Bags of Inspiration

There was once a boy who was set a task by his teacher. This task was to write a story – and not an ordinary story or a dull story but a story that would make the teacher sit up in her chair and shout “Wow!” Now this was a very difficult task for the boy because he was not the best storyteller in his class and he had no idea what to write about. He was much better at playing football and eating pies, though not usually at the same time. His gran, however, was great at making up stories – she told them all the time. So the boy phoned his gran and asked if she could help him – and she said that she could. “I’ll send you bags of inspiration,” she said.

“Oh,” said the boy, a little disappointed, because he had hoped for more than his gran’s good wishes.

The next morning was Saturday and there was a knock on the front door. The boy opened it – the door that is, not the knock.

“I have a delivery for you,” said the postman. He went to his van and brought out three bags.

“What’s that?” asked the boy.

“Inspiration,” said the postman. “Well, that’s what it says on the bags.”

Puzzled, the boy took the bags into the house and opened them one by one. In the first bag he found light so warm and bright that it made his face glow. In the second bag he found a riotous rainbow of colours that turned his eyes to joyous kaleidoscopes. In the third bag, in the third bag, he found words and phrases – a flood of language that spilled out over his hands and filled him suddenly so full of inspiration that he had to write. That very moment he sat down and wrote a story – not an ordinary story or a dull story, but a story that made his teacher sit up in her chair and shout “Wow!”. And so will you too if, one day, he should read that story to you.