Week 13 Story: The Seagull and the Ocean

One day in sunny California there was a seagull named Franklin. Franklin was a newcomer to the sea. He had grownup on a lake his entire life and had never seen a wave in his life. He was fascinated by these waves. He spent his first week at the beach chasing the waves in and out. He learned from the older seagulls one of the best methods for collecting food is gathering the muscles that are standing as the water rushes back to the oceans line.

Franklin worked at this practice but just kept getting annoyed at the thing he used to think was so fascinating. He would rush towards the freshly turned up muscles and then get pushed away by the next wave that was rushing in all too fast. So Franklin asked the ocean why he had to always be pushing waves into the beach. The ocean responded abruptly and asked Franklin why he should deprive the whole world from one of the greatest blessings in nature just to gratify one single seagull. The ocean went into a long lecture on why waves were one of the world’s greatest gifts.

The ocean told Franklin the things he is trying so hard to get which are the muscles wouldn’t be washed up without the help of the waves. There would be no big fish along the beachside without the help of the waves. This is because the waves stir up the baitfish, and the baitfish are what the bigger fish feed on. If there were no waves the tourists would not wan to come to the beach because it would not be enjoyable to swim in as well no one could surf.

Franklin realized his request and was ashamed of it. He apologized to the ocean and to all of the sea creatures his request would have affected. He then went back to his attempt of collecting muscles.

(Image is of a seagull by the ocean, Source: Seagull)

Author's Notes:

The original Myth and Folklore story I based The Seagull and the Ocean off of was The Owl and the Sun. In this section there was an owl that was looking at the sun. While it was looking at the sun, it asked the sun why it had to be so bright and had to stare right at the owl at that rate. The sun replied asking if it thought it was reasonable the whole world should be deprived of the greatest blessing in nature, to gratify the owl. And the plot that I acquired from this story was that envy and detraction will have some onlookers that say against it. Meaning that some peoples wants will have onlooker’s disapproval of it.

The way I adapted this original story was by changing the characters to the ocean and the seagull. Then I used the same plot of the animal requesting to stop doing an act that would affect a lot of other people. An then asking why the ocean should take away the greatest gift that others enjoy, and this was similar to when the owl asked the sun to stop being so bright at that rate.