Stories and News No. 1021
The world's chocolate industry is accountable for shocking deforestation in West Africa. The largest producers on the planet buy illegally cultivated cocoa in protected areas, particularly Ivory Coast, where rainforest has been reduced by more than 80% since 1960.
Once upon a time there was a split in half planet.
Well, the above half was smaller, much smaller.
Maybe because it was up in the stylish attic with a view of the luckiest horizon?
In fact, I should have said two different half, that is, not exactly half, you know?
So much for me and so much for you, equal to both, and so on, but in this case we should admit that the story itself is wrong. However, there would be no need to write the right one, you know?
Coming back to the point, the half that half was not, but let's pretend it did, it was entirely made up of chocolate.
Dark for sharpest bites or milk for tender teeth, chili for the brave palates or sushi for the fools, you know? How can you eat chocolate with raw fish? Not even the Japanese do it, I'm sure about that.
But I'm changing subject, sorry, I often do, dealing with culinary exaggeration, you know?
So, imagine on the smaller side of this world pudding rivers for delicate skins and hot chocolate streams for the colder evenings or those days gone so bad that you’ll try everything to warm your heart by passing through your stomach.
Or picking it up for the throat, you know?
In short, all was chocolate, from the walls of the buildings to the winter underwear, from bridal rings to earplugs.
Only chocolate, the one we all eat, it was not made of chocolate, despite the inhabitants ignored it.
Thus, in the common archive of tastes, at the cocoa place, they had memorized a wrong flavor, mistaken like the whole story, you know?
Like if you were convinced that spaghetti tastes as eggplant.
But if everybody believed that, who could contradict others?
This is one of the contraindications inside the wrong stories: if many see it correct, if you wanted disagree, two possible chances follow.
One, all consider you crazy and they'll start looking down at you.
Two, you're leaving on the other half of the planet, and it's understandable that they look down at you, you know?
In fact, it’s time to change or flipping the perspective.
Unlike the above half, the one that half was not, but much smaller than the other, the below part, or the majority of the planet, was not made of chocolate.
Not anymore.
Long ago things were different, but how can you remember something here, inside the wrong story? It's not exactly the right place, you know? It’s like looking for a book about generosity in Uncle Scrooge’s library.
What I can sure tell you it’s that the below half was made up of an indefinable and varied substance, a colourful blend of stolen colours, of ill-tempered dreams and hesitant hopes, primal gifts and atavistic resentments, genial ingenuity and self-surviving souls, broken wings and not healable wounds, of things with the right flavor, with the memory of the latter still clear in individual conscience, rather than collective memory.
Indeed, at the entrance of the latter, warning for every inhabitant below and, more than all, the above ones, it was written: the things of the world have a price for all the living creatures. If to you, only you, it will be sweet, to all the rest it won’t be at all...
Read more Environment stories
Buy my English edition books Italian Short Stories, a dual language book, Climate change stories, a dual language book, Stories of diversity, a dual language book and Multicultural stories for kids.
Listen my song Wolves
Watch my last storytelling show with English subtitles It's amazing what a little light can do
Storytelling videos with subtitles
The world's chocolate industry is accountable for shocking deforestation in West Africa. The largest producers on the planet buy illegally cultivated cocoa in protected areas, particularly Ivory Coast, where rainforest has been reduced by more than 80% since 1960.
Once upon a time there was a split in half planet.
Well, the above half was smaller, much smaller.
Maybe because it was up in the stylish attic with a view of the luckiest horizon?
In fact, I should have said two different half, that is, not exactly half, you know?
Coming back to the point, the half that half was not, but let's pretend it did, it was entirely made up of chocolate.
Dark for sharpest bites or milk for tender teeth, chili for the brave palates or sushi for the fools, you know? How can you eat chocolate with raw fish? Not even the Japanese do it, I'm sure about that.
But I'm changing subject, sorry, I often do, dealing with culinary exaggeration, you know?
So, imagine on the smaller side of this world pudding rivers for delicate skins and hot chocolate streams for the colder evenings or those days gone so bad that you’ll try everything to warm your heart by passing through your stomach.
Or picking it up for the throat, you know?
In short, all was chocolate, from the walls of the buildings to the winter underwear, from bridal rings to earplugs.
Only chocolate, the one we all eat, it was not made of chocolate, despite the inhabitants ignored it.
Thus, in the common archive of tastes, at the cocoa place, they had memorized a wrong flavor, mistaken like the whole story, you know?
Like if you were convinced that spaghetti tastes as eggplant.
But if everybody believed that, who could contradict others?
This is one of the contraindications inside the wrong stories: if many see it correct, if you wanted disagree, two possible chances follow.
One, all consider you crazy and they'll start looking down at you.
Two, you're leaving on the other half of the planet, and it's understandable that they look down at you, you know?
In fact, it’s time to change or flipping the perspective.
Unlike the above half, the one that half was not, but much smaller than the other, the below part, or the majority of the planet, was not made of chocolate.
Not anymore.
Long ago things were different, but how can you remember something here, inside the wrong story? It's not exactly the right place, you know? It’s like looking for a book about generosity in Uncle Scrooge’s library.
What I can sure tell you it’s that the below half was made up of an indefinable and varied substance, a colourful blend of stolen colours, of ill-tempered dreams and hesitant hopes, primal gifts and atavistic resentments, genial ingenuity and self-surviving souls, broken wings and not healable wounds, of things with the right flavor, with the memory of the latter still clear in individual conscience, rather than collective memory.
Indeed, at the entrance of the latter, warning for every inhabitant below and, more than all, the above ones, it was written: the things of the world have a price for all the living creatures. If to you, only you, it will be sweet, to all the rest it won’t be at all...
Read more Environment stories
Buy my English edition books Italian Short Stories, a dual language book, Climate change stories, a dual language book, Stories of diversity, a dual language book and Multicultural stories for kids.
Listen my song Wolves
Watch my last storytelling show with English subtitles It's amazing what a little light can do
Storytelling videos with subtitles