BE Storybook

 Krishna was always buried in his work. By day, he coded algorithms for a tech firm; by night, he hunched over his PhD thesis, chasing the elusive breakthrough that would justify three years of sacrifice. His calendar was a mosaic of deadlines, meetings, research papers, advisor calls, with all being color-coded, all urgent. Friends invited him out. “Next time,” he’d say, waving a hand at his screen. His mother called every Sunday. “You’ll see me in a few more weeks,” he promised, cutting the conversation short. Even his morning coffee was utilitarian, gulped between emails, never savored. One evening, his advisor asked a simple question: “What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned outside your research lately?” Krishna opened his mouth, then paused. The answer was nothing. He hadn’t read a book for pleasure, taken a walk without a podcast lecture, or had a meal without multitasking in years. That night, he left his laptop closed and sat on his apartment balcony, watching the...

 Alberto the woodcarver never rushed his work. His shop, nestled in the crooked heart of the old town, smelled of cedar and patience. Customers came with requests, portraits of loved ones, faces they longed to see emerge from the grain. Some brought sketches; others carried only descriptions. But Alberto never carved from memory alone. He waited.   "Come back in three days," he would say, running his fingers along the raw block of wood. "Let me meet them first."   People thought it was superstition, or perhaps a craftsman's pride. But Alberto knew the truth: the wood held whispers. A face was not just lines and angles, it was the way light clung to a brow, the tension in a jaw, the quiet weight of a life lived. He had to *listen*.   One morning, a woman named Clara arrived, clutching a faded photograph of her late father. "I want to remember him exactly like this," she said. Alberto studied the image, a stern man, stiff in his Sunday suit, but he felt ...

 There once lived a potter named Elior in a quiet village nestled between the hills near the sea. He was no ordinary artisan. While others worked only with clay, Elior could shape anything, granite, glass, driftwood, even metal scorched in fire. People came from far and wide, not only to see his creations, but to understand how he worked with such vastly different materials and still crafted objects of astonishing beauty and unmatched value. One day, a young apprentice named Tavi arrived at his door, eager to learn the secret. Elior welcomed him without question and gave him a simple task: create a bowl. Tavi chose the softest clay and shaped it carefully. It was smooth, symmetrical, and fired perfectly. When he showed it to Elior, the master simply nodded. “Now make the same bowl, but from this.” He handed Tavi a rough slab of granite. Frustrated and confused, Tavi tried for days. He chipped, carved, sweated, and failed. The granite broke again and again. When he finally returned ...

 In a busy coastal town where the ocean whispered while mango trees swayed in rhythm with the wind, 17-year-old Daryl was known for one thing—his raw talent on the football field. But what people didn’t see was that Daryl hated early morning practice. Not disliked. Hated. Coach Bailey ran drills at 5:30 am, rain or shine, and while the rest of the team pushed through with sleepy grunts and tired legs, Daryl often arrived late or skipped altogether. His excuse? “If I not feeling it, I not doing it.” Deep down, though, it wasn’t laziness. It was ego. If he wasn’t the best in the room, if he wasn’t already great, he didn’t want to be seen trying. The locker room banter didn’t help. Every time Daryl stumbled in tired or missed a pass, the quieter players snickered. Some teammates began to outpace him, not because they were more talented, but because they showed up, day after day. The shift began on a random Tuesday morning. Still wrapped in self-doubt, Daryl woke before dawn, not out o...

 Amanda used to rush through her mornings, grabbing a sugary pastry and coffee, barely tasting it before her day began. By noon, she’d feel sluggish, reaching for chips or fast food to push through. One evening, after yet another energy crash, her grandmother handed her a bowl of vibrant greens, roasted sweet potatoes, and grilled salmon.   “The Earth already give everything we need,” her grandmother said. “But if you treat your body like rubbish, it will feel like rubbish.”   Curious, Amanda started small, swapping her pastry for a smoothie, her chips for nuts and fruit. She learned to savor her meals, to cook with spices that delighted her senses. Weeks later, she noticed the difference: steady energy, clearer skin, even a brighter mood.   One day, a coworker asked, “How do you have so much energy?” Amanda smiled. “I stopped eating like the world was ending and started eating like my body mattered.”   Turns out, her grandmother was right. T...

