Type of Submission: Folktale
Description: This folktale encourages people to dare to follow their dreams.
The Girl who Rides Lightning
Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Tarika. Tarika was a plain, ordinary child. She wasn't too tall, or too short. She wasn't pretty, but she wasn't ugly either. She wasn't known for her keen intelligence, but she was far from stupid. In short, Tarika was perfectly ordinary.Tarika lived in a small village. This village was as plain and ordinary as she herself was. People didn't come to visit her village often because there was little to attract outsiders. But for those who lived there, it was peaceful, friendly, comfortable, and safe. It was home.
Tarika had parents who loved her, and friends who enjoyed her company. But she wasn't as happy as she should be. Tarika longed for the new and exciting. She wanted adventures, and stories she could tell the people she loved.
One trial, Tarika went out into a thunderstorm. She loved storms because they were both beautiful and exciting. As she stood in her yard, the wind whipped her waist length plain brown hair into a frenzy. Drops of water fell from the sky to replenish the life on the ground below. Thunder rumbled above as the dark clouds spoke to one another in a language that no one else could understand. And in the middle of it all, Tarika spun about laughing at the unpredictability of it all.
During all of this, lighting struck the ground just inches in front of her. The intensity of the heat was incredible, and she wondered at the fact that she wasn't burned by it. Instead, she heard a quiet whisper as the lightning told her about everything it had seen while it raced about the sky from cloud to cloud. Tarika envied the lightning for the things that it had experienced. In the last few trills before the lightning began to fade away, Tarika took a chance. She grasped onto the tail of the lightning, and rode it back up into the storm.
Tarika disappeared that trial. No one from her small village ever saw her again. But it was said that those who were caught out in a thunderstorm could hear her laughter. And if they listened carefully, they could hear her whispering stories of her adventures in the wind.
Credit: Seira Shiryu
