Zimbaly and the evil wizard
Once upon a time there was an African princess named Zimbaly. She was beautiful, rich and admired by everyone.
Oneday Unaz, the old, evil wizard kidnapped Zimbaly and made her his slave. First Una looted and plundered Zimbaly’s wealth so that virtually nothing remained of her former affluence. Next he put the poor maiden to work under despicable conditions. For many years, Unaz controlled, manipulated and brainwashed Zimbaly, depleting her completely.
Then it happened that some bad luck befell Unaz himself. His enemies from across the sea cast a spell on him. Unaz’s movement became confined to a small part of all the land. He was unable to travel about freely as he had done before. The situation was too much for Unaz to bear so he came up with an idea to once again use Zimbaly to remove his enemies unjustified spell from him.
Unaz called Zimbaly to his chamber to give her the task. She was to go throughout the country, accompanied by armed guards, collecting as many signatures as she could from everyone she met. Unaz promised her that if she did this satisfactorily, he would release her and all her suffering would stop. The end of the spell would bring freedom and happiness to both Unaz and Zimbaly.
Motivated, Zimbaly set about her task. She went from door to door, obtaining signatures from many. She organised large gatherings where the masses in attendance signed the petition. Although Zimbaly did some advertising and in other cases used charm to persuade people to sign, her intimidating escorts had a lot to do with the great number of signatures eventually gathered. Zimbaly actually got well over the target initially set at the start of the campaign. She was pleased with her achievement and more than that, she was excited that at last she would be free to chart her own destiny.
Zimbaly met Unaz at the appointed time and place, and proudly presented him with the signatures she had gathered. Unaz was suitably impressed. “There’s just one more thing you must do to complete this task”, he said. Unaz presented Zimbaly with a frog and told her to kiss it.
Zimbaly did not hesitate because she was well aware of what happened when a princess kissed a frog. She closed her eyes. Carefully, Zimbaly planted a kiss on the top of the frog’s head. But alas! When she opened her eyes, she quickly realised that it had all been a lie.
Unaz’s enemies were not impressed by the lengthy list of signatures and they took no notice of the petition when it was presented to them. Unaz continued to live under the sanctions imposed by his enemies. He did not acknowledge Zimbaly’s efforts in obtaining the signatures but kept her under his cruel governance. So, Zimbaly remained his prisoner, suffering abuse of human rights, hardships and poverty. Her dreams of returning to her prosperous and peaceful life had all been a silly fairytale.