 Mika knelt at the edge of the dojo, watching her father, Sensei Haru, correct a student’s stance. The wooden floors, worn smooth by decades of bare feet, held the echoes of every lesson taught there. She remembered her first day at six years old, fists clenched too tight, desperate to prove herself.   "You leaning forward too much," her father had said, nudging her shoulder. "Balance is not just in the body. It’s the patience to learn."   Back then, she’d huffed, believing mastery was a straight path. But life had a way of humbling her. At sixteen, she lost her first tournament by rushing, the same mistake he’d warned her about. At twenty-two, she left the dojo, convinced his teachings were outdated. Only years later, training alone in a cramped city gym, did she realize his lessons were never just about karate.   Now, as Sensei Mika, she faced her own students, some eager, some impatient, all mirrors of her younger self. A boy, Kenta, scowled after a...

 There is a café at the corner of memory and moment where every patron must choose their coffee, not in isolation, but in harmony with the meal of their life. Some select a bitter espresso, strong and unyielding, for theirs is a day of hard truths that must be swallowed quickly. Others cradle a creamy latte, sweetened just so, because today calls for gentleness, for small comforts. And then there are those who order their coffee black, no sugar, not out of preference, but because they have learned that some bitterness must be faced head-on, without dilution.   The regulars know: the choice of coffee is never just about taste. It is about what the hour demands. A cappuccino, frothy and light, pairs with a morning of possibility; a dark roast, slow and deliberate, suits an afternoon of reflection. The man in the corner stirring three sugars into his cup does so not because he loves sweetness, but because today, life has asked too much of him, and he must soften the edges....

 One night, a man stood in his garden, staring up at the sky in frustration. The moon, which had been full and bright the evening before, was now hidden behind thick, shifting clouds. He frowned, as if the sky had personally betrayed him.   "It should be clear tonight," he muttered to himself. "The forecast said so. This isn’t right."  His irritation grew as the clouds stubbornly lingered. He checked his phone again, comparing the radar to the obscured sky, as if reality had an obligation to match his expectations. The more he resisted, the more agitated he became.   Then, without warning, a gust of wind parted the clouds, just for a moment, and the moon shone through, luminous and untouched. It had been there all along, indifferent to his judgments. The clouds were neither wrong nor right; they simply were. And the moon did not need his permission nor approval to exist.   In that fleeting clarity, he laughed at himself. His frustration had not ch...

 They called the old gelding Surefoot, and for good reason. On the rocky hills of Bellridge Farm, where the wind snapped hard and the earth twisted with roots and shale, he was the only horse the hands trusted without question. He had carried four generations of the Weller family, and not once had he stumbled. Jacob Weller, the youngest of the line, had grown up with tales of Surefoot’s dependability. The horse had once carried Jacob’s mother down the mountain during a thunderstorm, when the truck’s axle had snapped and the radio was dead. Another time, he’d calmly sidestepped a rattlesnake and kept on walking, as if he'd sensed danger before the rider ever saw it. So when Jacob saddled him early that morning to search for a missing calf in the north pasture, he did so with absolute confidence. Surefoot snorted and blinked lazily, but didn’t protest the weight of his aging bones as Jacob swung up. The mist hung low, obscuring the familiar trail, but Jacob wasn’t worried. Surefoot k...

 When Marlon was 24, he stood at a quiet crossroads no one else could see. He had just been offered a high-paying job at a corporate firm. This was a role that promised status, security, and the kind of life his family had always envisioned for him. But deep down, he felt a persistent pull toward something less certain: working with underserved youth in his community, a path fueled by passion but paved with financial ambiguity. Everyone around him urged him to take the offer. “You can always do good later,” they said. “Secure yourself first.” But one morning, sitting alone in a small park near his apartment, Marlon made a choice not out of rebellion or impulse, but from a place of quiet clarity. He chose alignment over approval. Purpose over predictability. That single decision didn’t transform his life overnight. There were lean months and moments of doubt. But over time, the ripple of that choice began to show. The students he mentored graduated. Programs he built expanded. A non...

 Jazmin sat by the window, her cup of tea long gone cold. Outside, rain tapped gently against the glass softly, relentlessly, and cruelly familiar. The sky, like her heart, hadn’t seen sunlight in days. He had left on a day like this. Not with shouting or slammed doors, but with a bag in one hand and his silence in the other. The rain had blurred the view as he walked away, but she hadn’t needed to see. She had felt it. He never turned back, even when she cried out his name. Every step of him leaving echoed in her bones. It wasn’t one mistake that drove him away, it was a thousand small ones. The way she’d stopped listening. The sharpness in her words. To ease her own stress, she had spent more time with her friends than her relationship. The walls she built when she should have built bridges. Love doesn’t often vanish all at once; it erodes, silently and with time. By the time Jazmin noticed, it was already mostly gone. She spent months in grief, not the dramatic kind others notic...

