A Voice in the Desert

So I lived alone, without anyone I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Sahara Desert six years ago. Something broke in my engine. I had no mechanic and no passengers, and I had to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a matter of life or death — I had barely enough drinking water to last a week.

The first night I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any human place. I was more isolated than a sailor lost in the middle of the ocean. So you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was woken by a strange little voice. It said:

"If you please — draw me a sheep!"

"What!"

"Draw me a sheep!"

I jumped to my feet, completely astonished. I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most extraordinary small person standing there, examining me with great seriousness.

Nothing about him suggested a child lost in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles from any human place. When at last I was able to speak, I said:

"But — what are you doing here?"

And he repeated, very slowly, as if speaking of something very important:

"If you please — draw me a sheep..."

When a mystery is too powerful, one does not dare to disobey. A thousand miles from any human place and in danger of death, I took out of my pocket a sheet of paper and my pen. But then I remembered that my studies had been concentrated on geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar, and I told the little fellow — a little crossly — that I did not know how to draw. He answered:

"That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep."

But I had never drawn a sheep. So I drew him one of the two pictures I had always drawn — the boa constrictor from the outside. And I was astonished to hear the little fellow say:

"No, no, no! I do not want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is a very dangerous creature, and an elephant is very heavy. Where I live, everything is very small. What I need is a sheep. Draw me a sheep."

So I made a drawing. He looked at it carefully.

"No. This sheep is already very sick. Make me another."

So I made another drawing.

"You see yourself," he said, "that this is not a sheep. This is a ram. It has horns."

So I did my drawing over once more. But it was rejected too, just like the others.

"This one is too old. I want a sheep that will live a long time."

My patience was exhausted, because I was in a hurry to start repairing my engine. So I drew a simple box and wrote an explanation with it:

"This is only the box. The sheep you asked for is inside."

I was very surprised to see the face of my young judge light up.

"That is exactly what I wanted! Do you think this sheep will need a lot of grass?"

"Why?"

"Because where I live everything is very small."

"There will surely be enough grass for him," I said. "It is a very small sheep."

He bent his head over the drawing.

"Not so small that — look! He has gone to sleep..."

And that is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.