Tag: Story

Some children were at play on the ground. The road from the market twisted round the hills, then rose and fell to reach here. One day, a herald rode into the town, blowing his trumpet and crying aloud, “All hail the King! His Majesty passes by this road to-day. Make ready for the King!”

One child said, “Did you hear that? The King is coming here. He might peek over the wall and look at our playground; who knows?”

“I’m sure that he wouldn’t like it this way. We must put it in order.”

But the playground was very messy, for these were careless children. Scraps of paper and broken toys littered the corners. One of them brought a hoe, another a rake and just behind the garden gates, they found a brilliant, red wheelbarrow. They labored hard, ’til at length all was clean and tidy. 

“Now it is clean! But we shall make it pretty too; for kings are used to fine things. He may not notice mere cleanliness. He has it all the time.”

Then one brought sweet rushes and strewed them onto the ground; another made garlands of oak leaves and pine tassels and ran to hang them on the walls. They brought an army of rhododendrons, which they found by the river, and put them in old vases to decorate the place. The littlest one fetched some marigold buds and spread them on the ground beneath the tallest of trees. “To make it look like gold,” he said.

When all was done, the park was so beautiful that the children stood and looked at it, and clapped their hands in pleasure. 

“Let us keep it always like this!” they said in unison.

Many people came and saw the children’s hard work, and applauded them. One lady even suggested they hang a few bougainvilleas across the length of the wall, which they did.

They waited all day for the King, but he never came; only a man with worn-out clothes and a tired face came towards sunset.

“What a pleasant place! May I come in and rest here, dear children?” the man said. They brought him in gladly and set him on the seat that they had made out of a cask. They had laid an old, red cloak on it to make it look like a throne, and for now, it made a pretty good one. 

“It is our playground,” the children said proudly. “We made it for the King himself, but he never came, so now, we mean to keep it for ourselves.

“That is good!” said the man.

“Because we think pretty and clean is nicer than ugly and dirty!” exclaimed another child.

“That is even better!”

“And for tired people to rest in!” said the smallest one.

“That is best of all!”

The man sat there and rested for a while. The children brought him a cup of water, their best one of course, with some rosemary sprigs. He looked at them with such kind eyes that they opened their heart out to them; they told him about the funny, old mailman; and the puppies they saw at the market; and how scared they were of clowns. The man nodded all along.

Then he thanked them and proceeded to leave. He touched their heads and gave them a warm smile. The children slowly watched him walk away. It was fairly still, for soon the sun would go to bed. The trees and bushes whispered among each other, birds made way for their home and the quiet road fell asleep again. 

“He looked so tired!” said one of them.

“Yes, but he was so kind!”

“See!” the littlest one said. “How the Sun shines on his hair! It looks like a crown of gold.”

The very thought of it gave me goosebumps. ‘Really! The Dream Factory.’ Well, there was no doubt about it as the golden letters on the scarlet card read clearly, ‘Lucky winner. Lilly.P.Ray. Ticket for a day’s tour to the Dream Factory.’

I waited for ‘The Day’ with bated breath and could not sleep in anticipation. Finally the day of my dreams arrived and I found myself standing at the colossal gate of the Dream Factory. A tall and slender tour guide beamed at me. At the entrance he handed me a cup filled with many coloured globules like jelly beans. It read ‘Food for your Thoughts.’

As I entered, I noticed the gigantic warehouse was divided into two halves. “Left-The Good Dreams, Right-The Bad Dreams,” said the guide. I saw fairies, angels, elves and nymphs huddled at the left entrance and giants, monsters, ghouls and ghosts at the right. Further I saw big and small air bubbles. They were called ‘Shapers’ as they would turn into anything we would think of for long. Dreams were being processed in huge boilers and the green potion was being poured into small tubes. These tubes were handed to the various agents who would appear in our dreams. The fairies, angels and nymphs delivered the good dreams and the ghosts and ghouls were in charge of the bad ones. Now I knew why I would see them in my dreams. They always came to deliver the kind of dream I had.

As I moved further ahead to the next section of the warehouse, the guide mentioned, “Now you will see how the best and worst dreams are processed in our warehouse, so hold your breath. First we go to the worst dream section. It is in the dungeon below. We go through the round staircase at your right. Stay strong . This might give you jitters.” 

I turned right and saw the round staircase. As I slowly climbed down I found myself in a dark, fowl-smelling, dank and cold chamber with a huge boiler and a dark grey sticky potion swirling within it. This was how ‘nightmare’ was being processed. The blood sucking vampires standing near it gave a bone-chilling, disdainful look which made my heart sink somewhere to the bottom. Adjacent to this murky chamber there was another room barely lit. I could hardly make out the figures sitting and floating in the room but clearly they were all in excruciating pain as I could hear shrill cries, deep sobs, cursing and writhing on the damp floor. I was shaken, I was petrified. It gave me such a lowly feeling it seemed as if someone had sucked out the life from me. The guide broke my stupor and said these vapour like translucent figures were actually the worst elements of life that tortured humans from time to time. One by one they were to be churned in the boiler to produce the potion of nightmare. I felt giddy and quickly escaped out of the chamber.

