I have a great story to tell you about how evil was brought into the world of a young girl.
Little Girl once knew only one home. Her home was the valley, and the valley was safe. Her home was encapsulated on all sides, tucked into the landscape like a bowl. All around stretched tall, steep hills; too steep to climb, although many had tried. The valley provided all they needed; a clear, clean river, space to grow food and catch fish, with dozens of pink, purple, and red berry bushes, large trees for fruit and climbing, and tall grasses play in. The days were warm and mild, and the nights were punctuated only by the sounds of distant crickets and the quiet murmur of the river.
Each morning, as the sun peaked over the valley’s high walls, Little Girl’s mother took her by the hand and they walked barefoot along the river, collecting food for breakfast. They would walk as far as the Great Tunnel, where the river’s mouth met a long, dark hole in the mountain’s side that stretched endlessly far away into the dark. The village elders had covered the Great tunnel with leaves and branches, hiding it softly.
Each morning, when they arrived at the Great Tunnel, Little Girl would ask, “Mother, what’s on the other side of the tunnel?” and each morning her mother would say, “The tunnel leads to secrets and tricks. It is not safe, you must stay here.” Little Girl always nodded, and they ran together back home to share their breakfast.
One evening, when Little Girl wandered down the stream alone. Her mother was helping their neighbor, who had fallen that morning. She told Little Girl to collect some food for their supper and bring it back before dark, but Little Girl had gotten distracted, searching the river’s banks by the Great Tunnel for flowers to bring back with her. As the sun began to set, Little Girl reached down for a bright yellow flower and heard a soft voice on the wind.
“Hello” it said. Little Girl jumped up and looked around, but saw nothing. She began to run away, when the voice spoke again:
“Where are you going? I want to tell you three stories. Come and move these branches for me.” The voice whispered, and the leaves covering the tunnel brushed forward in the wind. Little Girl pulled the leaves aside and peered into the tunnel; she saw nothing.
“If you tell me a story, I can make it real. And then I will tell you a story, and you will make it real,” the voice said. Little Girl smiled. She told the voice about the flower bouquet she was picking for her neighbor, and the food she was sent to collect. With a gust of wind from the tunnel, the river reversed and a basket full of fruit, bread, and a bouquet of flowers floated towards her. Little Girl giggled. Then the voice took his turn and told of darkness and storms, which thundered over the valley. Little Girl was frightened, and told a story of fireflies that lit up the sky and pulled back the sun, and strong wind that blew the storms away; so it happened. The voice in the tunnel spoke about her neighbor and told a horrible story of injury and illness. Little Girl countered with a story of prosperity and watched as the river sent baskets of food to her village, as the trees grew bigger, and as she heard music coming from her village as they celebrated. The voice grew frustrated; he spoke of drought and sickness, of war, and fighting, and death; around her Little Girl saw the valley wither. The river sucked away dry. Armies rushed through the tunnel’s dry surface, charging and screaming and wielding weapons. Little Girl shouted, “It’s too scary! Take it back, take it back!” but the voice answered, “Once a story is told, it cannot be taken back. It is loose in the world.”
I found this exercise surprisingly challenging. I used to enjoy creative writing when I had more time (although I would certainly never claim to have been particularly good at it), and returning to this assignment reminded me of how difficult it can be to communicate the thoughts in one’s head onto a page for others. I wanted to capture the way stories can be powerful and potentially dangerous, which is true even in the narratives we craft for and of ourselves, and for this theme to be clear in my writing and verbal telling of the story.
The author John Green is adamant in saying he believes that “Books belong to their readers“; similarly, I found myself wondering how my story would be interpreted on this blog, and even more so in my telling of it to others. I found telling the story to others to be multifaceted, and oddly insecurity-provoking; I wanted people to like my story, but I also wanted it to feel authentic. When there were parts my friends had questions about, I wondered if I should change the story or my telling when I told my next listener. It made the process feel both deeply personal, and oddly collaborative–which of course is how we learn from stories in the first place. I am happy to have had the opportunity to write more, and imagine more, but am also interested in the way in which this process is collaborative with Thomas King, as well. So many ideas contribute to storytelling and inspirational, potentially even in ways we don’t recognize and understand (like the fallibility of our own memory). To imagine storytelling as anything less than collaborative seems incomplete.
Works Cited
Duncan, Suzanne. “The dark side of storytelling.” TED. 12 Jan 2016. Lecture. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SUIiF-ifIM. Accessed Jan 22 2019.
Green, John (@johngreen). “Books belong to their readers.” Feb 1 2014, 6:03PM. Tweet.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative (CBC Massey Lectures) . House of Anansi Press Inc. Kindle Edition.
Ludden, David. “Why You Can’t Trust Your Memory (Of Anything).” Psychology Today, 20 Mar 2016, www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/talking-apes/201603/why-you-cant-trust-your-memory-anything. Accessed Jan 23 2019.
Photograph of Valley of the Flowers. Wander the Himalayas, 5 Important things to consider before undertaking Valley Of Flowers Trek, 12 June 2016, https://wanderthehimalayas.com/2016/06/12/5-important-things-to-consider-before-undertaking-valley-of-flowers-trek/. Accessed Jan 23 2019.
This is great! WOW! I loved the way you emphasized the power of the story. The young girl reminds me of the curious woman who fell from the sky but in a new way. I loved how vivid the imagery was, and how the voices in the story really shined through as unique, despite some of the symbolic similarities we read about this week. For my story, I found it hard to try and utilize common themes in my own reinvented story, but you seemed to do a really balanced job. Thank you for sharing your work!
Lexi
Hi Lexi,
Thank you so much for your kind words! I really enjoyed reading your story as well. I agree that finding common themes was the hardest part of this assignment — I chose to embody the power of stories more literally partially because I found that other retellings I attempted were a little bit too close to the original story to really feel unique. I’m glad that seems to have come through! Thank you for your story and for your comment, as well.
Hi Charlotte,
I really loved your story and all the imagery you included in it. The imagery very much set the scene of a perfect, serene world that was about to be altered by the evil of the tunnel. I was just wondering if, while writing this, you had written the tunnel as something meant to be symbolic? I understood that the tunnel and the stories it told were how evil was brought into the world, but was the tunnel itself representative of something in our world or society?
Hi Cassie,
I think the tunnel imagery was loosely inspired by the way it functions as a contained passageway. While there wasn’t any particular aspect of society I had in mind, I do think the imagery can be seen as metaphoric or symbolic for many things; tunnels are passageways, so they exist for moments of change and transit, but they also can be a way of navigating through different spaces and they facilitate travel and the sharing of ideas, which you could draw back to the idea of infiltrating different geographical spaces and the issues that arise from laying claim to a territory. You could also think of tunnels and how they connect ideas and knowledge–now you have me thinking of important passageways in history, like waterways, channels, the Silk Road, etc.–while these can facilitate the transfer of knowledge and progress they have also facilitated the spreading of disease, weaponry, etc.
On a more aesthetic level, I thought the idea of darkness and the unknown that’s associated with the tunnel could translate well to the way children can experience new learning: It is both frightening and intriguing, and sparks cautiousness and curiosity. These emotions resonated with me when considering the process children go through when learning about the “bad parts” of the world as they age, as well.