One way to get into storytelling is by giving your own version of a well-
known folk tale, a popular myth, or even one of Aesop's fables. The
plots, characters, and structures of these stories have been handed along
from one generation to the next for centuries, and have already passed
the test of time. As soon as you start your story you join a historical
procession and launch yourself into the new and wondrous world of
imagination.
Storytellers are occasionally asked how the story just told to them, came
to be. Here are a few paragraphs from my version of an old West
African folk tale about the source of all stories and how they came to be.
The folk tale relates one of the adventures of Anansi, the Spider-man, a
mythical trickster among the Ashanti, the Wolofs, and other peoples of
Ghana and West Africa.
Anansi's fame has spread throughout the world, and generally depicts
him as a conniver and full of deviltry. In the well-known story Spider
and the Box of Stories, Nyami, the Lord of the Sky, keeps a box beside
him in which are all the world's stories. Spider asks Nyami for the box
so that he can release the stories. Nyami agrees to give him the box if he
will first bring a python, a leopard, a hornet, and a creature that none can
see. Spider does so by first misleading his victims with falsehoods and
then capturing them with trickery and pain.
Nyami, nevertheless true to his word, gives Spider the box of stories and
Spider releases them to the world. The myth, told in this fashion, depicts
how a noble gift from the Lord of the Sky enters the world through
dishonesty and the abuse of creatures who are also under Nyami's care.
In Stories To The World I tried to replace deception and entrapment with
respect for life.
***
Alamander, whose name was arbitrarily shortened from Salamander by
my grandson during a story conference, has a parrot Aringabella; my
grandson merely added an 'a' to each end of 'ring a bell.' The problem is
the same as in the Spider story: long, long ago the people of the world
had no stories.
After successfully testing Alamander, the Lord of the Sky turns the box
of stories over to him. Alamander, with the box on his back climbs
down to the Earth's surface along a rope ladder. He drags the box to the
middle of a meadow, and removes the heavy padlock that holds the lid in
place. Alamander, with Aringabella gripping his shoulder firmly and
helpfully flapping his wings, lifts the lid and steps back to watch all of
the world's stories gain their freedom to roam the world forever. This is
what happened:
There was moment of deep silence. Suddenly, the heavy lid flew up and
over, and crashed to the ground. From out of the box's darkness gusted
a powerful wind that whirled about and away in a cloud of dust.
In an instant there rose from out of the box swarms and tangles of
flapping wings, waving arms, running legs, grasping claws, writhing
tentacles, and a horde of strange wriggling shapes Their number was
beyond counting. And from this twisting mass came sounds of laughing
and crying, whining and humming, rustling and chattering, shouting and
whispering, and snarling and hissing and howling, and even sounds for
which, even now, there are no ways to describe.
Up and away, flying and running, strutting and crawling, staggering and
marching and plodding and toddling, they cascaded over the sides of the
box. Some took to the air, others moved toward the forest where they
disappeared into trees, shrubs and flowers, and into the burrows of tiny
animals and the caves of larger beasts. They dove into the river and the
sea, and dug themselves into the ground or slithered under rocks. A few
raced each other across the meadow and slipped into the homes and
shops of the nearby village. They took to the air and the sea for distant
places. Soon they were everywhere.
What did they look like? They looked like everything and anything:
trolls and elves, trees and clouds, birds and people, horses and barns,
airplanes and boats and spaceships and stars in the sky, and all the
things that are or ever were, and also things that are not and never could
be. Stories look like anything that ever happened and which might yet
happen in years and centuries to come. And stories are whatever people
might wish for, and things of which they are afraid.
Soon the stories were all gone from the box in which they had been kept
locked until someone came along who really wanted them freed. Now
the stories could go wherever they wished, and to be for all time among
the peoples of the world.
When people saw the stories, they took them in and gave them the food
and shelter that stories need to be strong. In return the stories gave
pleasure and knowledge and, at times, sadness, to the peoples of the
world. Stories try to give those who listen carefully an understanding of
how the Lord of the Sky means for the world to be.
Sometimes, the stories from Nyami's box did not change, and at other
times, they were changed about by storytellers to give them other
meanings. Sometimes this was good; at other times, it was not good, but
it's how stories are meant to be. However they are changed, all stories
are gifts from the Lord of the Sky, who has many names.
What happened to Alamander and Aringabella?
Alamander grew from boy to man, and, in time, he married and had a
family. With the wise advice of his friend, Aringabella, he became a
respected elder among the people of his village.
Often, in the evening, when the day's work was done and with his parrot
perched securely on his shoulder, Alamander would lead his family to a
quiet clearing along the riverbank where they would sit facing the river.
They studied the world around them: flowers and trees, grass and rocks,
and fallen leaves pushed along the ground by soft breezes. They looked
out at the river and saw fish breaking the surface, and they listened to the
hum of insects, the songs of birds, and the squeaking of bats. Raising
their eyes, they gazed at the stars in the black velvet dome above, and
they spoke their thoughts of how all these things came to be.
