like to be interrupted by storks clattering their beaks.
“I have been formally trained to sing in eight languages. I was certain I could read any printed text within a thousand miles.”
“Is that so?” clucked the stork. He was quite impressed. “Well then, what did it say?”
“I have no idea,” shrugged the tiny bird. “The script was ancient and indecipherable. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.”
“Did it have a number mixed in with the letters?” asked the stork.
The nightingale was no longer listening to the stork. She was too distracted by her memories to take offence at his continuous interruptions.
Speaking more to herself than her companion, she said, “I remember my final human words as if it were just a few minutes ago. I looked into my fiancé’s eyes and said, ‘We’ll just have to ask Sis what this is all about.’ Then, I closed the lid and – POOF! – I was a bird.”
Chapter 5
She was right in the middle of her story.
“Don’t you see, my dear princess, the inscription was an undoing spell. We only need to find the box, help your fiancé decipher the inscription, and you’ll be returned to human form!”
“What a wonderful story that would be,” sneered the little bird, “Too bad I don’t live in a fairytale.”
“But you do, my dear nightingale-princess! You do live in a fairytale and I am a stork-king!” He proceeded to retell his own tale as I have told it to you here. He was so relieved to meet someone who understood his plight.
The nightingale was silent while the stork went on and on. When he finally finished, he expected her to swoon with the same emotion he now felt for his companion.
Instead, she simply said, “Are you done yet? Are you quite finished with all your clattering and clapping? Or is their more?”
“Uh…yes…” stammered the stork, “I suppose I’m done.”
“Well, as I was saying before, I still remember my last human words.” The nightingale picked up her tale right where she had been interrupted. “Turning into a bird was quite unexpected, but the real surprise was seeing my sister walk out from behind the curtain.”
The stork was very confused. It took many hours for the nightingale to explain that it had all been a trick. Her sister and the crown prince had fallen secretly in love. They conspired against her and hired a magician to devise a way to get rid of her.
As simple as this story was, it took the stork a long time to wrap his mind around it. This is because admitting the treachery of the nightingale’s sister meant uncovering the betrayal of his own brother.
The stork and the nightingale spent years together telling and retelling the stories of their youth. These stories did not stay the same. Each bird’s story changed the stories of the other.
Fluttering and flapping from limb to limb, this ever-refreshing stream of newness was exciting. It was not the novelty that stirred them. The excitement of making revisions is that they always seem to move in the direction of beauty and truth.
On the one hand, it hurt the stork terribly to learn the truth about himself and his brother. He had thought his story was the story of having been enchanted by birdsong and flight. In fact, it was only a tale of jealousy.
On the other hand, he recounted to the nightingale the liberation of leaving the kingdom that was no longer his. The greatness of that kingdom far exceeded his brief possession of it, and the greatness of that kingdom would far exceed his brother’s greed. This spurred the nightingale to revise her account of her sister’s wedding.
Before she always said it was an ugly gala, with no guests, terrible music, and clumsy waiters who kept spilling foul-tasting food on the floor. Over time she began recount the a magical celebration of brash emotions with feasting, reverie, and a oh-so-small-yet-big-enough chance that the young foolish couple might one day learn true love.
“I love your stories so much, sometimes I think they are mine,” said one bird.
“By now, I suppose they are yours as much as mine,” said another bird.
“Clap-clappety clack.”
“Tweet-tweedily chirp.”
Chapter 6
Sharing their stories changed the stories they shared.
One day the newness and freshness of truth and beauty put a fantastic idea in the stork’s head. “We should get married!”
“Don’t be silly!” scolded the nightingale, “Have you forgotten we are birds?”
“No, it isn’t silly at all. It is only proper,” insisted the stork.
“Well, I can’t stop you from asking, but neither can you make me say yes.”
The stork, who was always standing on one leg without realizing it, tried to kneel. It is quite difficult, even for storks, to rest your entire body on one knobby knee while keeping the other leg lifted entirely in the air.
He promptly tumbled to the ground. She laughed and he enjoyed his own idiocy too much to bother standing back up.
So, it came to pass that a stork lay flat on his back and spoke these words to a nightingale perched above him, “I, Maadhasafa3al, the kingdom-forsaken stork-king hereby profess my undying love and devotion to you, …uh…oh dear! Could you please tell me your name so I can finish this proposal?”
The absurdity of it all made them laugh even harder. It did not help matters that storks are prone to giggle when they are lying flat on their back.
“Now this last request actually makes a smidgen of sense,” quipped the little bird. “Your marriage proposal is a flight of fancy; but, after all these years, it would be sensible if we knew each other’s names.”
“Yes, let’s be sensible.”
“In my former kingdom, most people just called me ’the songstress,’ but my mother named me Tughanniibilu6f.”
A sudden gust of wind carried off all the stork’s feathers. Maadhasafa3al lay in human form no different than the day he had heard the birds singing outside his window.
He sprang to his feet. “I told you we lived in fairytale!”
The man scooped up the little bird and placed her on his shoulder. He raced off in any direction he thought might lead to Samarkand.
Having his human ears returned to him, he could no longer make out any specific words in nightingale’s chirps and warbles. He could only hear the birdsong you and I hear when we listen to birds. Yet, he heard more than you and I would.
After all that time, he knew her tunes quite well. He was confident he could guess more-or-less at what she was singing about.
This physical closeness coupled with complete linguistic separation would have been unbearable, except that the former king knew it was temporary. He only needed to find that bewitched box her sister had used to transform her. Then he could read the incantation and return her to her human form.
Today, if you go to Registan Square in Samarkand, you might notice a tall and wiry old man with long arms and skinny legs. He paces from building to building as if he were looking for something.
You can talk to him if you want, but he won’t respond. He speaks to no one except the nightingale perched on his shoulder.