Woodpecker and his promise

Woodpecker was noted throughout the land as a great borer. He used his beak (as his offsprings are doing even to the present day) to cut open a good size of hole in a trunk of a tree. Everyone wondered how Woodpecker could create such a hole with such a strength, without suffering head injury or even complaining of headache.

Woodpecker was aware of everyone's surprise at his work, and he was very proud of himself. His pecking reproduces a reverberating sound that's heard some significant distance away.

Often people would stand in awe, watching at his tenacity in cutting through the tree trunks. When they asked him how he was able to do what no one else could do, he responded with pride, "You people have not seen anything yet. Just wait on the day my father would die. That day, to show my love for him, I would bore the biggest hole in the trunk of the biggest Iroko tree to bury him there."

Everyone kept wondering and expecting the day Woodpecker's father would die.

"It would surely be a once in a lifetime event to watch Woodpecker bore the greatest hole of all in the biggest Iroko tree." They all agreed.

Eventually, on the D-Day, news came up that Woodpecker's father had died. All roads led to the biggest Iroko tree. Everyone wanted to witness the great event - the boring of the biggest hole in the Iroko tree.

Surprisingly, the wait was in vain! Woodpecker could not perform. He didn't even come! They looked for him. He was found in a corner of his house, shivering due to cold generated by a painful boil that sprang up near his mouth, preventing him from talking, not to talk of boring.

In the end, Woodpecker's father was buried without his participation.

Lesson: No one knows tomorrow.