The Boy Who Talked Too Much and Thanked Too Little

Pride is a loud drum, but gratitude is the lasting echo.

The Boy Who Talked Too Much and Thanked Too Little

By Kateb

Once upon a vine-twisted time, deep in the cradle of an ancient African village where the sun knew all your business and the moon whispered secrets to baobab trees, lived a little boy named Omodé.

Now, don’t let the name fool you it meant “child” in Yoruba, but Omodé thought he was king, emperor, ruler, and prophet all wrapped in one very loud, very arrogant package.

Omodé was not just spoiled he was marinated, fried, and dipped in entitlement. He woke up every day with the same face you get when someone gives you the wrong stew. Lips twisted. Eyes rolling like dice in a tavern. Gratitude? Never met her. Humility? That must’ve been a foreign exchange student who never arrived.

“Why don’t I have my own hut?” he whined at five years old.

“You have a warm bed and a roof,” his grandmother replied softly.

“I want three roofs and a floor made of lion teeth!”

Yes, lion teeth.

The boy had a taste for the dramatic.

He would complain that the water was too wet, the sun too bright, and the food too...well, cooked. He didn’t want to do chores, didn’t want to say “thank you,” and definitely didn’t want to hear anything that sounded remotely like wisdom. If an elder said, “The river flows where it is meant,” Omodé would say, “Well, it should flow where I want to swim!”

Now, the villagers didn’t despise the boy, but they did avoid him. You see, he had a gift for turning joy into dust. A wedding? He’d show up and criticize the bride’s dress. A harvest? He’d say the yams were shaped funny. One time, he insulted a sacred drum by saying it “looked like a fat goat’s belly.” That drum had been played for centuries. Even the goats were offended.

He strutted around like the Creator owed him a personal audience. One day, Omodé stood in the middle of the village square and shouted, “If I were the Creator, I’d make everything better starting with YOU PEOPLE!”

The sky didn’t thunder. Not yet.

But the ancestors heard.

And the Creator? The Creator doesn’t rush. But when the Creator moves, oh, the lessons are dressed in sandstorms and silence.

One morning, Omodé woke up with a frog in his throat. Not metaphorically. Literally. The boy opened his mouth to yawn and out croaked: “Ribbit!” That was all he could say.

“Ribbit! Ribbit!”

He ran around, waving his hands, trying to explain his frog-like dilemma. But remember—he’d insulted everyone. So when the villagers heard him ribbiting, they just said, “See? He finally speaks his truth.”

For three days, he croaked through ceremonies, during meals, and even at a funeral. Imagine the shame. He tried to argue with a rooster. He lost.

But that was only the appetizer.

Later that week, as he wandered to the stream to escape the laughter, he tripped over a sleeping tortoise. The tortoise looked up slowly, blinking. “In a rush to nowhere, I see,” he said, then went back to sleep.

Omodé rolled his eyes (as usual) and muttered “Ribbit” again. The river spirit giggled. Spirits love a good show.

Suddenly, the waters of the stream rose not violently, but with a graceful seriousness, like a parent tired of repeating themselves. Out emerged Mama Omi, the Spirit of Living Waters. Her hair was made of flowing currents, her eyes deep as night, and her voice soft but firm like thunder just learning how to whisper.

“Little boy who talks too much and thanks too little,” she said. “Do you know what happens to those who spit on blessings?”

Omodé just croaked in protest.

“You get baptized,” she said, and with a swirl of her hand, the water pulled him in not to drown, but to soak. He didn’t come back up for a full minute.

When he emerged, sputtering and soaked, he found himself...somewhere else.

Gone was the village. The land was dry, cracked, and empty. No food. No water. Just wind and regret.

There, he wandered for days. No one came to feed him. No one offered comfort. He found a talking bird, finally, who offered him a dry seed.

“I want fruit!” Omodé demanded.

“You want gratitude,” the bird replied.

He cursed the bird. The bird flew off dropping the seed in a dung pile just to be petty.

By the time the Creator finally appeared not with thunder or lightning, but with presence Omodé was on his knees, dusty, tired, and quiet for once in his life.

The Creator looked like everything and nothing old and young, male and female, dark and light. The Creator’s voice was not a sound but a knowing.

“Have you had enough of yourself?”

Omodé nodded. The croaking had stopped. Only tears came out.

“You forgot to say thank you,” the Creator continued. “You forgot that even the breath in your lungs is a loan. That joy doesn’t grow where complaint has planted its roots. That arrogance is a mask worn by the deeply empty.”

He sobbed.

“Humility is not silence,” the Creator said. “It is the wisdom to know when to listen. Gratitude is not weakness. It is strength hidden in soft clothing. You wore pride like a crown, but forgot that crowns are heavy and often stolen by wind.”

Omodé fell to his face.

“I—I am sorry.”

The Creator knelt beside him. “Now you can speak. Because now, you know silence.”

With a warm gust of wind, the dry land became green again. The bird returned (with a smug look), and even the tortoise showed up, shaking his head.

Back in the village, Omodé reappeared, hair wild, clothes dusty, and eyes...different.

He helped the old carry wood. He fetched water without complaint. He said thank you when given food. One day, a child knocked over his calabash, and instead of yelling, Omodé just laughed and said, “Looks like the ancestors wanted a sip.”

And so the village began to accept him again not because he was perfect, but because he was grateful.

He became known as the boy who once croaked like a frog but now spoke with kindness. And though he still had his sarcastic moments like telling the rooster it looked like it skipped leg day he had learned the greatest wisdom of all:

Gratitude is wealth. And humility..... That is the true inheritance.