Season 1, episode 26
Today’s story was originally written by Scott Wyatt.
Why is the raven black? 7-year-old Agapita has created a series of drawings to explain the dark feathers of this intelligent bird who just wanted to get a glimpse of his creator.
This simple story is told in the past tense and focuses on the words “crow”, “drawing”, “creator”, “world”, and the verbs “see/saw”, “made”, and “would be”.
The Color of the Crow
A mother was sitting at the kitchen table with her two daughters. Her older daughter was called Agapita and she was 7 years old. Agapita was drawing. Her younger daughter’s name was Manzanita and she was 5 years old. Manzanita was eating.
“What are you drawing?” The mother asked her daughter. Agapita moved several papers with drawings to the center of the table. Her mother looked at the drawings curiously.
“I am making a story of the birds,” Agapita responded. She took one of the papers. “This is the first drawing. It is the beginning of the story of the birds.”
On the paper there was a drawing of three birds. All the three birds were white, but it was obvious that they were different kinds of birds.
“Tell me the story,” the mother said. She really wanted to hear the story from her creative child. She wanted to know about the birds. Agapita began.
“Once upon a time there were three kinds of birds on the Earth: the dove, the seagull, and the crow. In the beginning, all the birds were white. They didn’t have any color.
Agapita indicated the three birds on her first drawing. Then she moved the paper with the first drawing aside and revealed other drawings to continue her story.
The doves were full of love. They were white due to their love, because love is pure. They were only concerned about love. They spent all their time in the tree because their love was enough.
The seagulls were white at the beginning because all the birds were white. But the seagulls had a problem. They were lazy. They didn’t want to work. They started to eat things that they could steal, like garbage. Because of that, their color changed. They received gray wings and black tails.
The crows were very intelligent. They were white because intelligence is bright. But the crow was curious. He wanted to learn about the world. He wanted to know who made the world. So the crow spoke to the trees.
“Trees, who planted you?”
“We don’t know,” the trees responded. The crow was not satisfied with the answer, so he spoke to everyone.
“Animals, who gave you life?”
“We don’t know,” the animals responded.
“Ocean, who filled you with water?”
“We don’t know,” the ocean responded.
“Sun, who put you in the sky?”
“I don’t know,” the sun responded. “But I move through the sky and I see a lot. I see flowers in the fields and trees in the forest. I see animals leave their homes in the morning with their babies. I see the vast ocean. I don’t know who made all this because I see everything and I don’t see the creator of the world. I think the creator made the world in the night. You should talk to the moon.”
The crow decided to talk to the moon. If the sun didn’t see the creator during the day, maybe the moon saw the creator during the night.
“Moon, who created the world?”
“I don’t know, little crow,” the moon responded. “Like the sun, I move through the sky and I see a lot, but I never saw the creator of the world. I think that he works in complete darkness.”
The crow made a plan. He decided to wait until night to discover the creator of the world. He waited night after night, but he didn’t see anything. However, in the morning the crow saw new creations.
The crow decided that the creator could create the world in secret because it was easy to see the crow due to its white color. The color of the crow was pure and bright like snow on a mountain. So the crow made a fire and used the ashes of the fire to change the color of its feathers. The black ash changed the color of his feathers from white to black, so the crow could be invisible to the creator.
But the crow made a mistake. His fire was visible to the humans. The humans took the fire. They used the fire to take control of the world and dominate all life on the planet. Because of that, the creator became furious. The creator appeared to the humans to learn where they got the fire.
“Humans, who gave you fire?” The creator asked.
“We took the fire from the crow,” the humans responded.
The creator saw that the crow used the ashes of the fire to change its color from white to black. The creator decided to change the color of all the crows to black forever.
The crow never saw the creator and now he can’t see the creator because the creator always sees the crow first. The creator can see the crow easily because it is black. The creator created other birds, but he gave them colors like red and blue.
The crow is intelligent, but it is not enough to be intelligent. It is important to follow the wishes of the creator.
Agapita finished her story. She saw her drawings. She took a color pencil and drew more flowers on the paper with the sun. Agapita’s mom was impressed by the story, but she had a question.
“Why can the creator see the crow when he is black? Wouldn’t a brighter color be better?”
Agapita considered the question before answering. “The creator existed before the colores and before light, so he can see the color black better than the others. The creator made the colors of the rainbow, but he existed before the sun, so the color black is natural. It is the oldest color of all.
“What color would you paint yourself?” Her mother asked.
“Blue, like the sky. But I would prefer not to have color,” Agapita responded decisively.
“And what color would you paint your sister Manzanita?” Her mother asked.
“Manzanita would be red like an apple, obviously,” Agapita responded.
“And me? What color would you paint me?” Her mother asked.
“You, mom, would be all the colors, like a party,” Agapita responded lovingly.
The end.
You can also watch a video of this story on YouTube!
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