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Golden Bird
Somewhere in the middle of the forest, a bunch of eggs were enjoying their last days before being hatched. One day in the middle of the spring, a powerful ray of sunlight shined with great power directly towards one of the eggs, changing that bird’s life forever.
Days passed and beautiful black birds emerged from the eggs, except the egg hit by the ray of sunlight. From this egg, a bird named Marley was born. It was physically alike to any other bird, but golden like fields of wheat during summer. The other birds were totally impressed by Marley, but adults didn’t know what to expect from someone so different from everyone and didn’t trust him at all.
While all the birds were growing up feeling happy and curious and cared about, Marley felt lonely and insecure and left out. He knew the older ones thought he was different although he didn’t feel that way. He wanted to feel supported because he knew his color didn’t mean anything and he could do the same things as the other little birds. One day he grew tired of being treated differently, and decided to show everyone how he could even exceed what the others could do. Everyone was amazed, and finally accepted him.
It was a tradition in the bird community to give everyone the opportunity to be ambassador of their species in nature’s council. Each year, the most loyal and hardworking bird was elected, and Marley had the dream of one day being that bird. The election day arrived and most birds believed Marley was the best candidate. The elder announced: “Ladies and gentleman, it is a pleasure for me to inform that this year, we have decided to re-elect the past ambassador for this period as we did not find proper candidates to represent us at the council. Thank you for your attention.”
Marley was devastated, he didn’t know what he had done wrong after all the years of preparation and hard work. Suddenly one of his friends raised his voice. “With all due respect, most of us believe Marley has done a great job since he was little. He’s kind to all of us, he works hard and I think he should represent us.”
“Sorry but I can’t understand why you believe he should represent us. He is different, look at him! Do you really believe he could do a good job? Absolutely not.” said the elder.
Everyone started showing unconformity, defending Marley because they knew that although he looked different from the others, he had even better abilities than everyone and his hard work should be recognized.
The old man was given a great lesson: everyone is capable of great things, despite their physical differences. Marley became ambassador for the nature’s council and fulfilled his dream of representing his community with pride and honor.
Written by Diego Garza and Arianna Campos
