The King’s Tower

A long time ago, in a faraway land, there lived and ruled a king. One day, the king took it into his head that if he could only touch the moon he would become famous and admired all over the world.

He was so consumed by the idea he couldn’t think about anything else and forgot to rule his kingdom altogether. All he did every day was rack his brain to try to figure out how he could get high enough in the sky to touch the moon. When he slept, all he ever dreamed about was reaching up towards it, and missing it by just an inch.

The king spent many long days and nights thinking about nothing else but the chalky moon, and one day he finally came up with an idea. He would build a huge tower, he decided, and he would make it so high that if he stood at the top he could actually reach the moon!

He immediately sent for the royal carpenter and ordered him to build the tower just as he had imagined it. But the carpenter knew in his heart that he had no idea how to build a tower that high.

He spent the next few days pacing back and forth, thinking, measuring, calculating, and drawing, but he ripped up every draft as soon as he had finished it. He didn’t sleep, and after a few days, he still hadn’t come up with a plan.

After a week had passed, the impatient king could no longer bear to watch the carpenter calculating and measuring silly drawings instead of just building his tall tower, and so he decided to pay him a visit. He was very angry and frustrated, and he threatened:

“You have three days to build…