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Sofia's Rainbow
synopsis
In Istanbul, on the shores of the Golden Horn, lives a little girl named Sofia, who is lonely and dreams of climbing rainbows. One day she picks up a stray kitten in an alley and takes him home. He is no common kitten: he eats figs, lies on the floor belly up, sleeps around Sofia’s neck, and is horribly afraid of heights. Sofia names him Incir (pronounced in-jir), the Turkish word for fig. Incir’s unlikely fear of heights conflicts with Sofia’s passion for standing on her terrace waiting for a rainbow to climb, undermining the friendship between cat and girl. One day, a rainbow forms next to Sofia’s terrace, and Sofia enthusiastically steps on it. She climbs the rainbow’s cottony surface a while, then becomes afraid and freezes, unable to move up or down as the rainbow begins to thin out. She screams, the neighborhood windows open. From inside the house, Incir hears Sofia’s screams. Forgetful of his fear of heights, he gallops across the terrace, jumps on the rainbow, and climbs all the way up to Sofia’s shoulder. At the contact with Incir’s warm fur, Sofia relaxes: With Incir tight around her neck, she slowly slides down. As she places her feet safely on the baluster, the already thin rainbow disappears. From her adventure, Sofia learns two important lessons: We don’t need to go far away or up high to find happiness—happiness is all around us if we look hard enough. And there may be creatures in this world who like to do different things, or the same things in different ways. They may not share our dreams, but they can still be our friends, and we should love them and accept them the way they are.
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