The Boy Who Collected Quiet
There was once a boy named Theo who loved noisy things: drums and thunder and the roar of the sea. But one evening his grandmother told him a secret.
“The loudest sounds are easy to find,” she said. “But the quiet ones? Those are treasures. Only the patient can collect them.”
Theo loved treasure. So he set out, that very evening, to collect the quietest sounds in the world.
He tiptoed into the garden and stood very, very still. And there — if he listened hard — he heard the soft sigh of a flower closing its petals for the night. He tucked it into his collection.
He walked to the edge of the pond and waited. And there he heard the tiny plip of a single dewdrop falling from a leaf. Into the collection it went.
He lay in the grass and looked up. And there — softest of all — he heard the gentle hush of a cloud drifting across the moon.
The more Theo listened, the calmer he felt. His busy thoughts grew slow. His breathing grew soft. The whole world seemed to wrap itself around him like a warm blanket of quiet.
By the time he tiptoed back inside, Theo’s eyes were heavy and his heart was still.
He climbed into bed and listened one last time — to the softest sound of all: his own slow, sleepy breathing.
In… out… in… out.
And with his treasure of quiet tucked safely inside him, Theo drifted off to sleep.
The end. 🍃
Talk about it together
- What is the quietest sound you can think of?
- Can you close your eyes and listen for one soft sound right now?
- Why do you think quiet feels nice at bedtime?