Posts Tagged ‘adventure’
A Whale Tale of a Snail and a Sail-Away
There was a tiny snail (or so he felt inside), who climbed along the garden wall in silence every day. Without fail there came along an angry boy each day, bitter and irate for reasons the snail could only guess. Each day the boy was just the same: he would pluck the tiny snail from the wall and toss him to the ground with a laugh and a sneer. And each morning for a long time, the snail slowly crawled back up the wall once more in hopes that when the new day rose he would reach the sunlight that only reached the highest parts of that wall.
As time wore on the little snail grew more weary as the frustration of never quite reaching the light of day began to weigh upon him. Every day the angry boy would return, his tongue all aflame with bitter words, and the little snail would find himself hurled once again to the ground so far below, where he would land with a painful thud. But one day, something changed in the world and the little snail could no longer bring himself to try.
When the angry boy returned to taunt the little snail, his face contorted in a strange fury when he saw that the snail had not begun to crawl up the wall again. Instead he had stayed just where the boy had thrown him down the day before. The angry boy cursed and spat, and very nearly crushed the little snail with his gigantic shoe, but for some unknown reason he hesitated and put his foot back on the ground. “You’re not even worth it” said the angry boy, and with a terrifying face he spat upon the little snail where he lay.
The little snail did not move, but stared ever up that wall at the sunlight so high above. He longed to feel its warmth upon his shell, but his heart sank and he said to himself, “I can never reach it, for I am not able to overcome the obstacles which beset me”. And for several days he remained exactly where he lay, his heart growing ever more sorrowful as each day slipped away into another night. For a few days the angry boy would come again and curse the little snail, but soon he seemed to lose interest and did not return for a long time.
When he became hungry the little snail would slink across the dirt and soil to eat sadly from the lowest leaves on the plants, even though they were caked in filth and did not taste as good as his favorite leaves just a little higher. Sometimes he would look mournfully up at those leaves, but he did not try to reach them any longer; “I can never reach them” he said, “for I am not able to reach so very far”. And though the little snail survived each day, his heart was filled with sadness.