Once upon a time, the people created lighting for their cities so well and so artfully that they realized they no longer needed the sun. "Let us fire the sun," they agreed. "We could use that money for more lanterns."
First they yelled at the sun that it had been sacked, but it continued on its course regardless. They wrote a letter explaining the situation, but nobody came to pick it up. At last they decided to send their own messenger.
How they determined who would go fills a dozen more stories you may have heard already, but we follow the messenger. He walked far beyond the world, a long and exhausting journey, and waited for the sun to pass. He waved to the moon, shook hands with the stars, and at last the sun came.
"You're fired," the man told him. The sun glared at him, threw down the reins of its celestial chariot, and stomped away to find a better job.
The messenger kicked the chariot to test it out, but so fine and frail was it that it shattered into thousands of pieces. That is why you sometimes see stars moving in the sky. Those are pieces of the chariot.
One of the children raised a hand. "But what's the sun?"
"I don't know," the storyteller admitted. "It must have taken a big salary though, since we're so rich and prosperous without it." And forever afterward, nobody missed the big, dumb sun.
Finis
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