Long ago, in the lands of the Levant, lived a boy named Alham. He lived every day since his birth as a thief. He wandered from village to village always looking for something to steal. He took many things from people and he reviled in his ability to swindle and take. He lived by a motto, if they loved it so, they wouldn't have let it be vulnerable.
When towns and villages no longer held appeal to him, he rode to Aleppo. It was during the time of day when most would go to pray at the Great Mosque that he arrived. Perfect he thought, Time to steal a fortune.
"You there," came a voice, "Speak with an old man." As Alham turned, he saw an old man emerge from an ally way near the gate he had entered in on. The man appeared to be blind, looking at Alham with milky white eyes. He also had a cleft lip and hobbled on what must've been a crippled leg.
"What would I, a young beautiful man, need to talk to an old ugly man for?" Said Alham beginning to walk away in disgust.
"Why must a young beautiful man steal?" said the old man, a grin running through his twisted lip.
Alham paused for a moment; his breath taken by the aquation of this stranger. However instead of hide or deny, he replied, "I steal for gold and riches."
"What if I could give you these riches?" Asked the old man in a hurried tone, "No longer needing to be a thief? But instead, a free man of leisure."
Alham toyed with the words in his mind before turning back and replying "I am listening."
"I will give you so many riches," The old man swept his arm across the air as if to display a vast hoard of gold. "More than the Caliph himself, however, as a price I get to take anything I wish..." The old man held out his hand and gave what must've been the warmest smile he could give his circumstances.
Alham thought to himself for a moment. It was a good offer, though he did not know if he could trust this man. However, the man knew he was a thief and may turn Alham in if he refused the offer. This man will only take gold upon occasion he thought, surely that is worth the price of unending wealth?
"I accept." And he shook the old man's hand.
The man vanished and Alham's pockets began to over flow with gold. He soon bought a great palace. He brought his mother to live with him and not long after fell in love and married. He and his wife soon had kids and he was happier than he had ever been for many years.
Alham was now a man with grey creeping into his hair. He was studying his maps when he heard a knock upon the door of his palace. He answered and saw a young man.
"May I help you?" Alham asked.
The young man smiled with a clephed lip and limped into the palace. He turned and said, "Once I was an old man, however now I am young thanks to you. However, I no longer wish to have this clephed limp."
As these words were said, Alham's hand went to his lip and he felt a crack form. He looked up and saw the young man smiling a brilliant whole smile. Before a word could be uttered, the young man turned and left the palace. Alham calmed himself with the thought that that would be all. That age and a lip was a small price for the life he now lived.
However, the next day the young man returned and said "I wish for good leg, I shall take yours."
Alham went lame in his leg and walking became difficult, whereas the young man could run and jump. He left soon thereafter. That must be it Alham thought, surely, I have paid the price.
The young man again came and said, "I long for a mother again, so I shall have yours."
Alham's mother no longer saw him as her son, but instead saw the young man as hers. The two-left hand in hand. Alham wept yet believed for as bad as this was, nothing could be worse.
But the young man came again soon thereafter. "I wish for a family," he began, "I will take yours."
Alham began to protest, "I gave you my age, my lip, my leg, and my mother! You said you would take my wealth never my life!" Yet Alham's family loved the young man as the father and not Alham. The young man and his new family left, with the young man giving his new wife a kiss.
The old man once more came, and found Alham overwhelmed in grief upon the floor of his palace. A red eyed Alham looked at the young man and asked him what he wanted today. But the young man simply walked over to him and whispered in the thief's ear,
"If you loved it so, then you shouldn't have let it become vulnerable."
The End
