The most unhappy person ever born was a mother of three children. She would always carry the same frown on her face, and sigh the deepest sigh ever sighed. Her frown was so powerful; it would find itself on others who looked on. The frown made the shop owners frown when they handed her her groceries. It made birds beaks bend to a frown, and squished dog’s mouths into arches. Most importantly, it made her children frown, as they wanted their mother to be pleased always, rather than always unhappy. The mother’s sigh too made her children sigh. The youngest child, Roberto, could sigh the longest. It seemed as if he were able to sigh forever.
One day, as Roberto was walking along the path home from school, he noticed an awkward tree. All the other trees carried rotten fruit, but this tree had smaller trees on its branches. Roberto asked the tree “How are you able to carry trees on your branches?” The tree did not answer. Roberto then asked “Why do you not answer? Why do you allow your trees to die?” The tree did not answer. Roberto finally pleaded “Help me to make my mother no longer unhappy.” The tree shifted and a wooden flute dropped from its branches. Roberto caught the flute, and went home with it.
When he arrived at his house, with the wooden flute in hand, he saw his mother staring out the window, as she always did when she was unhappy. The boy blew into the flute and a wonderful sound came out. His mother turned to him, and he kept playing, using his infinite sigh. While he played his mother began to smile and dance about, as he has never seen her do. He himself even felt the happiness and danced. The boy continued to play the flute for her every day.
Eventually the town heard about the flute and the happiness it created. The townspeople were not able to fit in the boys house, so he would play to them on a great hill. The townspeople would dance and smile when the flute was always playing, and even when they thought of the flute afterwards. The flute always filled them with happiness and grace. The musicians of the town looked down at and scolded the boy. They told him “It is not the flute that should make the music, it is the flute player who should. You, son, are not a flute player.” They also said “You are playing the wrong notes, you are following the wrong scale.” The boy ignored them at first, as the flute pleased his mother and the entire town.
He continued to play for everyone, and everyone’s lives were filled with joy as long as he played. The townspeople applauded him, when he felt they should applaud the flute, for without it, no music could be played. He told them this, and few understood. In time he enjoyed the applause, and took it into himself. He began to believe that it was he making the beautiful music.
Roberto eventually took heart to the musician’s words and locked his flute in a chest. “If I want to play real music, I must play it myself,” he told himself. He saw his mother was sad again, and began to whistle. He had been practicing all night and worked out a movement that made the musicians proud. They called it perfection, the greatest song ever created. Roberto whistled the entire tune, and his mother did not smile, even at the end. He puckered his lips and went through it again, hitting every note exact, and his mother did not smile. He went to the townspeople, and whistled his perfect tune, but only the musicians danced. The townspeople booed him, and he ran home. The chest was in his bedroom, so he always knew it was there, and he even often thought of retrieving the flute. However, he was too prideful to go back. He said “I am too great of a musician now to worry about pleasing others.” Roberto’s mother soon died from exhaustion, and he felt he had less of a reason to want to play the flute. His heart soon sunk and his mouth arched. The sadness he saw in his mother was now his own. Roberto was too ashamed to go back to the flute, but the chest was always there, waiting to make him happy. He refused to believe in such a thing as simple happiness and his life became complicated. Roberto soon died from exhaustion, and in great sadness.
