An Exemplary Tale of Getting Pressed into Greatness:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once upon a sunny afternoon in a Mediterranean grove, a plump green olive named Ollie swung gently from his twig. He was surrounded by hundreds of identical brothers, sisters and cousins, all clinging tightly to the branches of an ancient tree. Whilst the rest of the grove was quite content doing nothing more than basking in the setting sun and growing slightly rounder each day, Ollie was a fruit with big ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Look at us,\u2019 Ollie snorted to his neighbour, Penelope. \u2018Just hanging around, waiting for some farmer to shake us into a bucket. It is dreadfully common. I am destined for far grander things. I want to travel, see the world and achieve pure liquid greatness.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Penelope, who was thoroughly enjoying her afternoon nap, gave a lazy wiggle. \u2018Honestly, Ollie, you need to relax. Hanging here is brilliant. The view is lovely, the breeze is warm and we do not have a care in the world.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018That is because you lack vision,\u2019 Ollie replied, puffing out his glossy green skin. \u2018I refuse to be a mere side dish in a dull salad.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Day after day, Ollie strained his stem for extra groundwater and soaked up every scrap of sunlight. He swelled up bigger, shinier and firmer than every other olive on the branch. He scoffed at the quiet, peaceful life of the grove, dreaming constantly of the glamorous destiny that awaited a fruit of his magnificent size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, harvest day arrived. The farmer set up a giant press in the middle of the grove and began gathering the fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Here it comes,\u2019 Ollie whispered excitedly as he dropped into the collection basket, nestled right at the top. \u2018My grand debut.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was carried over to the heavy granite wheel of the press. Ollie beamed with pride, assuming he was about to be crowned king of the grove. It was only when the massive stone wheel began to turn with a terrifying creak that Ollie realised what \u2018liquid greatness\u2019 actually entailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CRUNCH!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In a matter of seconds, Ollie was squashed, mashed and thoroughly pulverised alongside his comrades. His grand ambitions were squeezed right out of him, flowing down a small metal spout into a dark glass bottle. As the cap was screwed tight, a squashed and rather liquid Ollie looked out from inside the bottle. There, on the wooden table, sat Penelope, who had slipped through a hole in the picking basket and landed safely on a soft bed of grass. She was currently sunbathing next to a bowl of shiny green olives, looking perfectly unbothered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moral<\/strong>: Be careful what you wish for, lest your grand ambitions leave you completely hard-pressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once upon a sunny afternoon in a Mediterranean grove, a plump green olive named Ollie swung gently from his twig. He was surrounded by hundreds of identical brothers, sisters and cousins…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,188,13],"tags":[189,196],"class_list":["post-4008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experimental-prose","category-fable","category-trails","tag-fable","tag-olive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4010,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions\/4010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}