Insula Dulcamara

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