(481) Tall Tale: Zenbei the wild vegetable seller

 
  Some troubles occurred to my mother. She saw a cup in front of her as two cups. If she tried to reach the cup, she often failed to grab it. I took her to an optician. The optician found out that her eyes always directed outside for unknown reasons. But Mother instantly came to know the true reason for her trouble. Two weeks later, she got better and now her eyes have returned to their normal position. My mother and I went to the optician for the last time to give a feedback on her recovery as we thanked him. I explained that her trouble might have something to do with her eye training. She was training herself to see both sides’ view at the same time. She believed that the older we get the narrower the eyesight becomes. She was practicing it for anti-aging. But this time’s trouble made her stop the eye practice. Then the optician laughed and gave us a story about eyes.

 “Long time ago”, he started, “there lived a mountain vegetable seller named Zenbei at Uwajima in Ehime prefecture. He collected wild vegetables in the mountain and sold them in the village. He worked diligently from morning to night, even on rainy and stormy days. One day, ‘always-running Zenbei’ felt his left eyeball floating and bouncing in the socket of his skull. And finally the eyeball fell down on the ground. But he calmly picked it up and put it back to its eye socket. Then he continued working hard again as if nothing had happened.

  “On that day he had sold out all his stock of wild vegetables earlier than usual. He was very happy, so he decided to visit tutelary shrine of the village to express his thanks. Incidentally, on that day, there was a bullfight, (that is a bull fighting against a bull), that was being held at the ground of the shrine. A lot of people got together around the bull fight ring. He couldn’t see anything, so he removed his eyeball and held it up in his hand to see the bulls, still he couldn’t see them. Next, he took a Bangasa umbrella from his backpack and tied to a long wooden bar. Lastly, he placed his eyeball on the opened umbrella. When he held the bar high to see the bullfight, he could enjoy watching the bullwrestling at the back of the crowd of spectators. 

  “At that moment, one crow was on the way back to its nest in the mountain. It noticed the eyeball from the sky and dived at it and flew away with his eyeball. He instantly felt the emergency and tried to chase the crow but failed in vain.

He felt down and went home with his one eyeball. To his surprise he found the eyeball in front of his house. The crow had dropped it because of its slipperiness and bad taste.

  “Anyway he was overjoyed to have it and hurriedly put it back to his eye socket, but he put it inward out. He suddenly saw his internal organs clearly for the first time. From then on, he got interested in watching his inside. He learned the inside of human body and soon became a famous doctor and a rich man.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, this vegetable seller is my great grandfather,” finished the optician.

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