Labasa FC are known as the Lions after a fabled lion who cried for 100 days. In fact the lion only cried for 97 days, but this was hushed up at the time because crying for 97 days when you’re so close to crying for 100 is just obtuse.
Anyway, one summer evening with the scent of frangipani drifting into the houses, a lion emerged from the forest and lay in the market square of Labasa. Those bold enough to get close to it (a soldier on leave and a postmistress who just had to know everything) related that a single tear was dropping from the lion’s eye in a sad, continuous flow.
The town mayor called in the wisest person in the village, a man who only two years previously had invented hands-free pointing, who recommended that the townspeople attempt to cheer the lion up because a weeping lion brings bad fortune and also was lying right in the way of the cheese stall. Many attempted to stop the lion’s tear from a safe distance. The fishmonger did a funny dance while the seamstress told a joke about a stupid tiger.
It seemed hopeless until a brave little girl approached the lion all by herself and stood right in front of him. Long seconds passed. Before the panicked eyes of the town the little girl started to sing a song by Adele with a lusty voice belying her nine years. The lion, gaining strength from somewhere deep within, rose and jogged off back into the forest. The moral being of course that, if things seem really bad, just remember you’re not being sung an Adele song by a little girl while lots of people watch with frozen expressions of awe and watery eyes. Cameron Carter