Insula Dulcamara

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