Coming upstairs I inhaled fresh air to recollect my senses. The guide seemed to have sensed my state of mind and to make things lighter he proposed to visit the best dream section. To my pleasant surprise I was greeted with the sweetest fragrance as we started moving down the alleyway. It seemed as if I was not walking anymore but just floating in an air bubble. The fragrance came from the prettiest flowers that adorned the alley. The guide mentioned the best dreams were processed in clouds. The last room facing the alley’s end read- Cloud 9. This was our destination.

As the door opened, I found myself literally floating in the blue sky within my spacious air bubble. Patches of clouds were scattered in the sky. I noticed little fairies sitting on each of these clouds and playing the harp. I was in the most beautiful garden of clouds I had ever imagined in my wildest dreams. I said to myself, “This isn’t real for sure!” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was I dreaming or was this actually happening? 

As I moved further I found some fairies hovering around a silver cauldron kept on a huge fluffy cloud. They looked up and smiled kindly at me. They were busily flying here and there fluttering their little transparent wings adding flower petals, sweet aromatic juices into the golden liquid simmering inside and chiming sweet melodious tunes all along. On other clouds nearby, I saw happy, smiling children playfully running around, little birds chirping enchanting notes sitting on branches. I started wondering if only life could have been a journey through the garden of good dreams. The guide broke my reverie and said, “The sweet smiles of these children, the birds’ cooing and all other beautiful things of the world are added to the golden liquid. It is the best dream potion.” The ambience gave me so much of peace and contentment it seemed as if my heart would rapture in a rhapsody of emotions.

As I made my way back to the main exit of the Dream Factory, the guide handed a little note to me with the same beaming face I had seen earlier that day. I quickly crossed the road and unfolded the small yellow parchment that read, ‘The more we think good, the more we generate good dreams and the more we think bad, well you know what it is!’. I had a spell binding experience and had figured out one thing clearly. From now on I was only going to think good. Who would want the ghouls and the monsters to come to deliver your potion, right?

As I turned around I found the guide still smiling at me standing from the doorway of the factory. I shouted out, “Sorry there. I forgot to ask your name. What’s your name please?” He beamed again generously and replied, “Well little friend, people call me SLEEP.”

In the city of Philadelphia, there lived a gentleman named Justin Later. He was a peculiar and venturesome man. One day while walking through his garden he saw a cactus plant that he had planted when was young.
Suddenly, the plant began to move. Justin was frightened and ran out of the garden as fast as his legs could walk. When he left the garden, his neighbours came and saw more cactuses growing on top of each other. Soon, the whole garden was covered with cactuses. After an hour the cactuses started moving out of the garden, into the streets and destroying the houses. Everyone in the city was looking for a safe spot to stay. The cactuses were eating the local people and the tourists. All the shops, malls and parks were closed and there were cactuses wandering all around like guards.
Justin was alive and he was living in a tree house hotel with some other people. One girl among them shouted, “Oh! I need a charger, my phone is dead.” Justin was also very hungry but all they had with them was some bottles of Sprite. Justin asked the lady, “I also want some sandwiches to eat so can we both go out and get food and your charger.” One man said, “No you cannot go out, the cactuses will eat you.”
Justin and the lady still set out to buy the essentials. Slowly and carefully, they bought the stuff and escaped from the market. After some time, they were back in the hotel, safe and secure.
Justin was in his bed and he realised that it was a dream and told his mom about his dream. Both of them laughed very hard and started the day with a nice mood.

Once Lisa and Jennie were at a coffee shop. It was the most famous coffee shop in their town. They were enjoying their snacks when Lisa spotted a person across the street in the alley. She thought that the person was spying on them. So she talked about it to Mrs. Ross, the owner of the coffee shop and she told Lisa and Jennie that she had gotten complaints like this before and apparently the person was spying on the shop. 

Lisa described to Mrs. Ross how the spy looked. Mrs. Ross thought that they should call the police but Jennie told her that if the police would come Mrs. Ross would have to close the shop for inspection and they had no proof that the person was spying on them, so she said that first they had to put CCTV cameras at the front of the shop. So that’s what Mrs. Ross did. 

Once the cameras were installed they caught the person looking into the shop with binoculars and then they gave the recordings to the police. The next day they made a plan that the police would hide in the alley and catch the unknown person. The cops hid behind a dumpster and caught the person and took him in for interrogation. 

