3 Inspiring Stories
That will help us look differently at ourselves
1-
THE BIRD
THE COW
& THE CAT
Little bird was enjoying a flight in the last rays of warmth for the day before settling down into his cosy nest for the night. As he dove and swooped across the sky, he noticed a flock of birds flying as though the devil himself was at their tail feathers.
- Hey! he called.
- Where are you going?
- We’re flying south, they called over their wings. Winter’s coming and we have to be in South America before it hits!
Little Bird was puzzled. This was his first winter and he hadn’t heard of such things.
- Why would you do that? he asked.
- It’s going to get colder yet! they called. There’ll be no food! Now hurry or you won’t make it!
Little Bird waved them good-bye and considered what they’d said. He’d felt cold before in the dark of night and it wasn’t really that bad. He always just nestled further into his nest and fluffed his feathers around him and was fine. No food? With all of the other birds gone, there’d be plenty of food for him! Flying long distances was hard work and he’d fare much better staying behind! His mind was made up.
He was right, for a while. Little Bird was living high on the land with the other birds down south. There was plenty to eat in the dying fields and the bugs were slow from the cold. He lay back in his nest, fat and happy, laughing at the silly birds that had gone south.
The next morning, he wasn’t laughing. He awoke to freezing rain pelting down on his nest, rudely awakening him from his restless sleep. It was cold. He shuddered and pulled his feathers closely around him, but he still could not shake off the chill that permeated his little bones. Shit. He had to get south and get there fast. He took flight, trying without success to fly above the rain clouds. The higher he got, the colder it got. He felt ice forming on his wings and he panicked as he began a downward spiral. He hit the ground hard.
It was Little Bird’s darkest hour. Or so he thought. As he lay there on the frozen ground, the icy rain pelting onto him, he stared up at the gray skies and asked for help, from somewhere, anywhere. Unbeknownst to him, Little Bird had landed smack in the middle of a cow pasture. Old Bossy Cow was feeling quite an urge and she was making her way through the sleet and rain and let go with a pie of epic proportions, which landed, ripe and steaming, right onto Little Bird.
- Fine, he thought. Just fine. As if injury was not enough, now he had a hot pile of insult all over him. As Little Bird lay, defeated, in the pile of cow shit, he found, to his surprise, that the heat from the cow plop was thawing out his wings. His tiny bones and muscles soaked up the warmth and soon he was feeling just fine again. It was a miracle…the very one he’d asked the heavens to send. He was so overjoyed, that he began to sing:
- Oh Happy Day! Oh Happy Day!
In the barn, not far away, Old Tabby Cat was curled up in a pile of hay, dreaming of spring when the birds would return and he would have warm food instead of cold, hard Friskies. Suddenly, his ears perked and his head shot up.
- What? Could it be? Curious, he padded out of the barn and cocked his head.
- Ha! Evidently, some bird had not flown south. What could it have been thinking?
He rushed out into the rain to investigate. He came upon Little Bird, singing for all he was worth from the middle of a pile of cow shit. Old Tabby Cat did not let his puzzlement keep him from swinging into action.
- Pssst, he said, Little Bird, what are you doing in that pile of cow shit?
Little Bird laughed.
- I was dying here in the icy rain and that cow over there saved me! It was amazing!
- Wow. That is absolutely fascinating, Old Tabby Cat purred. But I can’t help but notice that you are covered in cow shit now. Can I lend a hand? Let me pull you out and help you get cleaned up. Then you can really enjoy your new lease on life!
Little Bird was jubilant. Not only had he been saved from the jaws of death in a most unexpected way, but he’d been helped again by a most unlikely source. He reached out his wing and Old Tabby Cat hoisted him onto his back, grimacing at the still warm cow plop droppings that were sinking into his fur. Little Bird rode the cat back to the barn, where he was taken to the horse stables. The bodies of many of the large animals had made this part of the barn the warmest and Little Bird happily dove into a puddle of water and began washing his wings. After he was perfectly clean, Old Tabby Cat helped him settle down into the warm hay until he was perfectly dry. Little Bird settled into a comfy sleep, whereupon, Old Tabby Cat promptly ate him.
2-
THE BUTTON
This button has been in a shirt on a carpenter and a musician who was in love with a woman waiting for him in New York. He was one of the passengers on the maiden and only trip of the unsinkable Titanic on the 14th of April 1912 and he drowned.
The button was found in the stomach of a huge sea perch, found by a fisherman who had been out with his nets on the east coast of the Faroe Islands. The button was sewed into a blouse of the daughter of the fisherman and when she stepped out of the boat in Copenhagen some years later, the button fell off and fell into the bag of a magician from Pune, India.
At the beginning of the Second World War, a nurse at a hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, found a bag in a cupboard in one of the dormitories. The bag was empty, except for this button. She put the button in the pocket of her apron. Before going home at night, she put the apron in the heap of clothes going to the laundry.
Early next morning the son of the woman who had waited for the carpenter and musician that never arrived in New York, began sorting out the laundry and the first he took up from the heap of clothes was the apron the nurse had put there the evening before. He grabbed the apron between his left thumb and index finger and felt something hard, put his right hand into the pocket of the apron and took out the button. He looked at it closely and put it in the left pocket of his trousers.
Back home he took out the button and put it on the thin silver chain his mother had given him on his fifteenth birthday, always around his neck since that day.
A few weeks later, the young man had a telegram saying that his mother was ill and he arranged quickly to go back. Well back in New York, his mother still was in bed, but getting better and when she saw that her son had put a button on the chain, she asked him about it. He answered that he had found it working with laundry at a hospital in Alexandria and that he had had a feeling it was a talisman, an item giving luck to the owner.
On the 23d of January the son was drafted and entered The Second World War and the rest of the story is about the son getting shot from a distance, and the bullet hit the button and after the war he was served a glass of red wine at Chelsea Hotel, New York. When the woman leaned forward, serving the wine, her necklace fell out of her blouse, with a button on the silver chain…
3-
A PEELED OFF STORY
You wake up early one morning in the month of June.
You lie on your back thinking about the dreams you had,
listening to sounds you might hear,
stretching out.
You’re now sitting on the bed, putting your arms above your head, standing up and walking passed the carpet, opening the door, walking out in the corridor, looking to your left, where the kitchen is.
You go on walking, opening the door and you’re out on the porch.
You’re walking the three steps down to the ground and you’re following the path, opening the gate.
You take to the left on the path and you stop at the third house on your left. You’re leaning on the fence, watching an animal on the porch.
You continue to follow the path, crossing a little wood and after some fifty steps you’re out on a meadow and you run to the middle of it. There you stop, watching the animals around and in the lake at the end of the meadow.
After having been watching the animals, you walk slowly down to the little sandy beach. You may go for a swim if you want to, but you don’t have to do it. It’s your choise.
After either having had a swim or not, you walk up the little hill and sit down on the ground with your back against the trunk of a big tree.
Please walk back …
