Beanland | Teen Ink

Beanland

April 4, 2016
By ChristianCapers PLATINUM, Dublin, Ohio
ChristianCapers PLATINUM, Dublin, Ohio
25 articles 8 photos 16 comments

Favorite Quote:
I don't get embarrassed, I embarrass.


Once, there lived a society of beans. Beanland, it was called, and they thrived at the bottom of the beanbag. It was populated by beans of all the colors. Orange beans, purple beans, red beans, brown beans, pink beans, green beans; every single color of the beanbow.
There was a bean that I knew who knew this bean, who knew this bean, who knew this bean’s roommate, who lived next to her. This was a little orange bean who didn’t have a name, because he was a bean. And the little orange bean was happy. His friends were a red bean and an opal bean, and they loved the little orange bean with all their little bean hearts. There was a green bean who’d been giving him the eye for quite some time, and all the beans were sure they’d be going steady anytime now.
He had a good, fulfilled and promising bean life. The little orange bean went to bean school and had bean hopes and bean dreams--maybe one day he’d even run for bean president!.
However, the little orange bean’s confidence rubbed some of the beans the wrong way. A violet bean, along with his friend a yellow bean, began to torment poor orange bean.  Day after day, on his way to school, the yellow bean and the violet bean would pick on him, call him names, spit on him and sometimes even jump on him too. They made the little orange bean’s life miserable.
The little orange bean didn’t know what to do and began to get upset by this over a period of time. He could not see all the good in his life. He just went to bean school and came back from bean school, barely scraping by. He did not want to play with his friends, the red bean and the opal bean. The green bean who had taken a liking to him wanted to play, but seeing how upset little orange bean was, she took a backseat. The little orange bean had too much bean baggage with all the torment he was receiving.
Day after day began to turn into hour after hour, the yellow bean and violet bean would make the little orange bean feel like a bag full of crumbs. The little orange bean was very sad.
One day at bean school, the principal, a lovely long black bean, told everyone that the little orange bean would not be coming to school anymore. He would not be doing much of anything anymore, as the little orange bean had given up his life by sprawling himself on the ground in the human bathroom. Some idiot had walked along and had picked him up and eaten him; little orange bean was digested in a matter of seconds.
But all was not lost; the little orange bean had left a note telling his bean friends and bean family not to be too sad, that he was happy now. But it was too late. The entire population of Beanland was already too sad. The entire school sobbed their little bean eyes out, including the red and opal beans, little orange bean’s favorite friends. The green bean didn’t know how to react--she had not really known the little orange bean and now never would. So she cried along with the rest of them.
As the bean school mourned the loss of their favorite orange bean, the yellow and violet beans walked the halls, hoping no one would notice them. Violet bean felt terrible, but when he talked to his friend about it, yellow bean didn’t seem too concerned. That was when violet bean found out who his true friends were--nobody.
The little orange bean’s family and friends, which practically boiled down to all the beans of Beanland, gathered for a midnight vigil in the bean square. They lit the candles and sang songs and exchanged anecdotes about their favorite fallen bean, except for violet bean, who was in the corner, miserable and ready to puke purple jelly in front of everyone. The violet bean felt horrible, no worse than horrible for the way he treated little orange bean, who wasn’t a bad bean when it boiled down to it. When the violet bean saw just how many beans grieved the little orange bean, he ran out of the vigil, consumed by guilt. But the vigil continued nonetheless; they couldn’t stop the process for yet another grieving friend of the little orange bean.
The violet bean stole some dextrose from his father’s dextrose cabinet and even if he couldn’t drink it all, you couldn’t stop him from trying to drown out his sorrows. It was his fault; all his fault that little orange bean had so willingly thrown his life away. It was his fault the little orange bean had been so sad every day. Maybe if he hadn’t… oh, what was the use now? The violet bean was just outside of a human bathroom door, contemplating just laying himself out on the floor like an offering. Why not? He was rotten inside and no one would miss him like they missed little orange bean. The little orange bean had many friends. The violet bean had no friends.
Violet bean cried out into the night that he was sorry, sorry for being jealous of little orange bean’s hopes and dreams; he could have maybe even run for bean president! So, so, so sorry. A little while later, the violet bean decided that since no human people were coming into the bathroom to spot him, he might as well go home and sit in the dark and wallow in his misery. His bean father would be wondering where his dextrose was, but oh well. As violet bean started home, he heard a little voice behind him.
“I forgive you.”
“You do?” The violet bean turned around, but there was no one there.
Years later in Beanland, the violet bean turned his life around. He grew up and got a job at the bean factory and had a bean wife and bean kids and a happy bean life. But the violet bean could not stop thinking about years before, when he tormented a bean to sacrificing himself on the bathroom floor. He talked to his bean babies about this time and time again, and when they seem to have gotten his message, he went on to talking to large crowds about the importance of bean yourself. Maybe then, what would happen to them wouldn’t happen to what happened to the little orange bean all those years ago.


The author's comments:

Notice this little story doesn’t use the words “bullying” or “suicide,” because, well, these are beans, not humans. They have human emotions, but if I made the story Peopleland instead of Beanland, the story would’ve been about, mmm… thirty-five pages longer? You know how complex we are. As an anti-bullying activist, I wrote this very cutely as a way to tell little little kids that bullying is a no-no, and that we should be ourselves, unapologetically, freakin’ ALWAYS!!!


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