Once upon a time…
There was a woodcutter named Ali Baba. Every day he went out into the forest by his house with his donkey, and cut down trees. He had a loving wife, Morgiana, who sold all the wood he cut down. They weren’t the richest people in the city, but they were happy with what they had.
Unlike Ali Baba’s brother, Kasim, who was rich, greedy, and had a wife who low key hated him.
Anyways, one day Ali Baba was out cutting wood in a part of the forest he didn’t usually go to, when he heard the sound of horses. Lots of horses.
Wondering why there’d be a herd of horses in a forest, he climbed a tree to see if he could spot them.
After a couple seconds of climbing, he saw, not a herd of horses, but a group of like 40 men riding horses. They wore scarves over their faces, had well-used scimitars on their belts, and had saddlebags full of gold! It didn’t take a genius to realize these people were thieves, coming back from sacking a town or something. Plus they’d probably been all over the news, so Ali Baba instantly knew who they were. And he knew they were very dangerous.
He stayed in the tree, watching, since if he moved they might see him and kill him. To his surprise, they turned and stopped at a boulder that was only a couple feet away from his tree. The leader (the one with the fanciest scimitar) got off his horse and touched the stone, clearing his throat.
“Open, Sesame!” he announced, and the boulder split in half! The crack in it grew until there was a giant, gaping maw in the ground, big enough for a horse to walk through.
One by one, the thieves filed into the cave. When they were all in, Ali Baba heard the leader shout “Close, Sesame!”, and the cave opening closed back up. It once again looked like a normal rock.
Ali Baba, not having a death wish, climbed down and grabbed his donkeys, prepared to match straight home. But after walking for ten minutes he had a thought. His wife had been complaining about a toothache, and they didn’t have enough money to pay for the good dentist to look at it. If he waited until the thieves left, and took just a little gold, that would be enough! And… well, their oven was really old, it’d be nice to get a new one. Aaaaand winter was coming up, new coats for him and his wife would be nice. So if he just took enough gold to fill his pockets, the thieves would never notice, and he could have a marginally better life. Besides, stealing from thieves wasn’t really stealing, was it?
So he tied his donkey to a tree and snuck back, waiting for the thieves to leave.
The thieves stayed in their cave for a couple hours. It was dusk when the boulder finally split open, and the forty men rode out. The leader shouted “close, sesame”, and they left as the cave opening closed.
Ali Baba waited for a couple minutes, just to make sure they were gone, and walked carefully up to the boulder.
“Open, Sesame,” he called, touching the rock.
To his surprise, the boulder split open! He snuck in, worried there might be a guard or something, but nope. The cave was deserted.
Or at least the entrance was. He didn’t explore much, since gold was piled along the sides of the tunnel. It looked like the thieves had so much gold and fancy stuff, they just dumped it wherever there was space.
Ali Baba quickly stuffed coins into his pockets, slipped a ring or two onto his fingers, and picked up a fancy silk scarf for his wife.
Finally he left the cave, said “close, sesame”, and happily watched the cave entrance close. Then he got his donkey, and went home.
When he got home, his wife, Morgiana, was like “ohmygosh it’s so late are you ok?? What happened??”
Ali Baba put the gold and silk on the table, explaining everything that happened.
Morgiana was worried about his safety, but agreed the money would be very helpful. They wrote out a list of things to do with it, and realized that having a lot more money would be handy. They thought it over, deciding that if they got one donkeyload of gold, then in a couple years when they grew old, they could just live off that and not have to work every day.
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So this was their plan: the next day, Ali Baba would take his donkey into the forest and get a quarter of a basket of wood. Then he’d wait for the thieves to leave, fill the donkey’s baskets with gold, put the wood on top, and bring it home. Where they’d… do something with the gold.
They were poor, so they didn’t know what to do with the gold. But! Ali Baba’s brother Kasim was rich. He’d know what to do with a pile of gold, surely! So after Morgiana went to the dentist the next morning, she’d visit her sister-in-law and ask what suggestions she had about how to store gold.
