"The Rebellious Alphabet" "Once upon a time there was a tiny general." "He was the ruler in a very big country." "The tiny general knew almost nothing." "Not even how to read or write." "Since he wanted to decide over the country and even the thoughts of the people, he banned reading and writing." "The tiny general controlled the country by slamming his heels to the floor." "Right!" "Straight!" "Onwards-and-right- and-straight, he yelled." "Everyone was afraid even if they didn't understand what he said." "The only way for people to know what happened was to listen to the caller." "Outside of our borders the world is on fire." "Threatened by earhtquakes and floods and criminals on the run." "But in our country there is peace, lots of peace." "Loads and loads of peace." "Tons of peace." "And now that you understand how lucky you are, move on!" "And pay your taxes to the tiny general!" "But in the country there lived an old man called Placido." "He liked to read and write, and wanted to master his own mind." "But since it was forbidden to read and write, he had to come up with a clever way to print all his poems and letters." "Placido had seven Canary birds in a cage." "On their feet, each bird had three letters from the alphabet, and a sign, period, a comma or a question mark." "When Placido opened the cage, the birds flew out and sat on a sponge." "It was full of ink." "Then they jumped around on the white sheets he had laid out and created words that became poems and protests." "The first sheet that was printed like this was a hymn to freedom." "It was lifted up by a breeze and taken out of the window and flew through the air like a kite." "And it fell down in the middle of the square." "A farmer picked it up and read it, and it went from house to house." "It was the first time they had seen the word "freedom" in print." "The tiny general lived in a castle at the very top of the country." "There he watched over everyone and everything with huge binoculars." "He saw the sheets and immediately ordered to have them." "Arrest...get...order...arrestorderget!" "Soon the general sat there with a huge pile of papers he didn't understand." " Brr...frkstldre...klundrfst..." " He didn't know how to read." "He got so angry and was so ashamed for knowing so little that he ordered the soldiers to find the secret printer." "Klyff fram catch heklds man frrr!" "The soldiers asked all the neighbours, but they didn't say anything." "So the soldiers had to search." "And they searched." "Both high and low." "When the soldiers were on their way back to the castle they saw something." "When they threw Placido in prison he begged them to bring the Canary birds with him." "Their singing made him so happy, and the soldiers agreed." "Placido was put in a dungeon in the castle and he could hear the terrifying words from the tiny general." "Karamismus sweepus pripus nowus immedius!" "The soldiers armed themselves with brooms as if they were guns." "They swept across the country so that all the letters disappeared." "In the end, there was not a single word left anywhere." "They collected all the letters in a big pile." "Then the tiny general came out in person to set fire to it." "In this bonfire poems, names and history simply disappeared." "The black smoke from the ink from the burned letters gathered in a big cloud, right above the castle." "The tiny general thought it was nighttime and went to bed." "In the midst of the darkness and the silence you could hear the birds sing." "Even in the dungeon he kept on printing words in the bird alphabet." "The tiny ink-filled toes set all his beautiful thoughts to paper and once more the paper sheets flew out." "From neighbour to neighbour." "Suddenly the cloud was hit by lightning and it rained ink." "Ink flooded down over the general's uniform so it looked almost like a prison uniform." "The sun came out again." "But the tiny general would never leave the castle again." "Because he was so ashamed of his prison uniform." "Movus embarasus shamus arghus." "Placido's basement turned into a whole library." "And everyone that wanted to could look at the stars through the general's binoculars."