Story

Many years ago, Earth was a simpler place. There were hunters and gatherers and medicine men, and all lived in peace. Death was accepted with humility, and there was a sense of kinship between man and nature.

There was a hunter who lived in a village on the edge of the world, where the evergreen trees grew lush and plentiful. The ocean seemed to stretch out as far as the villagers’ eyes could see, and the mountain peaks were covered in snow all year. The hunter loved to explore this vast and varied landscape whenever he was not hunting. He only hunted the birds, mammals and fish he needed to feed his wife and four children; he never once shot a creature for sport or out of the need to relieve stress or sadness. Stress and sadness were not things that the hunter knew anything about.

The hunter left his hut a little while before sunset one day. He had a feeling that something was waiting for him in the woods, and he, with his naive enthusiasm, couldn’t strap his bow on his back fast enough. He strode through the woods he knew so well, breathing in the clean crisp air. He could hear birds in the clearing up ahead, and he knew his wife would want something to prepare for tomorrow’s supper. As he approached the clearing, he thought he heard voices- parents and children laughing together, conversing. He could see no humans, though, and did not pause to think this odd.

He stood and took a few deep breaths, absorbing the stillness of the forest that surrounded him. Before long, a handsome black bird flew down from one of the evergreens. It was large and had very glossy feathers and glowing red eyes, and it cooed in a low tone that sounded almost as though it was speaking. The bird did not seem to notice the hunter as he took aim, nor did it see the hunter slowly draw closer to it, taking care not to step on any leaves.

The bird did not notice the arrow as it streaked towards it, the dwindling sunlight glinting off the arrowhead. The arrow sank into the bird’s chest like a missile finding its target.

The creature flopped to the ground without a sound. Blood started to seep from the wound, and the bird’s red eye stared without seeing at the hunter, losing its crimson gleam. The hunter exhaled and started to make his way across the clearing, humming quietly. To him, this was just a way to feed his family; he did not think of it as wrong in any way.

When he was about halfway across, however, he thought he heard something. A distant screaming. The screaming grew louder and closer with every breath the hunter took. He looked up and saw what looked like a black fog descending upon the clearing. He gulped.

‘HOW DARE YOU!’ A female voice screeched.

The hunter was aghast. What was happening?

A pale woman with shiny black hair and burgundy eyes stepped from the feathery whirlwind onto the ground; her expression was one of fury and deep sorrow. She knelt down and took the bird’s body in her arms.

‘Who are you? Where did you come from? What… or who is this bird?’ the hunter asked.

‘I come from a distant planet. Many catastrophes have happened there in the last few centuries, and they have made our home unlivable. Some of our people, including my family, come occasionally to Earth to seek reprieve from the pain and evil that plagues our world. We usually masquerade as trees when we come here but we wanted to move around this time, so we became birds.’

‘So this… this creature. He is part of your family?’

‘You killed my son.’

‘I…’ the hunter was dumbstruck.

‘You have hurt me, and now I must hurt you.’

Please don’t take my children from me! Hurt me, but let no harm come to them.’

‘I need not resort to killing to hurt you, human. I will tell you some truths… they should suffice.’

The hunter closed his eyes, unable to believe what was happening.

‘Not everyone you meet is your friend. Not every food you eat is good for you. Most of the stars you see in the night sky are dead; they died long ago. You are alone, you were born alone, you will die alone. The leaders you trust are corrupt and selfish. Everyone you meet is selfish, in some way or another. The illnesses you humans carry are a punishment for all the evil and pain you inflict upon the world. You will all die. Your lives will amount to nothing.’

The black- haired woman looked up at the hunter with hateful eyes, and scoffed at his horrified expression. ‘It’s about time someone told you humans all this. This land, this earth, this universe…. They are not as pure and welcoming as you all think. There is danger out there, there is hatred. There is despair and destruction, and there is evil.’

As the hunter stood agape, unable to fathom what she was saying, she threw her hood over her hair, screeched in anguish once more and disappeared in a flurry of smoke and glossy black feathers.

The hunter sank to his knees. The bird lay a few feet in front of him, blood seeping from its cooling body. Soon there was a pool of blood around him.

The hunter shuddered and rose after some time, a new emptiness in his eyes. He stepped over the bird as he walked back towards the village, the setting sun seeming to set his silhouette ablaze.

The hunter told his wife what had happened in the woods. She told her sister, who spread the word faster than a hummingbird’s wings can beat. As this news swept across first their land then others, despair and anguish blanketed the world in a bleak mist. Much was made of how true the woman’s words had been, and debates over the words soon turned to arguments, which turned into wars. People fought to protect their families from the woman’s words, but the more they struggled, the truer they seemed to be. There was destruction and needless hatred, and countless beings, human and otherwise, lost themselves in the fray. Thus evil became a part of humans’ psyches; a hunter’s simple mistake cost him his innocence and the happiness of so many others.

Humans have, of course, learned to deal with this crushing knowledge; one way in which we do so is by creating and sharing stories. Stories, based on both fact and fiction, allow humans to imagine beyond reason, to think up a world where anything is possible. Stories allow humans to explore all that seems impossible, and they allow us to feel that perhaps there is a point to this life, that it is not as bleak as the black- haired woman claimed.

Commentary

I spent a lot of time agonizing over details when it came to the above story. I read it out to several friends who enjoyed it, and offered constructive criticism as well, some of which I agreed with (the story originally involved a woodcutter and a tree, instead of a hunter and a bird). I always write in a rushed flurry of thoughts, then go back and tweak things, adding, subtracting and embellishing as I see fit. Something I found interesting about writing this story was how clearly I was able to visualize every scene of the story, almost as though a movie was playing in my head and I was simply transcribing what was going on.

Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment. I found it to be demonstrative of the fact that so much of the stories we tell are made up of things that linger in our psyches. Experience is the most essential thing to telling a story and letting it evolve and grow in an organic, unforced manner- if humans did not have new experiences (mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally), we would just be telling the same stories over and over again until the end of time. Thankfully, this is not the case.

Closing, as always, with a quote, this time from author Philip Pullman: ‘After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.’ As I mentioned at the end of my story, stories are invaluable, not just because they help facilitate the exercise of human imagination, but also because they help alleviate the fear and tension that can be caused by facing ideas such as the existence of evil and the concept of the far- reaching abyss.

Works Cited

Bird and Arrow. N.d. Buenito: Visual Communication and Creative Thinking. Web. 29 May 2015.

Pullman, Philip. “About Philip Pullman.” Philip Pullman. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May 2015.

“Quotable Quote by Philip Pullman.” Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May 2015.

The following is my response to Question 3.

I don’t believe that a picture is worth a thousand words. I have never believed that, to be frank. While it is a charming concept, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ doesn’t take into account the past, the future or even the present of what is happening in a photo. For example, a photo of one of Canada’s umpteen majestic landscapes, no matter how spellbinding it may be, will never be able to project to the beholder of the photo how the air smelled, or how the wind sounded as it rushed through the evergreens. Only words can do that.

I believe that words draw us closer to the world we live in because we, as humans, are curious creatures. We are constantly searching for new ways to connect, both with each other and with the world we live in.

In one of my favourite literary works, Walden, author Henry David Thoreau explores this idea, when he sets up a home for himself in the middle of the wilderness, and immerses himself in nature and in solitude for over two years. The following excerpt from Walden is emblematic of Thoreau’s experience in the wild, and to me, it demonstrates the unique insight into Walden’s surroundings that only words could have brought. He states, ‘In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantage of human neighborhood insignificant’ (99). The connection Thoreau is feeling to nature in the above passage is clear; it is a very special thing, I find, that Thoreau was able to find and use the exact words he thought would fit the situation best in order to relay to his readers how close he was feeling to the Earth. I believe that words are the only thing that allow us to be bound together as humans, humans who all live such singular and separate lives but are inherently connected by our connections to the lands we inhabit.

I was excited to find that J. Edward Chamberlin, too, references Thoreau in If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?. Chamberlin speaks of what Thoreau calls ‘extravagance’, ‘…the quality that counteracts what Thoreau called a life of quiet desperation; that takes us beyond the true and the untrue, the useful and the useless; and that keeps us safe and sane by celebrating the unsafe and the things that defy common sense’ (Chamberlin 156). I believe that this is the true essence of what words (and, in turn, stories) are meant to do; they reach beyond just being ink on pages (or mere sounds, in the case of oral stories) and unite humankind in the knowledge that we are all here, we are all in the same world, watching the sun as it rises, feeling the first drops of rain.

I would like to close with a quote once again; this one comes from spiritual leader Yehuda Berg. ‘Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.’ This quote reinforces my belief that words are truly the essential key to connecting ourselves to those we know and to those we do not; to the living and to the dead, to sharing stories about the world around us.

Works Cited:

Thoreau, Henry D. “Thoreau’s Walden – an Annotated Edition.” Thoreau Reader. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.

“Henry David Thoreau Biography.” Bio. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.

“PROF. J.E. CHAMBERLIN.” Victoria College | University of Toronto. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.

“Yehuda Berg.” Amazon. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.

“Yehuda Berg Quotes.” BrainyQuote. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2015.

Hello! I’m Alishae Abeed, and I’ll be entering my fourth year studying English Literature at UBC in the fall. In addition to writing, reading has always been my favourite pastime, and my preferred authors range from Chimamanda Ngozie- Adichie, to Kamila Shamsie, to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I have lived in a variety of different places along the globe, including Pakistan (my birthplace), the United Arab Emirates and Ontario, and this has caused me to develop a deep and earnest sensitivity towards cultural and social ideologies. Furthermore, I believe that having been a resident of Canada for the last seven years, the time has come for me to delve into the rich literary heritage and tradition of this nation.

I have long been fascinated by how people from so many cultures, faiths, social structures and background all seem to fit into Canada’s sociocultural landscape like pieces of a puzzle; I believe that one of the key factors in understanding why and how this is possible is reading Canadian literary works.I also believe that reading the work of First Nations authors and intellectuals will be invaluable in painting a complete picture of Canadian literature; the Aboriginal voice, to me, is one that must be listened to when aiming to create an inclusive, cohesive environment in which Canadian literature is studied and appreciated.

Something that intrigues me about this course is the blogging element; I believe that technology is fast becoming a necessary tool for education and for the spread of information. This is my first time taking a Distance Education course, and it is also my first time curating my own blog for a course-I’m excited to learn how the blogging component will foster a collaborative and accepting learning environment.

I would like to close with a quote from Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje’s magnum opus The English Patient: “She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.” I have long found this excerpt to be emblematic of my relationship with books and writing; I am hopeful that ENGL 470 will add dimension to this relationship and will facilitate my understanding of Canada as a nation, as my current home, and as the backdrop for so many Canadian stories.

Diversity and cultural celebration have long been a part of Canada’s social landscape

Works Cited:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.

“Kamila Shamsie.” The Guardian. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.

“Quotable Quote by Michael Ondaatje.” GoodReads. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2015.