Once upon a time, there was a tall and tanned teenager named "Lazybone". He lived with his parents in a small hut located near a jungle. His father was a woodcutter while his mother was a stay-at-home housewife.
This small family survived on the timber the father sold to the villagers, a modest farm, and the natural foods found in the jungle. Each day, the father would go out early in the morning to cut trees and sell them in the village in the evening, while the mother would cook and maintain their farm. Occasionally, the father would bring back whatever was edible from the jungle, such as wild ducks, rabbits, nuts, etc..
However, Lazybone, the only son of the family, was a lazy person and was never interested in learning new things. Each day, he stayed in his room doing nothing or played around with his friends without ever helping his parents out. He had never helped to pick food from the jungle, never helped with the household chores and also never helped out on the farm. Because he never tried to learn or help out, his parents worked themselves very hard to support the whole family with their meagre income.
One day, the mother felt extremely sick and was bedridden for a few days. On the first day, she asked Lazybone to go to the woods to pick something to eat for the household. At first, Lazybone was reluctant, but he eventually gave in. He took a hand-woven bamboo basket and entered the forest. Soon, he found some short white capped mushroom on the ground.
With no ability to differentiate the poisonous mushrooms from the non-poisonous ones and not knowing how to pick them properly, Lazybone picked them up haphazardly and damaged the mushrooms. Despite damaging the mushrooms, he placed them in his basket. As he walked deeper into the woods, he found more mushrooms - they were red with white spots. By the end of the afternoon, his basket was filled with an assortment of mushrooms. Believing that he had finished his task, he went back home and showed his mother what he had accomplished.
After the mother saw what he had picked, she lectured Lazybone, "Oh Lazybone, you are very lazy to the core; most of what you picked are poisonous mushrooms. Mushrooms are also very fragile. You have to carefully and gently pick them and place them in the basket with care."
The next day, the mother sent Lazybone out again for the same errand. After a few hours of walking, he saw a beehive on a tree branch. Thinking of his mother's advice, he climbed the tree and reached his hand out slowly to carefully pick it. However, this ended up alerting the worker bees leading to a swarm of bees chasing after him. By the time he reached home, his face was very swollen. The mother saw his odd condition and asked him what was wrong.
Lazybone told her everything that took place that day. The mother, despite being weak, lectured him saying, "What should I do with you, Lazybone? See what happened to you because you have always been so lazy? Listen carefully, if you see those bees with a yellow body and black stripes, you have to use a lit torch to chase them away."
The following day, Lazybone was sent to the forest for the same errand yet again. This time, he went in prepared, carrying a torch with him. As he entered deeper into the woods, he looked up and saw a big cat with a yellow body and black stripes. With foolish courage, he charged headlong towards the animal thinking he would be able to scare it as his mother advised. The animal noticed him immediately and tried to attack him back. By sheer luck, he managed to dodge its strike and ran straight back to his home.
As he reached his home, he cried out for his mother to come and save him. He then remembered that his mother was bedridden and would not be able to come out. He started to cry and despair, and soon, the tiger ended up reaching him and killed him. The tiger dragged his lifeless corpse into the jungle while leaving a bloody trail behind.
When the father returned and saw the tiger tracks and the blood, he went into the house to check if the family was still safe. Seeing that only the mother remained alive, he realised that Lazybone had been killed and eaten by the tiger. The mother then found out about the truth. She mourned at the death of her only son.
A few days later, they created a rock memorial in memory of Lazybone and adopted an orphan into the household. Despite the loss, they tried to overcome their grief with their newly adopted son, who ended up helping the couple out till their very last breath.
Moral: No pain no gain. Laziness has real consequences.
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