insula dulcamara
DESCRIPTION
“Insula Dulcamara” is a painting by Paul Klee. It means “Bittersweet Island”. Perhaps it was inspired by the story of Odysseus and his travels from isle to isle. We took his painting as an inspiration and wrote stories of exactly one hundred words. We hope you like our stories. Most of them imagine Odysseus landing on an island, a “bittersweet” island.TRANSCRIPT
Insula Dulcamara
“Insula Dulcamara” is a painting by Paul Klee.
It means “Bittersweet Island”. Perhaps it was
inspired by the story of Odysseus and his
travels from isle to isle.
We took his painting as an inspiration and
wrote stories of exactly one hundred words.
We hope you like our stories. Most of them
imagine Odysseus landing on an island, a
“bittersweet” island.
We beached the ship and looked around.
Suddenly a girl appeared out of thin air. With
her was an elephant. As soon as she came an
octopus poked his head out of the waves.
“Where has the great Poseidon taken me to
now?” I whispered sheepishly to the girl. She
heard. “You have arrived on the amazing
island called Insula Dulcamara,” she replied,
not caring I was timid. She somehow looked
unhappy. She must have seen me looking at
her face.
“There’s no reason for my unhappiness, I
guess it’s not knowing any other place but
here could be it!”
Jessica
OK, we arrived on this island but I don’t know
what this place is, and if this island is a good island
I say” peace”.
Anyway me and my crew are totally freaked out.
Look, I’ll show you how we’re freaked out. It’s
like, you know you’ve been on loads of bad islands
and now you’re on another one again.
This island is actually really stunning. I saw a girl. I
was wondering if she lived her and if she talked
our language. I went and asked her what island
this was called.
She said” Insula Dulcamara.”
I said, “thank you!”
Amandine
Odysseus was really irate about that he was
not allowed to go home peacefully.
Afterwards, Odysseus and his men saw an
island. There was a sign just next to the
beach. It said: This island is Insula Dulcamara.
It was empty, and it was very sandy, No
humans or animals on the island? We stayed
there for the night, but, it was ghastly. My
men and I didn’t want to stay two more days
here. Then they said to me, “Let’s go to the
boat.”
We went in the direction of the boat but it
was gone. We are stranded!
Florian
I was sailing
towards an
island. My
eyes had gone wild looking at it. There
were beautiful trees and plants and lovely
colours. It was called Insula Duclamara.
Suddenly I felt something strange inside
me that didn’t feel right. Night was
approaching so I decided to land and
explore it a little.
After a while I heard something. It
sounded like a purring sound. Then I saw a
Leopard.
“Did you hear me? I said hello.”
“Um, hello,” I replied. “Sorry about that.
My name is Anna.”
“Oh Anna,” the leopard replied in a lovely
voice. “I was expecting you.”
Anna
I stepped forward
to approach the bittersweet island. I went
a little further and saw the most beautiful
woman I have ever met. As soon as I
looked into her eyes I knew I was in love
with her. But she didn’t speak at all. As I
walked towards her I said “what’s your
name?”
She answered “Insula Dulcamara”. I
wondered why there were numbers,
letters and all sorts of items. I asked her.
She answered me, “these are the thoughts
I dream that never leave.” I was so
confused. I didn’t want to move. I was in
such shock.
Ella-May
Anna and the elephant
It was Monday 10:40am break time. Anna was
feeling dejected. She didn’t get a good mark
in her exam and all her friends were laughing,
since they all got full marks.
Suddenly she noticed she wasn’t in the school
playground any more she was… somewhere
else!
“Hello” said a deep rumbling voice. She
looked round and there was a heavy
elephant. “Welcome to the Insula
Dulcamara.”
“Hello,” she said, trying not to be rude.
“I heard you were sad, so I invited you down
to talk. It doesn’t matter about getting bad
results” he said kindly.
Harrry
It was an uninhabited island with lots
of rocks on the floor, and lots of trees
making a big wall, with a path in the
middle. Then one of my sailors called
out that there was a sign on the wall,
That said “Into the path please”. We
went into the trees. There was a
beautiful field that was plain and
green. I saw a big bag that had little
sticks and balls. There was a flag with a
hole at the bottom. There was another
sign that said try and put the ball in the
hole! What fun!
Jose
I wanted to go on another adventure to
an island called Insula Dulcamara. It is
a beautiful place to be. It has many
flowers and it has lots of tall buildings.
It is a lot hotter than my land Ithaca.
When I got there my eyes lit up. It was
such a bright and colourful place. The
first thing I saw was sand and blue
clear sea and it was the most
astounding sight I had ever seen in my
life. I couldn’t even speak. I was meant
to be her for a mission, not to go and
have fun.
Millie
My 100 word challenge by Eleanor
It was the most stunning island, I told my crew,
the most beautiful place I had ever seen in my
dear history. There were tropical trees
everywhere and the touch of their tufts was
softer than anything, even silk. I knew this was the
place I had been looking for. A mythical creature
called Insula Dulcamara, the guardian of the
forest who speaks for the trees. He was a little
orange person with a moustache. I was going to
get him. I needed him to bring my oak tree back
to life on Ithaca.
It was a cold and frosty night. Just above the
tallest tree there was such a welcoming
shimmering bright light with all the little birds
sailing over from tree to tree. The leopards
were leaping over holes in the ground and
over fallen-down trees.
Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw a
monkey. It was startled to see us and it ran
hastily away. My men wanted to run after
the monkey but I stopped them and said “We
can’t just follow it; we have to sneak up on it.
Come on”
They all complained, but eventually agreed.
Sophia
Suddenly an island came into sight. As we
came closer the beauty of it became more
and more flawless.
As soon as we had come ashore I looked
around. There were blue lakes, each
glistening with the lovely warm sun. The
ground was dry and sandy, not wet and
sludgy. Me and men just stood and stared for
a while.
Then one of my men said to a pretty girl
walking up the road, “what is this place?”
The girl did not understand. She looked at us,
wondering who we were I suppose. She asked
something in a strange language.
Sophie
Insula Dulcamara
I was arriving at this strange place. Where is
it? It was very rocky but me and my crew
couldn’t survive the island’s rocks so I told my
men to row backwards and see if we could
find another way on to the island. It was
twilight at the island. I think they spoke a
different language than us but I didn’t have a
clue how to speak in this island’s language. At
dawn we started to row and look for another
entrance to this island but we couldn’t find
one so luckily we survived these tidal waves.
William