Nothing More Than Nothing

Tell me the weight of a snowflake", a coal-mouse asked a wild dove.

"Nothing more than nothing", came the answer.

"In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story," the coal-mouse said.

"I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow -- not heavily, not in a raging blizzard -- no, just like in a dream, without a wound and without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd dropped onto the branch -- nothing more than nothing, as you say -- the branch broke off."

Having said that, the coal-mouse flew away.

The dove, an authority on this since the time of Noah, thought about the story for awhile, and finally said to herself, "Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come to the world."

This appears in various forms across the web, and is referenced either as "Thus Spoke the Caribou" from "New Fables" by Kurt Kauter, or from "Synchronicity", by Joseph Jaworsky