The cops got to know that he was working for a person named Brian Callaghn who was suspected of stealing some royal jewels which were on exhibit a few years ago. Brian was paying the man for spying on Mrs. Ross’s shop but Brian’s location was still unknown and because of Lisa and Jennie the cops decided to form a search committee for finding Brian and they told the mayor to give them matching badges saying “The Daring Duo”. 

The next day they saw posters on the walkways with wanted signs for Brian Callaghn. And some weeks later there was a news report saying a flight attendant named Ellie Kim had found Brian in New-Jersey at the airport leaving for Hong-Kong. Right after the news about Brian there was another news report about Lisa and Jennie saying that they were the reason Brian was found and arrested.

It was afternoon and I was awake from my afternoon nap. I decided to play a board game with my mom hoping that she was awake like me too, but to my surprise she was in her room sleeping. It was strange because I was the slothful one. I decided to eat a packet of chips. Unfortunately enough, there was not a single packet to be found. I grabbed some money and went to the nearest grocery store for a packet of chips. Surprisingly, everybody was asleep there too. I tried to wake the cashier up. When my efforts did not succeed, I grabbed a couple of packets of chips and left the money on the counter. As I walked through the street there was nothing but cars at the same place. As I looked in through the windows of the cars I saw people in deep slumber. Something was wrong. I couldn’t be the only one awake. Suddenly, another guy walked in. He was my neighbor, Sam. He said, “Are you awake?”
I said, “Yes, of course. Everybody should be awake at this time.”
“Haven’t you heard the latest news?”
He opened a digital newspaper on his smartphone. An article read, ‘The Whole World in Deep Sleep. Only a Rare Number of People Awake. Reason Unknown.’
I said, “We have to find the cause of this slumber.”
“Yes” said Sam.
Before I could say anything further, I saw a small light in the sky. It didn’t look like a satellite launched by the government as the satellites orbit in the exosphere and we can’t see it. It started moving towards a deserted ground. As I followed it to the deserted ground I saw a manhole. I said, “What is a manhole doing here?”
He replied, “It could be a secret pathway.”
A man appeared and swiped a card and a door opened. He went inside. We both were surprised. We had to get the card. Suddenly, a guard appeared from the satellite. I distracted him by making some sound. A duplicate card was hanging from his belt. We grabbed the card and entered their lair and hid. I looked at a large computer being operated by several people.
The man who had entered earlier said, “Our satellite is working. Everyone is fast asleep. Hey Doctor, what is the news?”
The man monitoring the computer said, “Sir, our satellite has found 3 people awake. They have probably developed the antidote which flows through their blood.”
“What! A minority of even 3 people can ruin my plan. Find them and terminate them.”
Both of us were running away from their lair when a bullet whizzed past the side of my neck. I ran even faster hoping for some help. But with that thought another tangled in. We both were only 2. Then who was the third person detected awake by the monitoring satellite? Suddenly a person came and shot the sniper with a perfect aim. This person was in a car. He stopped the car and let us in. He said, “Hello. My name is Tony. Nice to meet you.”
I said, “So you are the 3rd person awake.”
“Yes, pretty much this is the truth.”
He secretly got into an underground bunker with all you need to survive and there was also a large computer there.
Sam said, “Excuse me, can you tell us who that guy exactly was?”
“Oh, he is Albert Anderson. He is out to fulfill his dream to rule the world.”
“Ok.”
I said, “What are you doing on the computer?”
Tony said, “I am trying to make contact with the satellite and see what type of rays the satellite is emitting to make people fall asleep.”
“Ok. Continue doing it.”
Sam said, “According to his plan he will probably send professional terminators to kill us.”
“Don’t worry. They won’t notice us.”
Suddenly, an alarm rang. He said, “They have found us. Get into the escape pods and put on the spacesuits. We have to run away. The satellite can only be shut down by the main computer in his lair.”
I said, “We have the card to enter the lair. Let’s go.”
We reached there and entered the lair by destroying the pods following us with turbo waves. When we reached the lair, we saw Albert drinking coffee. He was wide awake looking at the computer screens. I took a gun and aimed it at his head. The scientists surrendered and deactivated the satellite. I used a teleportation device to reach home and went to bed like I was really sleepy because I really was.

