The Island of Lessons

The Island of Lessons

Many years ago, in a distant island, a cocoon was hanging from a branch. There was a little creature in the cocoon. He was very proud because he had a special blanket interweaved with rare strings that connected him to different inhabitants of the island.
The creature in the cocoon heard a strange sound and traveled this channel on the web. He saw a brown bear who was hibernating in a big hollow tree. He found him for the noisy hiccups the bear was having. The bear was impatient by his hiccups that would not stop. "I cannot hibernate with this hiccups anymore." The creature tried to understand the situation and observed the bear. The bear decided to leave the huge hollow tree and went into a cave on the island. Inside the cave, he found an old dusty robot seating there.
“Hey, buddy, what happened to you? what are you here alone?”
The robot was not working well. It could not talk. The bear joined some wires and pushed a button and the robot reset itself.
“I am the security island robot. I have been abandoned by the leaders.”
“I have seen bad things happening in this island and they want me to keep shut. Good creatures have been mistreated and eliminated from this island.” Said the robot in a cracked voice.
“Don’t worry buddy. We are going to give them a lesson” said the bear.
The bear reset the robot. Erased the memory and changed the settings and set him to do bad things, he spoiled the robot and made him reckless.
“Go and be free. Do whatever you want and do not care about the consequences.”
The robot went out of the cave, acting with outstanding power and careless.
“Paff! Stomp! Whizzz! Plump!”
He went around the island, terrorizing all the selfish and spoiled inhabitants, making disasters everywhere he went.
“Hey, how did you get out? why are you doing all this?! stop!” the inhabitants of the island shouted trying to stop him, but the powerful robot was unstoppable. He took the power of the island and made it tremble. The island's food was based on a rare kind of plants and he destroyed the habitat.
“Sfffwwwisshhh!!” The robot sent rays to the sky making everything cold and killed the plants.
“Oh my, this mold growing everywhere, we are going to die!” said one creature. The whole island structure fell apart. There was no hope.
The island froze because of all the changes in the environment. All the creatures died. There were automated mechanisms to clean the island. In accordance with the island traditions and this system threw them into the ocean.
At this time, the bear came down from the mountain. He survived in his hibernation, and seeing the village the way it was got puzzled, “This is sad. When are they going to learn?”
Walking on the desolated road, he found the robot in the middle of the street.
The bear set the robot with the “Lesson” settings. The robot got up and moved again in his powerful way. “Lesson setting, beginning of rescue.” Said in his new voice. He got a big net and went to the ocean. In a big boat, he trawled the deep waters and collected a myriad of cocoons that were on the bottom of the ocean. “Here they come, I hope it was not in vain,” said the bear.
The cocoons came out sparkling whirling lights. Once in the shore, each creature came out of cocoons alive, spreading wings, in a completely new shape, renewed, full of admiration. “It has been a whole new experience. I have learned the truth about life. How to be good, in peace, and loving each other.” said one of the creatures. They all came with a huge pearl in its hand. It was the reward for suffering the experience and learning the lesson.
There were some creatures who got annoyed and angry by all the incidents and threw the pearl into the ocean “I don’t care! what is this silly pearl! Nobody tells me what to do! I do all I want, when I want, I don’t care about others!” All the creatures who threw the pearl away and did not accept the lesson, got wrapped back into a cocoon and soon they were as babies, hanging in branches around the trees in the island... waiting to grow, observe and learn again.
The bear returned to his hibernation tree in the mountain. This time without hiccups, until the next season, where he would be found again for the next lesson.
The cocoon that was hanging on the branch stared at the scene “I think that lesson was for me too” and sprawling its wings, came out of the cocoon turned in a magnificent flying creature. The blanket that he was so proud of was its conscience, always connected to all the creatures around him. “Today I learned that  I came to life with the wings of freedom, the same that we can lose if we are not carefully keeping the peace of the world. And the pearl must be always in front of us, to remember. If I lost it, I would go back to cocoon, to learn again.” And he flew away, holding in his hand the world of peace.