#2: You brighten my world with your love and fill my night with utmost magnificence; thanks to your ever-present smile in my mind. Saying ‘I love you’, is not even close to what I feel for you. Goodnight, my princess.

#3: Sleeping right beside me is important but the hope that you will be with me until the end of time is what’s paramount. I hope your night is filled with love and splendor.

#4: I’m jealous of the moon because it’s always there to see your sleeping face. I wish I could touch your sleepy, graceful face one day. Have the warmest dreams ever.

#5: Behind my casual messages, are a myriad of feelings that are too complex to comprehend. I wish to have this bond for the rest of my life, regardless of the highs and lows. Even after all this time, you are the only person who completes my nights. I love and cherish you with every breath I have. Have some good night’s rest, my queen.

#6: Without you, I could never have predicted how things would have turned out and what my life would have been like. I go about my daily activities with the hope that one day you will be my soulmate. The night is here, and I’m still filled with thoughts of you. It shows how much you truly mean to me. I love you to the moon and back. Sweet rest.

#7: Can you see how the stars look at you? They are also in awe of your presence and your angelic smile. Your uniqueness and beauty can’t be hidden. I believe you are one of God’s favorites. I love you. Have a blessed night.

#8: My pillow has been my companion for the longest time. Since you are not here to shower me with your warm kisses, let me take the golden opportunity to send virtual hugs in advance. I love you. Good night.

Now the magic of the drum depended on the owner taking care. He must never step on a fallen branch; if he did, the juju would vanish, and nothing but trouble would come to the owner of the drum.

Time passed. Everyone loved the king—antelopes and farmers, milkmaids and elephants, bakers and baboons and babies, too, for he was very generous.

Now one day Tortoise climbed a tree to collect nuts for his family. "There's never any end to my work," he groaned. Tortoise had begun to feel sorry for himself, and he had begun to envy the king.

   As he was working, one of his nuts fell to the ground, and down below a woman heard it fall. She turned, picked it up and ate it.

"You ate my palm nut," Tortoise cried.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't know it was yours."

Now this gave Tortoise an idea. "I work hard all day, every day and now you've stolen my family's food. I must report you to the king as a thief."

"Oh Tortoise," the woman said, "I am the king's wife, but if you wish to make a complaint, I will take escort you to the palace."

Together they went to see the king, and Tortoise reported the theft.

"So sorry," said the king. "Let us make it up to you. Take whatever you like from the palace."

"I will," Tortoise said, and he wandered around the palace for hours, sniffing this, touching that, and just as the sun was setting, he stopped before the drum.

"I'll take that drum," he said.

The king was a man of his word, so he gave Tortoise the drum. But he didn't tell him about its secrets.

Tortoise hurried home. "We're rich!" he cried, and the family was pleased to hear this.

"Show us how it works," his children begged.

Tortoise beat the drum, and a fabulous spread appeared, and for months the family did little but eat. Tortoise stopped working, and he grew fat and lazy. When he wasn't eating he ambled around bragging about his riches, and one day as he was trundling along, he tripped upon a stick.

Back home, tired and hungry, he beat his drum, but the juju was gone, so instead of a feast, dozens of enemies poured into the house and attacked Tortoise.

"We'll make war on your forever!" they cried.

Terrified, Tortoise gathered his family and raced to the riverbank. There they hid, and there they have lived ever since, feasting on fallen fruits, on slugs and millipedes, on snails and worms.

And that drum? No one knows where it has gone, but everyone searches, and everyone dreams of world peace.