 Hector was born in a village where salt lived in the air and calluses on the hands were a rite of passage. Like his father, and his father’s father, he was expected to become a fisherman, rising before the sun, casting nets, and wrestling meaning from the sea. But even as a boy, standing barefoot on the shore, Hector didn’t see fish. He saw the miles of seaweed, tangled and green, glistening under the morning light. To everyone else, it was a nuisance, something to shove aside, something that clogged nets and rotted on the sand. But to Hector, it shimmered with possibility. While other boys learned to gut snapper, he watched the tides and sketched ideas on the backs of old receipts his mother saved from the corner store. By eighteen, Hector had quietly built his first press in the back of an abandoned boathouse. With borrowed parts, sea-soaked ambition, and too little sleep, he began extracting fibers, experimenting with seaweed as compost, fertilizer, and even packaging. The vill...

 Beneath the mountains, in the heart of a lush, rolling valley sat a fertile farm, brimming with golden cornfields, sun-kissed tomatoes, and rows of sturdy papaya trees. The farmer, Mr. Hadley, prided himself on order. Every row was measured, every plant watered on schedule, and every pest — identified and removed. Among the buzzing of bees and chirping of birds lived a small green grasshopper named Lumo, who was unlike the others. While most grasshoppers hopped from stalk to stalk with little concern for anything beyond food and flight, Lumo was drawn to something more. He would sit on the highest leaves at dawn, watching the sun spill across the fields. He listened to the whisper of the wind through the leaves and the quiet humming of the soil as it pushed life upward. But to the farmer, Lumo every insect was just another threat. “Pests thief. Pests ruin. Pests don’t belong here,” Mr. Hadley would grumble, his boots thudding heavily as he patrolled the land with pesticide in hand...

 Percy was not your average pig. Sure, he had the look and curly tail of every other pig on the farm, and yes, he enjoyed the occasional nap in the mud, but something in him always stirred when he looked beyond the fence, toward the glittering sea. The other pigs would roll around and snort, content in their muddy pools, but Percy would stare longingly at the crashing waves just past the meadow. "Pigs don’t swim in the sea," they’d grunt. "That’s not what pigs do." But Percy wasn’t so sure. Each morning, a seagull named Sora would glide down from the clouds and perch on the fence beside him. “Still staring at the sea, Percy?” she squawked. Percy nodded. “It’s so wide and wild. It looks like... freedom. But pigs stay in the mud. That’s just how it is.” Sora cocked her head. “Who told you that?” Percy blinked. “Well… everyone.” “Hmm,” she said, spreading her wings. “Everyone once told me seagulls don’t fly inland. But I did. And that’s how I found you.” Percy’s ears p...

 Ishmael stood at the edge of the dock, gripping the worn paddle like it was the only thing anchoring him to the earth. The kayak bobbed gently in the morning tide, its sleek frame glinting under the rising sun. The water stretched out endlessly before him, blue, totally unknowable, and almost alive. He hated that feeling. Not the water itself, but what it stirred in him. Everyone said kayaking was peaceful, being totally free even. But all Ishmael could picture were waves swelling larger than his tiny boat, the way water could turn from friend to threat in a heartbeat. His mind swarmed with worst-case scenarios: being flipped over, stuck beneath, swallowed by silence. “You okay?” asked Jules, his cousin, already seated in her kayak with an ease that made him feel foolish. “We don’t have to go far. Just around the cove.” Ishmael nodded, not because he was okay, but because he was tired of letting the voice in his head win. He lowered himself into the kayak with trembling hands. The...

 Nadia sat cross-legged on the floor, her laptop dimming as the editorial faded into the background. "Health is a sacred act of self-respect," it had said. She let the words settle like dust over the cluttered corners of her mind. The truth was simple, but it pierced deep: she hadn’t been respecting herself. Not lately. Not in years. Her body felt like a stranger, aching knees, tired breath, clothes that pinched in places they hadn’t before. But it wasn’t about weight. It was about how far she’d drifted from herself. She stared at her phone. Hesitated. Then called the one person she knew wouldn’t let her lie to herself. “Hey, Darnell,” she said, voice soft. “I need a favor.” A pause. Then her younger brother’s familiar chuckle. “What’s up, sis? You never ask for help unless it’s IKEA-related.” “No boy, stop it nah!. I want you to train me,” she said. “Be my personal trainer.” Silence. Then, carefully, “You sure?” “No.” She laughed, a bit nervous, but real. “But I’m sure I’m t...

