Rishita Neema, Class X B
It was another monotonous day in London. But not for Bill Roberts. He was always very enthusiastic and full of life. Whenever anyone felt sad, they knew who to approach first. As Bill was returning to his house, he realised that the streets were almost empty. It didn’t make sense to him, but nothing was going to spoil his mood. All of a sudden, he felt a shove and fell to the ground.
“No one is waiting for you at home, Mr. Roberts. Why don’t you spend the rest of your life with us?” A surprised Bill turned to face two weird-looking green men. But before he could say anything, one of the men shot a green laser at him and everything went black.
When he woke up, he rubbed his eyes. He was in a dark and misty place. At first he heard nothing, but then he heard someone weeping. For once, he didn’t care. He suddenly felt despair, so much grief! All his dreams had been shattered. He would not be able to do anything.
Yet, he got up. In the corner of the room he saw some people who were either crying of were lost in abject misery. For the sake of those people, he couldn’t be sad. He had to help. He simply knew he wanted to help them.
He approached a little girl and asked her, “Where are we?”
“This is the Castle of Broken Dreams.”
He asked, “Why is everyone sad?”
A young man replied, “Because we are lost. Our dreams are broken.”
Bill Roberts spoke in a cheerful tone, “Do you know, I want to go to the beach. I want to collect shells. I have a dream to make an awesome collection of shells. Oh come on everyone. We all have dreams. These monsters can’t take them away from us.”
His words had an immediate effect. They all smiled. And then everything went black again.
They all woke up together near a beach.
“We are free!”, they screamed with delight.
“Yes, we are free. Free to dream and to believe in who we want to be.”
Feeling the happiness of a man who had done a good deed, Bill returned home. Though he was never able to explain those two green men, he felt joyous to have made people dream, because dreaming was everyone’s joy and right too!
