Maybe we could go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury because a pilgrimage there is supposed to be healing and I need healing and you probably do too. We could bring horses and medieval capes and baguettes and strangers and tell stories to entertain each other the whole way there and whoever tells the best one gets a free meal and drinks. Maybe we could tell stories about ourselves but I'm not sure we could do it in a way that is true so maybe it is better to make them up.Let's pretend we are on the road to Canterbury now. I am going to tell you a story and you pretend you are walking and in England and maybe it will help you with things. Maybe it is talking that is healing and not walking on a road at all because why would sore feet and going more places make you better? But I think you should pretend you are walking just in case.
Okay this is it:
Once there was a girl who decided she would never wake up. Right after dinner she climbed the ladder to her room in the loft, changed into her favorite pink nightgown, and put a quilt on her bed so she wouldn't get cold when winter came in a few months. After crawling under the covers, she blew out the candle by her bed, closed her eyes, and right away she started dreaming.
She had the most grand adventures in her dreams but she was never scared even when things were very dangerous because she knew it was a dream. In one of her dreams she and a blacksmith and a monk had to protect a village against a pack of wolves and the only weapon they had was one sword. In another dream, she was a princess who wanted to learn magic even though it was forbidden. Late one night she cut off all her hair, dressed like a servant boy, and ran away from the castle with her pet bird. She might have had to hit one guard over the head real hard so he wouldn't squeal. Her favorite dream was when she was a deer and spent all day in a meadow drinking from the stream and running so fast her ears blew back against her head.
Sometimes she had dreams about her family. Like the one where her sister married the most handsome man in the most beautiful church in the middle of a field and there was white flowers and music and dancing and a cake as tall as you can stretch your arms wide and grandparents and cousins and even her old boyfriend because they forgave each other and are friends now. She dreamed her brother became a judge who always knew who the bad men were and the whole town went to his birthday party and shook his hand and built a brand new library for his house.
The one dream she did not like was when her mother and father died of a coughing disease. Even though they were old and couldn't hear what their children or grandchildren said and it was good they died together so they didn't have to live alone, if you saw her sleeping you would have seen tears making her hair and pillow wet. After this dream she did not know if she liked dreaming anymore but she had been asleep so long she did not remember how to wake up. She had more dreams about waterfalls and fairies and climbing trees and swimming underwater like a fish but it was hard to forget the one dream even after she had been dreaming for a very long time.
That is all of my made up story and I do not know if it has a good ending and now it is your turn to tell a story.
[p.s. now I've used the label 'fiction'! hooray!]
7 comments:
I loved the Chaucer poem you posted today. How beautiful. Also, nice story. Well told.
I almost peed in my pants when I read it. So good.
Thanks! Now you need to tell me a story. I guess you could say you told the story of you liking the Chaucer poem.
Once upon a time there was a dog and it lived a very happy life and died peacefully and everyone loved it except one little boy who was allergic and he grew up and wore cashmere and sipped port from his high rise and died a wealthy though perhaps less happy man than the dog.
There's my story. Yours worried me a little bit but I like that you are writing fiction whatever the hell fiction means anymore *cough* *Dave Eggers!*
oh my gosh Bethany Lynn, I loved your story so much. You should totally come up with an ending for it. Your mind is so creative. I pick that I am the sister that gets married in the story.
Okay, my story--
There once was a girl. She had long black hair that shone with quiet defiance. Her heart concurred the same defiance and it longed to see the world. She couldn't see for real, she couldn't hear for real, but she could imagine for real; in fact, she imagined better than you could ever see or hear the world, you (un)fortunate one.
There once was a boy; he was smart. No, not that kind of smart. He couldn't read or write, or sleep at night, but he could see the future. And change the past. In fact, he could change the past faster than you could ever quote the past, you (un)fortunate one.
One day, the (un)fortunate girl and the (un)fortunate boy met and married.
They had fortunate children.
Because, you know... two negatives always yield a positive.
No wait, more like... two positives always yield a positive.
Okay, here goes.
Once a small troop of scouts were on thier merry way to Canterbury. They sang as they went, and they stopped often to drink from their canteens, even if they weren't thirsty. They liked the metal smell of the water inside, and being seen by the other scouts who had to drink from plasticky smelling water bottles.
They hiked and hiked, aglow in their tunics and tights. They hiked on the Beaver Trail. It was to take them 'round the lake, and they had never seen a beaver before, so they pretended to see beaver tracks.
They hiked and hiked along the shore of a narrow inlet of the lake. It grew narrow, but it seemed never to end. At last they saw the wondrous sight, a real live beaver dam, stretching across the inlet to the other shore. The scouts scampered to it, eager to cross to the other side on the beavery bridge.
But the stern old leader forbade them, swath'd in his dark cossack and smelling of sardines. "Thou mayest stick thy food into the very lair of the beaver, lads! Know ye not of his fearsome teeth? Onward we go, and soon shall reach the other shore."
Disappointment increased their weariness, and the boys no longer sang, despairing of reaching Camp Canterbury. The trail faded to a tace, then to nothing, then to tangled brush and briars.
As the golden glow of autumn faded to inky night, the boys knew in their silent glances that their leader had been fooled by fear. "You can hike around a pond, or even a lake," they thought ruefully. "But you cannot hike around a stream."
Fearful men, no matter how wise nor how stern, shall never reach Canterbury.
The old leader sat silent, silhouetted against the silver shimmer of the cold water of Beaver Creek.
The Tale About A Tale
Once upon a time there was a tale
It came to the end
Before its beginning
And began
After its end
Its heroes entered it
After their death
And left it
Before their birth
Its heroes spoke
Of an earth of a heaven
They spoke a lot
Only they didn't say
What even they didn't know
That they were heroes in a tale
In a tale coming to the end
Before its beginning
And beginning
After its end
- Vasko Popa
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