Costa

By Amirah Al Wassif

Everyone has heard of Costa’s miracles in our grey village: the boy who had a wooden toy and a cheerful wren bird.

His giant miracles were in his spoken wooden toy, which could create a lot of jokes in a loud tone.

His second miracle was in his talented wren: a wonder-bird that had the ability to sing several numbers of songs starting with the first letter of anybody’s name.

“Oh! What a lucky boy,” everybody whispered in each others’ ears.

Actually, all the people in our village felt jealous of Costa, because of his miraculous talents that made his luck very rich.

The sun in our village was usually not very clear. It was not orange or yellow. It was covered only by a colour so grey. Due to this, our village was named “the Grey Village.” So, all our times were grey, and we did not ever see this bright light universally known as the sun.

Day by day, when all the people in our village felt sad and disappointed because of the spreading of grey colour, strangely, Costa was falling in love with each detail in our sky.

The boy of miracles never got bored of the grey colour. When the village people sat unhappy and miserable and did not look at the sky, Costa watched its grey. He tried to count the stars in the night patiently and sent his unseen wishes to the hidden sun all the days.

When our people were puffing, feeling hopeless and waking up with no excitement, Costa woke every day, smiling and jumping, from his deep sleep.

Costa burnt with curiosity to look and look at the sky, which led him to know the strangest things in the world, such as his wooden toy and his splendid wren bird.

All our people were unhappy except for Costa: He was very glad. But as he was a boy who loved all his neighbours, he wanted to make them feel happy like him, despite their jealousy over his magical power and his marvelous gifts.

Every day, Costa demanded secret wishes from the sky, and he whispered in nature’s ears.

The boy of miracles wished good things for his people in the grey village, he wanted them happy like him or even more.

Costa gave his soul more joy and magnificent meanings for life, that nobody knew how this boy had learned such things.

While Costa discovered many secrets about the sky from his daily meditation, he made himself a promise. Accordingly, he decided to make a daily show in front of his people, to draw a smile on their lips with his magical gifts, the speaking wooden toy, and the singing wren bird.

In the Costa daily show, most of the people laughed, some of them smiled, but there was one odious boy who neither smiled nor laughed.

One time, the odious boy, named Jimmy, intended to steal Costa’s magical stuff. He waited until Costa slept, moved closer to him, and took his wonderful stuff away.

Now Jimmy had the wooden toy and the singing wren, and all the people in our grey village gathered around Jimmy. They watched and watched the boy, who started to move the wooden toy up and down, left and right, as Costa used to do in his shows. The surprise occurred, when the wooden toy did not move and did not through its creative jokes make a loud tone as it did before.

Jimmy felt so angry. He tried to move the wooden toy many times vainly. Then he put it down and started to carry the wren bird, to sing its wonderful song, which was supposed to start with the letter “A,” the first letter of the folk chosen to be the beginner, but to his unfortunateness the wren bird did not sing any song either. It remained very calm and quiet.

Jimmy was shocked, he did not understand why the magical stuff did not work. People who gathered around him watched him like miserable souls.

Suddenly, the people in the grey village realized the importance of Costa’s daily shows which gave them happiness and joy that they really needed.

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At such a tumultuous time, though he knew that Jimmy had stolen his magnificent tools, Costa watched his grey sky. He was not sad, because he understood the most important secret of the universe—that beautiful stuff came by itself to the good people without stealing or seeking.

While Costa meditated, Jimmy went to his place. Without any words, Jimmy gave him his magical tools, which began their extraordinary actions as they came into Costa’s hand: The wooden toy threw its creative jokes, and the wren sang its prettiest song, which started with the letter “A.”

“Oh! How can you explain that?” Jimmy asked Costa in an astonished tone.

“It is very simple Jimmy,” Costa said.

“If you want a charm, be calm.

“If you want a light, be kind.

“And if you help the others, the magic will still be with you forever.”

Amirah Al Wassif is a freelance writer and author. She has written articles, novels, short stories poems and songs. Five of her books were written in Arabic and many of her English works have been published in various cultural magazines. Amirah is passionate about producing literary works for children, teens and adults that represent cultures from around the world. Her first book, Who Do Not Eat Chocolate was published in 2014 and her latest illustrated book, The Cocoa Book and Other Stories is forthcoming.

Photo credit: Pete Beard via a Creative Commons license.

“Costa” was previous published by Literary Yard.