{"seoTitle":"Leaving School — A Short Fable About Wonder and Belonging | Pemba Umoja Stories","seoDescription":"A short fable about a taste of something marvelous, a glimpse of another world, and a return that changes everything. Pemba Umoja Stories.","keywords":"short fable, story about wonder, story about belonging, story about change, allegorical short story, Pemba Umoja","content":{"p1":"It was so much fun to play with the school. Every day the sun would sparkle and we would go eat eggs from the rocks.","p2":"One day, all the water before us became covered by a strange bulging object and the water churned like there was a great storm.","p3":"An odd creature appeared out of nowhere holding curiously delightful food. It seemed somehow to reach from above—from another world.","p4":"The creature crumbled this marvelous food into small, delectable pieces. It was a taste I had never experienced before. Better than the eggs that we ate every day.","p5":"All of us scurried in a frenzy to grab as much of it as we could.","p6":"The creature’s long, queer appendages held the morsels between its pincer-like paws.","p7":"And there it was. The biggest, most succulent chunk of them all, between the long, slender pincers.","p8":"I swam quickly, aggressively, to claim the morsel as my own.","p9":"Suddenly, the strange paws grabbed me. I was trapped, then lifted high into the heavens. I could no longer breathe. Barely see. I was alone.","p10":"My skin began to tingle. There was a bright light.","p11":"I wriggled and wriggled and wriggled trying with all my might to break free from the creature’s grasp.","p12":"And in a moment that will always stay emblazoned upon my mind, I escaped the tight pincers, fell through a vacuum. It was all a blur. And then there I was among the school again. They were on their way to eat eggs by the rocks.","p13":"I happily joined them.","p14":"I never wanted to try exotic foods again. I never wanted to see that bulging object that brought a storm into our world. I promised myself that I’d go far, far away if I ever saw the queer creature’s pincers again.","p15":"But the food? Will I ever forget it?","p16":"The school asked me if I was okay. I wasn’t sure.","p17":"Where had I gone? Had I seen God? An alien?","p18":"The others started to treat me differently. Even revere me. I had gone above.","p19":"They had seen me leave our world and return.","p20":"I wanted to be like them again, but I never could be.","p21":"My eyes had been opened to an entirely new universe.","p22":"I would always be different."}}