And as they marveled, Alamander would tell again how he and
Aringabella had helped to bring stories to the world, and of the wonder
of the place from which the box of stories had come.
''The people of Planet Earth,' he would say at the end, 'must deserve this
great gift from the Lord of the Sky.''
Memoir: C'mon, Man, It's Only a Safety Pin!
How might teenagers of the 21st century and beyond relate to and
communicate with grandparents and the elderly? Based on a real
encounter, this story tells what happened during my chance meeting with
a young adult. The give-and-take had to be cleaned up a bit for this
telling, and the dialogue rounded out and organized for continuity and
cohesiveness. Somewhat allegorical, the story demonstrates the cross-
generation communications that can develop when even widely separated
age groups are willing to listen to each other. Many of us have had
comparable experiences; they deserve being entered into our lore.
***
The rain sheets swirled in from the south, bent, and lurched aimless as
drunken ghosts across the college campus. Winds lashed the high
crowns of the eucalyptus, and dipped to whine along the corridors and
passageways that cut through the patchwork of modernistic academic
structures.
Back and legs lashed by fierce gusts, disoriented to the direction of my
destination, I took refuge under the dome of a kiosk. Backing around to
the side opposite the driving rain, I doffed my cap to let the water drip;
waiting was no problem. I scanned the dozens of leaflets clinging to the
kiosk's curved wall, overlapping each other like fish scales: notices of
student events long past and yet to be, and places and things from
urgently needed to available for the taking.
'Hey, ol' man.'
'Yo.' I glanced back. He was in the borderland between the rain and the
shelter, leaning against a patch of soggy leaflets. About seventeen in
years, six in height, and as skinny as a drenched cat. Tangled blond hair,
defeated by the rain, plastered his scalp.
His black T-shirt was wet, as were his frayed and torn jeans and once-
white running shoes. At his feet lay a deflated haversack caked with
whatever it had been dragged through, probably since elementary school.
'Whatcha doin' out on a day like this.'
His flat voice matched the bored, couldn't care less put-on that went with
his years. Squatting, he drew a soil-brown cloth from the haversack and
toweled his head and neck.
'Library,' I said. 'Where's it at?'
He motioned with the cloth. 'Behind that one with the big windows. I'm
headin' that way, too.' He looked up at the sky. 'Gonna let up in a coupla
minutes. What're you gonna do in the library?'
'Check the latest Writer's Market and LMP.' I looked closer at him and
repeated, 'LMP. Literary Market Place.'
'What'll they do for you?'
'Point me in the right direction.'
'What for?'
'Peddle an article I wrote.'
'Oh. Writer?'
'Off'n on. Job. Retired now, but keep my hand in.'
'Hey, man, I like writin'.' He looked at me with interest. What's it take?'
'Writin'? Takes writin', and rewritin'.'
'C,mon, man. You're tryin' to sell one. Right?'
'Yeah.'
'So you've been there. Writin' for the real world; doin' somthin' you
want to. What's it all about; like what are ya tryin' t' sell?'
'Industrial stuff,' I said, dismissing it all with a shrug and a wave-off.
'How to organize industrial tools to do a job, and then how to bring 'em
all together with materials, parts, and nuts and bolts to come up with the
finished product.'
'That's technical writin', huh?'
'Yep. Well, sort of.'
'Is technical writin' hard to learn?'
'People like you and me been doin' it since cave-dwellers first scratched
pictures of rock-throwers on their walls. Finest kind training aid for
their kids.'
I pointed to the printed and hand-scribed notes and graffiti in the patches
of still exposed concrete.
'Content may have changed, but the idea is still to get a message across.
What about you? Ever tried that kind of writing?'
'Technical stuff?' His shoulders rose and fell. 'Not much. Student,
y'know. I'm still gettin' assignments to write about my last trip to
Disneyland. I do use trade manuals to tune the motor on my bike, and
the book has lists and drawings of tools and step-by-step instructions on
how to do the job. Use 'em all the time, but never thought about where
they came from. You put that stuff together?'
'Made my livin' at it for a while before I retired. But, like I said, I'm a
firehouse horse who keeps chasin' fires even after being put out to
pasture. In my blood, I guess.'
He laughed.
'Tools in a repair manual,' he said, 'and all the different parts and
instructions. How d'ya do it? Like, how'd you describe, for example, a
tool?'
He scanned the sky as he spoke. The heavy overcast was lightening, and
the wandering rain-ghosts had retreated to make way for drizzle.
Rivulets snaked across the concrete quad from one puddle to another,
eventually over-brimming into a furrow that widened and deepened into a
trench entering a conduit to a ditch or storm sewer somewhere off the
campus.
'Name a few tools,' I said.