The Seagull and the Mouse
It’s an old habit of highlighting and marking the favorite and catchy lines while reading any book. I was reading ‘The Winner Stands Alone‘ by the great writer Paulo Coelho, and marking the catchy lines as usual. While doing so, I stopped at one point in the book and read that over and over again. I decided, when I get to meet Arwaa, my 5-year-old daughter, I would read that to her and try to make her understand the message.
We are presently camping at a distant and rugged place. We are here for a month, and some of our friends/ colleagues are staying here for almost two months without their families, friends, and loved ones. Most of us have grown little sentiment and are eagerly waiting for that moment when this training session would be over. I was desperately wanting to meet my family, and at last yesterday I went home, where Tahsin, Arwaa, Aliyah, and my parents are staying. It’s nearly three weeks that Tahsin and our daughters are staying at our native home with our parents. They are enjoying their stay despite the cold winter in Noakhali.
Well, while I was thinking of staying at least a day and past some unforgettable moments with the family, for a moment I was ignorant about the context of flow tide. I landed on the ground once our navigator said that tomorrow the boat will start its return journey at 0900 hrs. Well, thanks to almighty that at least we all could spend around 20 hours together deducting 3+3=6 hours back and forth journey. And now we all are back to where we were, thinking of another few hours in next weekend.
Here is what I read to Arwaa:
“A seagull was flying over a beach when it saw a mouse. It flew down and asked the mouse:
“Where are your wings?”
Each animal speaks its own language, and so the mouse didn’t understand the question but stared at the two strange, large things attached to the other creature’s body.
“It must have some illness,” thought the mouse.
The seagull noticed the mouse staring at its wings and thought: “Poor thing. It must have been attacked by monsters that left it deaf and took away its wings.”
Feeling sorry for the mouse, the seagull picked it up in its beak and took it for a ride in the skies. “It’s probably homesick,” the seagull thought while they were flying. Then, very carefully, it deposited the mouse once more on the ground.
For some months afterward, the mouse was sunk in gloom; it had known the heights and seen a vast and beautiful world. However, in time, it grew accustomed to being just a mouse again and came to believe that the miracle that had occurred in its life was nothing but a dream.”
Reading and listening sessions were not easy. I had to show her images of a seagull, mouse, beak, etc from google, and moreover, I was bombarded with her innocent questions. And I loved that to the bones. Alhamdulillah, my is beautiful.
Today, since I left home, I am feeling myself to be that mouse, poor little thing. And yesterday was a dream. And another waiting session starts hoping that there will be another seagull seen very soon.