A lazy washerman disguises his donkey as a tiger to steal grain at night; the plan works until pride insists on a bray.
The washerman loved sleep more than sweat and treated effort like a rumor. His donkey, a veteran of lopsided loads, knew every stone in the village road and most of their opinions. One market day the washerman found an old theater costume—a tiger skin with stripes like arguments. That night he wrapped the donkey in the disguise and loosed him into the fields. Farmers peered from their huts, saw the silhouette of a small tiger nibbling at wheat, and decided that courage is cheaper in the morning. The donkey returned stuffed with illicit carbohydrates, while the washerman marveled at how much easier it is to rule by costume than by competence.
Night after night the masquerade continued, and the fields whispered about a mild tiger with a taste for the tender part of the stalk. Then came the full moon that makes even sensible animals attempt poetry. The donkey, warmed by theft and unrecognized industry, looked up and felt a bray climb his throat like a vine in a hurry. He sang. The sound did not match the outfit. Farmers poured from huts with sticks, dogs, and the relief of finally having a right to be angry. They chased the ‘tiger’ into a ditch where the skin skidded off like a lie caught in daylight. The donkey stumbled home, striped only with welts. The washerman learned what all schemers eventually do: that even good costumes have seams where the truth will find daylight.
In the days that followed, the donkey carried loads in honest daylight, and the fields grew under farmers who slept better because fear had lost its best mask. The washerman tried to apologize to his animal, who accepted carrots and silence. At the tea stall people told the story with laughter that did not leak cruelty. Someone said the donkey had not failed because he brayed; he had failed because he could not bray and remain hidden. This, the elders agreed, is the difference between power and deceit: one can speak in its own voice.
