Three thousand pins
Pa Alagbedediji is a well-known blacksmith with many apprentices. He doesn't participate in the work done in his shop again due to his age and has handed over the activity to his eldest son but still always comes to the shop as early before the sun rises and after the sun has risen, he will go back home then come back before the sun sets to close the shop. Amongst all his apprentices, Odemuyi, the youngest, always observes that Pa Alagbedediji is always around for the sun.
One day, Pa Alagbedediji sat on his iron lounger and looked up to the sky as the sun rose to create a soft, calm, and cool-to-warm color as usual. He looked beside him to find the young man who was cleaning tools while others were busy doing one thing or the other. “ Today, the sun rises in pale pink,” Pa Alagbedediji said to Odemuyi, who smiled back at him.
Observing that Pa Alagbedediji is light-hearted and in a good mood, Odemuyi used the opportunity to ask him what was bothering him. “Sir, I have some questions I have been wanting to ask you, but sorry, I will want to use this elderly saying to back it up,” he concluded.
“ May your mouth not be stiffened,” Pa Alagbedediji replied to him, telling him to continue with the saying.
“Sometimes people would have things to say but no time to say it, and sometimes people would have things to say and have enough time to say it,” Odemuyi said as he continued cleaning everything he laid his hand on.
“ I am all ears,” Pa Alagbedediji replied, telling him to ask his questions.
“ Why do you take it as a duty to watch the sun rise and set, sir? I have observed you for months and notice that you don't like to miss it for anything,” Odemuyi asked optimistically.
Pa Alagbedediji smirked and replied,
“ You see, nature always has a way to teach us something only if we can concentrate.”
“ So what is sunrise and sunset teaching us if I may ask, sir?” Odemuyi asked jokingly and inquisitively.
“ Life is all about ups and downs, “ Pa Alagbedediji replied, still looking at the sky scintillatingly.
“ Sir, can you enlighten me better because I am lost” Odemuyi inquired.
“ Life flow is up and down, like the river, like up the mountain and down the cave, the rise and fall, then fall and rise, peak and rock bottom, rock bottom to peak, and lastly life’s peak and death, so expect the unexpected,” Pa Alagbedediji concluded.
“ Sir, what of the statements you elders used like;
Trouble stays behind forever. The clear sky will never darken again,
And misfortune can not touch people twice; if they pass the valley, there is only climbing from there.”
Odemuyi concluded, looking amused.
Pa Alagbedediji smiled and said, “Go get a chair and help me bring a jug of water, I have a story to tell you,” he concluded, nodding his head, realizing that Odemuyi is smart.
Odemuyi dropped the jug on Pa Alagbedediji’s table and sat beside him.
“ I never said that those statements are wrong, they are right, my dear,” Pa Alagbedediji said, giving Odemuyi a pat on his shoulder before he continued.
“ I just want to tell you a story illustrating why I believe that life goes up and down,” he stated.
He cleared his throat, gulped a cup full of water he took from the jug, looked straight to the sky again, and continued.
So many years ago, when I was a very young blacksmith where my hands were hard like stone, and my then workshop was always warm with fire and sparks. Amongst all craftsmen, I was known for my skill. I could shape iron into anything, such as hoes, knives, hinges, and pins.
One season, the village chiefs came to me with an unusual order.
“ Alagbedediji, we have three thousand iron hoes. We want you to craft them into three thousand pins,” they stated.
I was surprised because it was a huge task, but it felt easy for someone as talented as me to turn something big into something small. I smiled and accepted that the gains were bulky. I guessed it to be luck, so I set to work.
Day after day, I heated the hoes, broke them down, melted the iron, and shaped them into neat, shiny pins. I hammered louder and its sound was singing across the village. “ Gbins, Gbauns, kons kons and tap tap” was audibly heard.
After three months, I completed the task. The three thousand pins were perfect, strong, beautiful, and identical, and the chiefs were impressed and paid handsomely.
I celebrated loudly, I danced in the marketplace and raised my calabash of palm wine and shouted,
“ Look at how life has blessed me! Only sweetness is coming my way!”.
I laughed at my friends who warned me that life is not always straight.
I said, “ misfortune? Never! I have escaped it forever.” But life has a way of humbling a man who thinks he knows its patterns.
A few weeks later, the chiefs returned, this time with a different task.
They poured a bag of tiny metal objects before me, but not iron hoes this time, and not something large I could break down. They were the same three thousand pins I had crafted earlier.
“ Alagbedediji,” they said.
“Now we need you to turn these three thousand pins back into three thousand hoes.” They concluded, insisting that he who runs on gain must also plan to run on loss one day, after they noticed my reaction.
My smile disappeared.
I picked up a pin, it was thin, light, almost weightless. Turning a hoe into a pin was easy, breaking down strength into something simple, but taking something so small and shaping it into something strong again. It felt impossible.
I worked day and night, sweating more than I ever had. The fire burned hot, but the metal was stubborn. The task dragged my spirit down, and for the first time, I understood something I had always refused to believe: “ life is up and down”.
Sometimes the load is light and sometimes the weight will bend your back, but neither sweetness nor hardship lasts forever.
After many months, I finished the impossible task and I was exhausted, humbled, and wiser. When my friends gathered to celebrate, I did not boast, but instead, I lifted one pin in my hand and one hoe in the other and said, “Life can turn a hoe into a pin, and a pin into a hoe. Never laugh too quickly, never despair too quickly, just keep working and keep learning.”
And from that day, I became known not just as a skilled blacksmith but as a man who finally understands the rhythm of life; the rise, the fall, the ease, the struggle, the turning of iron, and the turning of fate.
Pa Alagbedediji concluded his story, looking down from the sky as the sun flashed light directly into his eyes.
“ I will be on my way and be back as usual before closing,” he said and left.
Odemuyi digested everything Pa Alagbedediji said and concluded that when life goes up and down, the decision to face any outcome, regardless, tells a story much more about who we are.
