The Incredible Black Rain

Gus Grumplings was never happy with anything. He had lots of friends, and parents who loved him dearly, but all Gus could think about was what he didn't have, or things he did have which he was unhappy with. If someone gave him a car, it would be too big or too slow. If he went to the zoo, he'd come back disappointed because they hadn't let him feed the lions. If he played football with his friends, he would complain, saying there were too many of them for just one ball...

What caught Gus unawares was Chuckles the prankster cloud. One day, Chuckles was drifting past, and heard all of Gus's complaining. Chuckles wafted over to see. When the cloud was right above Gus, he started dropping heavy black rain on him. That was Chuckles' favourite trick to play on grumpy little kids.

Gus wasn't at all impressed by this new development; it just made him complain even more. He was even angrier after he realised that the cloud was following him.
Well, this carried on for almost a week. Gus couldn't get away from the cloud, and he got more and more infuriated.

Gus had a little friend, a happy and generous girl called Gladys. Gladys was the only one who had been willing to hang around with Gus during all those black, rainy days. All the other children had run off to avoid getting soaked and ending up completely black.
One day, when Gus was at the end of his tether, she said to him: "Cheer up! What you should realise is that you're the only one of us who has his very own cloud, and even better, its rain is black! We could play some fun games with a cloud like this, don't you reckon?" As Gladys was his only company these days, and he didn't want her to leave as the others had, Gus reluctantly agreed.

Gladys took him to the swimming pool, and left him there until all the pool water was black. Then she went and got other kids. They came and played in the pool. The water being black meant they could play hide and seek! Grudgingly, Gus had to admit it had been a lot of fun, but what was even more fun was playing Wet the Cat.

Gus would find cats and run alongside them. When the cats felt themselves getting wet they would jump about in the craziest way, and run off at top speed, with funny looks on their faces. Before long, all the children in town had gathered around Gus, thinking up new games they could play using the cloud.

For the first time ever, Gus started to see the positive side of things; even things which, at first, had seemed so bad. Chuckles, the prankster cloud, thought that he could now leave; his work had been done. But, before leaving, he gave Gus two days of multicoloured rain, with which the children invented the most fun games ever.

When Chuckles finally left, Gus didn't complain. Now he knew to focus on the good in life, and the good thing about Chuckles' departure was that no longer was Gus soaking wet all day. Now he could go and do dry things, and that's exactly what he did.

The Happy Sweeper

A loutish kid and his mates were visiting a theme park. They arrived very early and everything was empty and clean. A park cleaner came by, singing and dancing as he swept. As everything was already so clean, the group of friends found it amusing to see how the cleaner worked so joyfully, and so early in the morning. They had a great time making fun of him. But the cleaner didn't mind, and just kept sweeping the area clean.

So the gang started throwing bags and bits of paper on the ground, 'to give him something to do'. When more visitors started arriving, and saw the lout and his friends throwing litter about, they thought it was one of the park's fun activities. So they joined in, and as more people arrived, the park became covered in rubbish. The park cleaner couldn't cope. No one seemed to be bothered, but something strange started happening.

As time went on, the park attractions were emptying, and more people were looking down at the rubbish on the ground. By the end of the day no one was on any of the park rides; they were all standing about, looking at the ground. "Well," said the park authorities, "what's going on here?"

Well... Everyone was looking for something!
It turned out that some time during that day, everyone had dropped something on the ground, but now that it was covered with litter, whenever anyone dropped anything... it was almost impossible to find it!

There was no other solution than have everyone help to clean the park, so they could find their things. Encouraged by the park cleaner, the visitors swept the ground, singing and dancing all the while. It became so much fun that from that day they created a new activity in the park, in which everyone, armed with brushes and bags, spent a while cleaning, laughing, and dancing.

The Math Dunce

That year, in the local school, there was a new Math teacher, as well as some new pupils. One of the new kids was the stupidest child anyone had ever seen. It made no difference how quickly or how slowly they tried explaining numbers to him; he would always end up saying something enormously dumb. Like two plus two was five, seven times three was twenty-seven, or a triangle had thirty corners...

Before this boy arrived, Maths lessons had been the most boring of all. Now they were great fun. Encouraged by the new teacher, the children would listen to the pieces of nonsense spouted by the new kid, and they would have to correct his mistakes.
They all wanted to be the first to find his mistakes, and then think up the most original ways to explain them. To do this they used all kinds of stuff: sweets, playing cards, oranges, paper planes...

It didn't seem like any of this bothered the new kid.
However, little Lewis was sure that it was bound to make him feel sad inside.
So, one day, he decided to follow the new kid home after school; Lewis was sure he would see him crying.

On leaving school, the new kid walked a few minutes to a local park, and there he waited for a while, until someone came along to meet him...

It was the new teacher!

The teacher gave the new kid a hug, and off they went, hand in hand. Following from a distance, Lewis could hear they were talking about Math.

And that stupid new kid knew everything about it, much more than anyone in the class!

Bobby the Mountain Climber

Bobby the mountain climber was famous for his attempts to climb the big snowy mountain. He had tried it at least thirty times, but had always failed. He began the ascent at a good pace, focussing on the snowy summit, imagining the marvellous view and the sense of freedom up there. But as he went on, and his strength dwindled, his gaze would lower, and more often would he look at his worn out boots. Finally, when the clouds had gathered round him, and he understood that he wouldn't be able to enjoy the view from the summit that day, he would sit down to rest, relieved to be able to start the descent back down to the village, though slightly worried about all the jokes he would have to endure.

On one of these occasions he went up the mountain accompanied by old Peeper, the town optician, who bore witness to the failure. It was Peeper who most encouraged Bobby to try again, and he presented him with a pair of special sunglasses.

"If it starts clouding over, put these glasses on, or if your feet start hurting put them on too. These are special glasses; they'll help you.”

Bobby accepted the gift without giving it much mind, but when his feet started hurting again he remembered what Peeper had said, and he put on the glasses. The pain was pretty bad, but with those new sunglasses he could still manage to see the snow-covered summit; so on he continued.

Just as nearly always seemed to happen, misfortune returned in the form of cloud cover. But this time it was so light that he could still see the summit through the clouds. And so Bobby kept climbing, leaving the clouds behind, forgetting his pain, and finally arriving at the summit. It was certainly worth it. His feeling of triumph was incomparable; almost as magnificent as that wonderful view, resplendent in its silence, the mountain below surrounded by a dense sea of clouds. Bobby didn't remember the clouds being as thick as that, so he looked more closely at the sunglasses, and understood everything.

Peeper had engraved a light image on the lenses, in the form of the snow-covered summit. It was made in such a way that you could only see it if you looked upwards. Peeper had understood that whenever Bobby lost sight of his objective, he would similarly lose sight of his dream, and his will to continue would wane.

Bobby realised that the only obstacle to reaching the summit had been his own discouragement. When he could no longer see the top of the mountain, the problems had set in. He thanked Peeper for using that little trick to help him see that his aims were not impossible, and that they were still there, where they had always been.

Women's Day

Women's Day

So happy you may seem on your day

Feeling yourself a jewel at midday

Proud to be on stage and have your short say

The day's over. Your colour goes grey

Where is the glory you wore yesterday?

Is it that day and no day except that day?!

Yes, they say; poor prey of today

Hey woman! Your day's a big small lie

Believe me, if not, just try

To reflect upon all your year-long cry

And no dears your tears to dry

Aren't you used like a car, then put on market for people to buy?!

Aren't you the bait of firms put on every single pie?!

Oh woman! You're not a feast

You're a human worth all the respect in West and East

All the year long and that's the least

Written by Amer Draoui in 2006