All It Takes is Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time I had to write a short-short story for Language Arts homework. Ah, good times. Back when math was easy as 123 and there was no ABC and XYZ.… but I’m getting distracted. I needed to write a really short story, and I wasn’t so good at that.
I absolutely hated writing short stories. Stories should be so long that I lose interest halfway through and eventually resort back to my WIP. Uh. I mean… Heh heh.
Anyway. I eventually got it over with (like ripping off a Band-Aid) and it turned out well. I like it. The title was inspired by my mother’s, “Just start writing. Even just open it with Once upon a time.” (Or something like that.) So. Here we go…
All it takes is
Once upon a time…
Once upon a time a lion sat at his table with a pot of ink and a paper. The oil lamp that sat in the corner of his desk was illuminating his half filled parchment.
Callum Crawford was a proper lion, indeed. He loved nothing more than to write poetry, receiving inspiration from his surroundings and his good friend, Carpet, who was a magic rug.
But on this day he wasn’t feeling incredibly inspired. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
He’d been gazing upon his paper for days now, and in doing so he’d been forgetting to take his midnight strolls about the zoo.
Callum Crawford polished his ink-stained claw on his handkerchief and tidied his desk before leaving his cave to check up on his friends.
The weather was fine that day, which was a fairly common occurrence. He spoke to his friends and asked them if they knew how to give him inspiration.
His closest friend, Penguin, told him that perhaps he needed a change of scenery.
So, Callum Crawford rang his friend Carpet on the telephone and asked him if he’d take him on a trip around the world.
Carpet arrived the next day, and Callum packed his suitcase and bid his friends farewell.
Carpet had a few deliveries to make before the trip, to which he was terribly apologetic.
They stopped first at a farm in France, and while Carpet delivered a magical wheelbarrow, Callum began writing a poem about chickens.
The chicken is a bird of land,
The hen will dig and kick in sand,
The rooster has a different job,
To make sure the eggs beasts don’t rob.
Next, Carpet had to deliver a magic lamp to a family of polar bears. While he waited for his friend, Callum Crawford wrote a poem about snow.
Drifting quietly in the air,
Each one with a unique flair,
And though they may look rather plain,
Keep in mind that no two are quite the same.
Last, Carpet delivered a witch’s broom to a panda bear.
Callum sat down by some bamboo, and wrote his last poem for the trip.
Bamboo is a fascinating grass,
Make a house with it, it’s sure to last.
Stronger than steel and better than wood,
I’d make a village, if I could!
Growing as fast as three feet a day,
Plant a shoot, it’s sure to stay.
Callum Crawford shared his poems with Carpet, who enjoyed every last word.
Finally they returned to Callum’s zoo, where he continued to write poems about everything he’d seen over the past couple days.
The End
Fun Fact: The Madake and Moso are the fastest growing bamboo in the world. They can grow at a rate of three feet a day!! Can you believe that? I didn’t know that until I wrote this story, actually. If you’re interested in finding out more,
