Narcisse Cantin and his border collie, Snooky, were on the fishing trip
of a lifetime near the island of Fiji when a tropical storm came out of
nowhere. For 2 days straight, Narcisses’s 32 ft cabin cruiser, GERTY,
rode the waves until it finally crashed on a reef off an island no human
had ever set foot on. Starving and badly beaten by the storm, Narcisse
immediately began to look for food. He was amazed to discover every different
kind of fruit tree, gigantic fields of incredible corn over 30 ft tall,
and geysers of fresh water every 200 ft that went off like clockwork.
White-throated capuchin monkeys
and hundreds of parrots of every variety constantly ate the fruit from
the trees and spit out the seeds, creating orchards everywhere. Since
Narcisse was lonely, he would talk and sing to the parrots all day. After
a while they all learned how to talk and sing too, and the island was
filled with the songs and sounds of thousands of parrots talking. In order
to get some peace and quiet, Narcisse created coconut ear muffs that he
wore strung around his neck. He would use them when he wanted to relax
while fishing or herding the island goats with Snooky.
One day, an orphaned capuchin
monkey fell from a tree and landed on Snooky’s back. Narcisse named
the newborn monkey Joey, and raised him on fruit and goat’s milk.
Joey and Snooky became the best of friends. Joey continued to ride on
Snooky’s back, and soon became a professional goat herder.
During the following years
Narcisse worked on repairing his boat. Every night he would pick all the
different types of fruit and roast corn on the fire to eat. One night
he decided to roast the fruit with the corn, and accidentally fell asleep.
He awoke to his dinner burning in the pot. Unhappy with his failed attempt
at a new recipe, he threw the mixture into his compost heap. The pile
contained seeds from all of the fruits on the island, and vanilla orchids
bloomed on top of the rich, decaying matter.
What happened next was truly
amazing. A tree like Narcisse had never seen before began to grow in the
center of the heap. It grew at a rate of 4 ft per day, and soon had a
trunk that was 30 ft thick. Eventually the tree towered 200 ft high. Its
branches were covered with beautiful orchids and a coconut-type fruit
that, when cracked open, revealed thousands of popcorn-type seeds. Out
of curiosity Narcisse took the seeds and put them in a pot with some coconut
butter. When he put the pan on the fire, magical popcorn kept exploding
until his pot was full.
To his delight Narcisse was
able to eat popcorn again, and to his surprise it had the flavor of Vanilla,
Butter, and Pineapple, with a natural sweetness all its own. It was light
and yummy and he couldn't get enough! What came next was even more exciting.
Every branch had a different flavor, and the parrots were carrying the
special seeds all over the island. POPCORN TREES soon sprouted up everywhere,
watered every six hours by the fresh water from the geysers.
Even though Narcisse was lonely,
he was happy and felt that he had found PARADISE on earth. When he finally
fixed his boat, he loaded it with the amazing POPCORN and made his way
back to civilization to share it with the world. Narcisse is still the
only one who knows where Paradise Island is. Him and his first mates,
Snooky and Joey, take regular trips back to get popcorn fruit and talk
and sing with the parrots!
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