 Deborah Lane wasn’t always angry. But lately, it felt like everything set her off, her children arguing over who touched the remote, the neighbor’s barking dog, the clerk who didn’t bag the groceries right. At 46, she found herself seething more often than smiling. She told herself it was just stress. Two kids, one part-time job, and a home that never stayed clean. Her phone became her lifeline, a quiet escape into curated calm: Pinterest recipes she’d never cook, DIY videos she’d never try, and mindfulness quotes she’d never practice. Thirty minutes here, an hour there, maybe two. Scrolling helped her stay “balanced” or at least that’s what she thought. But her children noticed. “Mammy, you’re always on your phone.” “No I not!” she snapped, locking the screen and instantly raising her voice. “You are. And you’re always mad these days.” It hit her harder than she expected. That night, Deborah sat in her room with the door shut. Not scrolling, just sitting. The silence made her unc...

 At the edge of the Caribbean, where the sea kissed the sky and the wind whispered truths only the heart could hear, lived Seraya. She was not born into ease, but into rhythm. Life for her had always moved in waves, some towering, some gentle, but always moving. She learned early that resistance only tired the soul. So she worked. Not for show and the appearance, not for riches and social acceptance, but for alignment. In the pre-dawn hours, her hands moved with purpose, crafting, building, serving. The town called her tireless. But Seraya knew her secret. She had gratitude hours. While others unwound in bars or in front of flickering screens, Seraya ran barefoot across the sand with her board under arm. She chased the fading sun, waded into the chill, and waited. Not for the perfect wave, but for the moment. The breath. The connection. The sea was her cathedral. The wind, her prayer. With every paddle out, she offered up her thanks. For the people she'd loved, for the pain that ta...

 Elsie was a graphic designer who worked from Long Circular Road home. She was kind, creative, and always had sunflower seeds for Poppy, but lately something had changed. She stopped singing in the mornings. She skipped lunch. And she never, ever closed her laptop. Work had become an endless scroll of emails, edits, and exhaustion. Poppy watched from her perch on the bookshelf as Elsie stared at her screen for hours, barely blinking, her coffee going cold beside her. She chirped, fluttered, and even danced in circles on the keyboard, but Elsie only smiled weakly and said, “Later, Pops. I have to finish one more thing.” But “one more thing” turned into all-day marathons of busyness. Poppy knew something had to be done. One gray afternoon, as Elsie typed away for the seventh hour straight, Poppy tilted her head and spotted the glowing power button on the side of the computer. It had always intrigued her, but now… it felt important. She launched from her perch and flitted over to the ...

 Centuries ago, under the blazing sun and the watchful eyes of God and kings, laborers in ancient Mexico began the monumental task of building the great pyramids, like the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan. Today, we stand in awe of their scale, their precision, and their symbolism. But it’s easy to forget that such enduring marvels were not born in a day, or even in a decade. Legend has it that when the first foundation stones were laid, many of the workers did not know what the final structure would look like. There were no aerial views, no blueprints in the modern sense. What they had were orders, vision, and above all, the will to place one stone on top of another. Some questioned the point. Why toil in the dust for a structure they would never live to see completed? Others hesitated, daunted by the immensity of what was ahead. But the builders who showed up each day, lifting one stone, aligning one edge, carrying one basket of earth, they made progress. Slowly, yes. Impercepti...

 In the heart of a bustling city, tucked between concrete towers and restless traffic, there was a quiet, almost hidden botanical garden. It wasn’t large or famous, but for Ava, it was a sanctuary. She began visiting it during a season of her life marked by exhaustion and self-doubt. The world felt harsh, rushed, critical, unkind. At first, she simply wandered the paths, admiring the roses, the gentle cascade of lavender, the silent strength of the towering bamboo. But over time, Ava began to notice something deeper. The garden didn’t rush its bloom. It didn’t apologize for bare branches in winter or boast in spring’s abundance. Each plant flourished not because it competed, but because it was simply being what it was meant to be. Inspired, Ava started tending to herself the same way. She slowed down. She forgave her own seasons. She began treating her body and mind with the same care she admired in the garden. And soon, she noticed something remarkable: the more gently she lived w...