Lucy was wondering about what to pack for her Asheville trip. She was an introvert, as you might say, a package of eccentricity, social anxiety and self-consciousness— not the kind of person you would want to hang out with. She did not relish family weekends and would go blank when asked what profession she’d pick later in life. Since Christmas was around the corner, she was obligated to spend time with her rather-derisive relatives. As she loaded her luggage into the trunk of a rental car, she took out a book which she had stuffed inside. The road journey was going fine until her parents started some indie music. The book lay on the car’s seat, listening to the soft humming of its owner.
A week later, on December 31, Lucy was sitting in an aeroplane, on her way back to Pasadena. Almost everyone around her was sleeping. Her digital watch displayed “11:40 pm”. As she passed into oblivion, her dreamland had some blissful memories in store for her. She was sitting with her mother, who was narrating sweet incidents from her childhood, by the fireplace. The next moment she found herself decorating a Christmas tree with her cousin Dorothea. Before she could hang the ornament she was holding, on the tree, she was taken to the campfire, where she was laughing and dancing to carols.
She then woke up to find her family celebrating with glasses of wine in their hands. The epiphany that a journey had never been so euphoric before put a smile on her face. ‘Twas the night of New Year’s.

There lived a boy named Peak. He didn’t know what to do with his life. He found school to be boring. He didn’t understand why he was studying, why two plus two is four and not five, why things look different from each other, why we all don’t have similar faces, etc. He wanted to be in, when he was out and wanted to be out, when he was in. He led a monotonous life.

One day he was walking dejectedly through the streets of the city. When he reached home, he dumped his bag in the corner of the room and made his way toward his bed. On the table, he saw a strange tollbooth. There was a letter attached to the tollbooth. The letter had instructions for how to erect the tollbooth and use it. There was a map along with a small cute car. He stepped into the tollbooth. Suddenly, a voice was heard. It asked, “Where do you want to go?” Peak answered, “Dictinopolis – the land of words by reading the map”. 

Suddenly Peak disappeared.

In Dictinopolis, he met Spellbee. He had a great adventure there. He saw alphabets floating in water and Spellbee was trying to balance them by combining the alphabets in a logical way to form meaningful words. Spellbee was instructing them to be arranged in a meaningful manner. When Peak saw that, he was curious and asked her why she was arranging alphabets in that particular order only. Why is ‘APPLE’ spelled as ‘APPLE’ only and why not ‘AEPlE’ or ‘IAPLE’!

She replied in the context of this question- Everything that exists in this world whether living or non-living has its own significance and importance. As we see that everything is in perfect balance in the universe and needs to be symmetrical for ease of the natures. The same way, these words also play an important role in one’s life to communicate and express one’s feelings and if they are not polite they can hurt someone. These words are spelled in such a manner so that the balance can be maintained and others can use them to make their life meaningful.

After sometime he heard a voice, this voice was of his mother. Immediately, Dictinopolis started fading away. Peak was flying in the air. Suddenly Peak woke up, and realized that all this was a dream. But he realized that every human being has been blessed with different abilities and talent. We differ from each other in that we have different interests. There is a beauty of its own in every color. Everyone is great; the need is only to spark their talent. He realized his importance in this world and the beauty of words. He took help of these ‘words of his dream’ and transformed his life. He read many books and penned down his thoughts on paper. When he grew up, he became a renowned author. He also wrote a novel based on the dream that he had visualized many years back. He discovered his talent and lived happily ever after.

Moral: Everyone who exists in this world has a talent that is hidden inside him. They just have to reveal or detect that talent.

In the foggy night there came deadly sounds from the haunted bungalow on the other side of the street which gave a spine-chilling feel to David who was returning home from his friend’s house. 

David Caroline was a 12 year old boy, who loved spooky adventures but today he had shivers of fear. His mom, Mrs. Jennifer Caroline, a stout lady with a crooked nose and a mouth as sour as a gooseberry had a peculiar talent of slapping the hardest in the entire universe. She had instructed David to come straight home after meeting his friend, or else, he would have to experience his mom’s odd talent!. But will he be able to come home at all? 

Suddenly, David detected some eerie sounds from the bungalow. On the spur of the moment, he turned to notice a hazy figure in the misty night. In a flash of a second, the figure appeared right next to David. 

It was a spine-chilling sight – a blood-curdling phantom with eight blood red eyes and wore a white robe with patches of blood on it. Seeing this, David had a sweat shower! The ghoul took out a string with a marble as black as coal, clipped to the end of it. The ghost moved the string slowly in front of David’s eyes and hypnotised him. The ghost then led David into the strange bungalow. There came creepy voices like a horse carriage riding in the distance, weird sounds like whispering cries, howling of wolves and slithering of snakes. There appeared a chain of headless corpses bound with bones. The cobwebs had spiders in it which were one of the most terrifying of all. Suddenly, there appeared a big shiny sword in the air. It was smeared with blood. “You’re gonna die!”, hollered the phantom. And at that moment David gave out a loud scream! 

Mrs. Caroline’s slap was the same as the attack of a sword! “My talent has flourished with flying colours! You had the world-famous slap coming for some time!”, boasted Mrs. Caroline. David’s mouth fell open on hearing this truth and he promised himself not to watch any scary movie before going to sleep.