In the evening, everyone gathered around the fire in front of the old man's house, roasting the fish they had caught earlier in the day. The air was filled with laughter and conversation, but Abu Bakr sat quietly, lost in his thoughts, many questions swirling in his mind. After a while, he decided to speak.
"Did you know there was a land on the other side of the sea?" Abu Bakr's voice broke the chatter, and everyone stopped talking, turning their attention to the old man, who paused his work and began to speak.
"There is an old story my father told me, about a time long ago when our land was visited by people coming from nowhere. Everyone was terrified when they saw this strange thing floating above the sea, coming toward our shore—something we had never seen before. At that time, we never went near the sea, and we believed it was home to creatures that took our cattle at night. Some brave souls decided to approach the shore where the strange thing landed, and they found people whose shapes were different from ours—their eyes, their clothes, even their speech was unlike anything we had ever known. At first, we thought they had come to take over our land. But they were peaceful."
"A month passed. Then two months. Their passion grew as they tried to learn our language, and we tried to understand theirs. Eventually, we could speak to them, and they explained that their ship had been on the sea for months, and they had stumbled upon this land by accident. They stayed with us for a time, and we learned many things from them. They taught us about their faith, which explained much of the world and creation that we didn't understand. Some of us rejected their teachings, but many embraced them."
"They also taught our men how to turn gold into a liquid and mold it into shapes, telling us that their land was rich in gold, just like ours, but they had no desire to take it. They taught us about the sea—it was just water, nothing more, and not a thief as we had thought. We learned their language and their writing. One day, when we had become familiar with their presence, they decided to return to their land after spending nearly a year with us. We provided them with food and drink, and then they sailed back the way they had come."
When the old man finished, one of the boys asked, "What about the people? Where did they go?"
The old man paused and replied, "They preferred to live away from the village. It's not far from here, though. We could visit it tomorrow."
The boy smiled and turned to his sister. "We will go to the village," he said, and she smiled back, her excitement clear.
At the same time, Abu Bakr's mind was consumed by one question: Did anyone here know how to read the book I have?