04.The hidden word

Once upon a time, in a village where the houses were made of books and the streets smelled of ink and rain, there was a little boy named Elian.

Elian did not speak much. Not because he was incapable, but because words often got caught between his throat and his heart. He felt them growing inside, like seeds that could not find the light.

One evening, as the rain beat against the glass, Father handed him a thin box, wrapped in blue paper.

"This is a pen that doesn't write itself," he said. "It needs your truth."

Elian opened the box and found a wooden pen, carved with small stars.

"But I don't know what to say," he murmured.

Father smiled. "Write anyway. Even if the words come out crooked, even if they seem to make no sense. The important thing is to start."

That night, Elian began a diary. He wrote one sentence. Then another. He wrote that he was afraid. That he missed his missing cat. That sometimes he laughed just to make others feel better.

With each word, something inside him melted.

As the days passed, the pen seemed to know the way better than he did. It took him to places of the heart he had never explored. Each page was like a new path.

He wrote dreams, rages, memories, hopes.

One day, he found at the bottom of the diary a note he did not remember writing.

It said, "Thank you for listening to me. Signed: Yourself."

From then on, Elian never stopped writing.

For those who read with adult eyes

This fairy tale is about the power of writing, but also about shyness, intimacy with oneself, and finding words when one cannot speak them.

The act of writing can become a safe space for children, a way to explore complex emotions and to shape what cannot be said verbally. And for adults, it can become a bridge between the child you were and the adult you are today.

Questions to explore together

If you could write to yourself about yesterday, what would you tell them?

What would you do with a pen that writes the truth?

What happens when we write something just for us?

Writing is not a school assignment. It can be a game, a refuge, a discovery.

As with Elian, just start-and see where the words take us