OUT OF THE BLUE

A true story for 5 to 105-year olds, to take us away from the exhausting human race for a vital moment.

Once upon a time there was a very sad fruit.

It was a very pretty and unusual fruit in the shape of a large round balloon with the neck of bottle, and it was called Gourd.

Gourd was unhappy because when he was growing on a plant he hoped he would become a bottle and always be useful. People would take fruits just like him and dry them and use them to carry water. This did happen to Gourd. He was dried in the sun and was used to carry water. But too soon he was not wanted anymore, and he was thrown away on a rubbish tip. I will not be anything now, he thought. I will never be useful again.

Then, one day, someone saw Gourd on the rubbish tip and took him to a farm in the Priorat mountains, called Mother’s Garden. I am going to be a bottle again, Gourd thought. But the person who picked him up had another idea. This person was visiting and helping on the farm and he wanted to use Gourd to make music. Oh, said Gourd, so happy. I am going to be part of a musical instrument, an African Kora, which is like a guitar!

He thought he was going to carry water but now he would carry music instead, which was even better. How different and wonderful, he thought. An opening was cut in one side of Gourd, like on a guitar, and out of it music, not water, would flow.

Every day the work went on. But, suddenly, before the Kora could be finished, the person had to leave and Gourd was left in the corner of the farm barn. More and more things were put in that corner until Gourd could not be seen at all. Four long years passed. Gourd was full of dust and very sad. I will never be useful again, he thought. Then the barn was cleared by another visitor helping on the farm, not a musician this time but an artist. He picked up Gourd, looked at his big round shape with the hole in the side and smiled. “I know what to do with you”, he said, and went to look for some blue paint.

Gourd wondered what he would be. He was washed and then, in just one day, he was painted to look like a beautiful blue whale with two more little holes for eyes. He liked this, but still did not know if he would be useful. He wanted so much to be useful. What use is it being a blue whale?

The next day he found out. He was taken and fixed high on the wall in a little room with no door. It was an outside showroom near the woods and he would be the light shade, looking like a beautiful blue whale and shining upwards. He was so happy. I thought I would carry water, he said to himself. I thought I would carry music, now I know I will carry light.

For a few weeks this happened. But then it stopped. The light never came on. And Gourd found out once and for all that he was never meant to carry water, or music, or light.

That spring, two beautiful little birds, called blue tits, saw Gourd the blue whale and knew immediately he was the perfect place to build their nest. And that is what they did every year – the blue birds laying their eggs and raising their chicks in the blue whale.

Gourd now knew, at long last, how useful he could be. He wasn’t meant to carry water. He wasn’t meant to carry music. He wasn’t meant to carry light. He was meant to carry life.