The next morning, Ali Baba set out with his donkey, same as always, except with a couple extra snacks in case the thieves took a long time to leave. Morgiana didn’t want him to get low blood sugar or anything.
A bit later, she went out with her nice new scarf and got her tooth pulled by the good dentist, the one who knew that numbing agents exist. After a lunch of nice, soft hummus, she went to the fancier part of town, to where Kasim lived. Kasim’s wife kinda didn’t like Morgiana very much, on the basis that Ali Baba was poor. But she was polite, and they sat down to tea.
Morgiana, still sliiiightly out of it from that tooth pull, wasn’t as subtle as she would have liked about the whole “loads of gold” thing. Kasim’s wife gave her a couple good tips on investment, and after a few hours Morgiana left.
Kasim’s wife immediately tracked down her husband and was like “hey, when did you last talk with your brother?”
Kasim was like “eh, it’s been a month or two… why?”
His wife told him that Ali Baba apparently had a mountain of gold now, and he needed to find out how. Kasim agreed, and decided to visit Ali Baba that evening.
Meanwhile, Ali Baba had thought it over, and decided two baskets full of gold would be too much for his poor donkey to handle. So when the thieves left, he only filled the baskets halfway full of gold. Surely that would be enough for a retirement fund.
After putting wood on top of the gold, he said “close, sesame”, and led his donkey home as the boulder closed.
When he got home, his brother was there, visiting! Kasim had a bunch of alcohol, and after drinking a significant amount of it, Ali Baba explained everything about the thieves and the cave.
Kasim, being very greedy, decided that he was gonna go empty the cave. So he got directions from his brother, and went home.
Meanwhile, the thieves got back from sacking some town or other, and found the entrance of their tunnel slightly less gold-lined than before. They talked it over, and decided that from then on they wouldn’t leave the cave alone. At least not until they caught the thief.
The next day, Kasim hired a dozen donkeys and herded them into the forest. He found the boulder pretty easily, tied the donkeys up nearby, and waited for the thieves to leave.
It took a couple hours, but finally 37 thieves left the cave. Kasim thought Ali Baba was exaggerating the size of the group, and didn’t worry about a guard. So he herded the donkeys over, shouted “open, poppy!” and waited.
Nothing happened. He knew it was some kind of seed, so he started shouting “open, flax!” and “open, chia!” and stuff like that.
On the inside, the guards heard someone shouting at their boulder. So they got into position, waiting for Kasim to get the word right.
Fiiiiinally Kasim said “open, sesame?” and the boulder cracked open! He strolled in like he owned the place, and was promptly murdered.
The next day, Ali Baba went out to collect wood as he’d always done, and his wife went into town to make arrangements for getting a new oven. He came home at noon, they had lunch, and all was well.
Until about two in the afternoon, when Kasim’s wife came over and was like “heyyy soooo do you know where your brother is? Cuz I sure don’t and it’s starting to worry me.”
Ali Baba and Morgiana were like “thaaaat doesn’t sound good…” and Ali Baba set out on his donkey for the cave.
Meanwhile, the thieves had come home and found a bunch of donkeys! How nice of someone to make a present for them!
The guards showed the leader Kasim’s body. The leader decided to make an example out of Kasim, so he had his men cut Kasim into four pieces and tie the pieces up at the entrance of the cave.
Just in case there were any other thieves.
Ali Baba got to the boulder at about midafternoon, tied his donkey a little ways away, and climbed into the tree to wait. At dusk the thieves left, and he counted to make sure all forty went.
They did. So he climbed down, said “Open, Sesame!” and waited as the boulder split open.
To his horror, the first thing he saw was his very dead brother!
What did he do next?? Did the thieves find him?? What would he do about the corpse???
Well, this chapter is getting too long, so I’ll copy Scheherazade and pause the story here.
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Moral: If you plan on stealing froma gang, make sure you know how many members there are.