I have a great story to tell you

There once was a monastery high on a mountain. There monks lived, young and old, and they were all joined together in song under the leadership of the abbot, the eldest and most revered of the monks. This song was the song of life, and as they sang the story of the world was told.

One day, one of the younger monks was watching the birds outside his cell, and listening to them sing, for he was very fond of birds. Then he said, “I’m tired of singing the part the abbot has assigned me. These birds don’t all sing the same song and they are still beautiful. There are many of us here, we could be like the birds and make our own parts.” Then he began to sing a melody of his own making, and discord entered the song of the monastery. And as the discord entered the song, discord entered the story of the world around them. And the melody of the young monk caused the rivers to flood.

The abbot, hearing the song grow discordant, told the young monk to sing his appointed part. But the young monk was excited to hear his own melody and began to sing louder, and couldn’t hear the abbot. And some of the other monks, seeing how happy the young monk was, began to make their own parts as well. And one new melody brought a famine, and another brought a drought, and another brought an earthquake. And so on did the story of the world change, until finally the song had grown so out of tune that death entered the world.

Now the young monk was happy and caught up in the song he was singing. But then he saw his favorite bird lying still on the ledge of his cell’s window. The young monk grew concerned and brought the bird to the abbot. When he showed the bird to the abbot, the abbot saw that the bird had died. The abbot told the young monk the bird had died, but the young monk was confused, having never heard of death before. The abbot explained to the young monk what death was, and the young monk grew sad, and wanted to change the song back and remove death from the story of the world. But the other monks couldn’t hear him, they could only hear their own songs. And the young monk began to despair, not being able to do anything to help the bird. And the abbot said, “Once you have told a story, you can never take it back. So, be careful of the stories you tell, and the stories you listen to.”

I pretty blatantly stole parts of this story from a variety of places, mostly because creativity of this kind doesn’t come naturally to me.

As for commentary, I’m not sure I have any. But I can say I gained a new appreciation for the art of storytelling, because coming up with something that’s not too obviously derivative isn’t as easy as it sounds