The Carpet That Couldn’t Fly

Once upon a time, long ago, in a land far, far away… perhaps it was in India, or Persia, or in the Turkish city of Erzurum… Women with tiny hands were skillfully tying little knots of silk onto cotton fabric. One, two, three,… a hundred, two hundred…. They kept going until they had tied three hundred thousand knots! They had made a small but beautiful carpet covered with beautiful patterns of leaves and flowers.

If you had looked at that carpet closely, you would have noticed something special about it. One of the flowers had a petal facing the wrong way. Had the women made a mistake? Of course not! They had made it like that deliberately. This is how carpets were made, long ago. Every carpet had to include one mistake. It was a reminder that nothing that people produced on the Earth can be absolutely perfect or faultless.

The beautiful silk carpet covered in leaves and flowers was lying on the counter at a stall in the middle of a large bazaar. It dazzled among the colourful lamps, statues, cushions and fragrant spices and patiently waited for its buyer to come along.

As it lay there, it wondered what would happen to it next. Maybe it would hang on a wall or lie on the floor as a bed for its master. Or perhaps it would keep its owner warm, like a coat. Or be laid over an animal's back like a saddle. In those days, carpets really were used for all sorts of things.

This little carpet, though, dreamt of a completely different life. While he was at the bazaar, he listened to exciting stories about a magic lamp, about beautiful Scheherazade, about robbers and especially about a flying carpet…