The Little Girl and the Magic Words (Malu Sciamarelli)

In February, Malu wrote “Where do your stories come to life?” for Teaching Village. I’m thrilled that she has followed it up with an original story. Barb
There was once a girl who lived in a world where all words ran free. They just existed everywhere, not written or imprisoned on paper, and people were very happy because every time they wanted to use them, they could see and understand their real meaning and there was not such thing as misunderstandings. The girl especially was always radiant, because when she thought about something nice to say, the words came tumbling out joyfully showing their meanings in the air; when she thought about a poem in her mind, everyone could see the words shining through the midday sun; and when she wanted to express all the love in her heart, they danced around the trees and flowers. The little girl was a transparent crystal reflecting her joyous soul to the world.

One day, the girl decided she wanted people from other worlds to be happy too, and listen to the beautiful things the people in her world could think and express with the words that ran free, but how could they travel so far and reach other people without being scrambled in the air? How could she know if people would see the beauty of her thoughts the words so gracefully expressed? That was when she had an idea: what if she glued the words carefully, one by one on the fallen leaves of trees so that her beautiful thoughts, poems and stories could be taken away and people from other worlds could read them too? The trees agreed and the words too.

However, as soon as people from other worlds started to read everything the little girl created, they saw different things – each person saw different words, poems, stories…the words had lost all their shine and magic. “How could that happen?”, she couldn’t stop wondering. Then the words that ran free in her world started to shape the answer in the air:

“In this world, we are free and people read not us, but your heart. We are just a reflection from what is inside of you. But when you imprisoned us, all they could see was the reflection of their own hearts – different meanings for different hearts”.

So, every night before falling asleep, looking around in her bedroom at the happy words dancing and getting ready to be part of her dreams, she secretly whispers the words in wishes. She wishes everyone could see with the same feeling in their hearts all the love her words express, all the exuberance of her words, all the happiness that is waiting to be shared.

Note: This article by Malu Sciamarelli originally appeared as a guest post on Teaching Village and is licensed under a Creative Commons, Attribution-Non Commercial, No Derivatives 3.0 License. If you wish to share it you must re-publish it “as is”, and retain any credits, acknowledgements, and hyperlinks within it.