Rebuilding the world

A father was trying to read the newspaper,
but his little son kept pestering him. Finally, the
father grew tired of this and, tearing a page
from the newspaper – one that bore a map of
the world – he cut it into several pieces and
handed them to his son.
‘Right, now you’ve got something to do.
I’ve given you a map of the world and I want to
see if you can put it back together correctly.’
He resumed his reading, knowing that the
task would keep the child occupied for the rest
of the day. However, a quarter of an hour later,
the boy returned with the map.
‘Has your mother been teaching you
geography?’ asked his father in astonishment.
‘I don’t even know what that is,’ replied the
boy. ‘But there was a photo of a man on the
other side of the page, so I put the man back
together and found I’d put the world back
together too.’

– Paulo Coelho

Technorati Tags: father, geography, map of the world, Paulo Coelho, Rebuilding, son, world