A very long time ago, there lived a small family of three – the father, Bill, and his children, Mary and Mark – in a lone house on a beautiful remote island. Life was peaceful, and exquisite beauty could be found everywhere – views of the sea and the horizon were untainted by the rough silhouettes of ships. The forest surrounding the house was magnificent, home to an impressive variety of animals who thrived in the company of each other, and the family living among them.

Mary and Mark lived quite happily in their house with their father, who allowed them as much freedom as children could wish for to run around and explore the island. He did, however, have one exception: there was an attic in their home where Bill forbid the children to ever enter, under any circumstance. This room, he told them, was forbidden to anyone but Bill – and he kept the key under his pillow every night as he slept. For several years, Mary and Mark were content with everything they had: a loving father, a lovely house to live in, and a beautiful island to call home. They accepted their father’s one condition without questioning him, and were content with the abundant amount of things that they were allowed to do.

However, a time came, as it always does, when the children grew older and their sense of curiosity stronger than ever before. One day, when Bill was out for a swim in the lake like he loved to do at least once a week, Mary had a small idea, a little thought of curiosity that nagged her in the back of her mind.

“Mark!” She called to her brother. “What do you say, we take a look in our attic today, just a quick peek?”

Mark glanced back at her, doubt filling his face. “But Father forbid us to go in there, remember?”

“Father will never find out! He’s out swimming right now – we’ll be in and out of there in no time…either ways, I’m going to take a look. Come if you want.” Mary shrugged, slightly annoyed at her brother for always being the voice of reason, as she turned and started up the stairs towards the forbidden room.

Mark looked up in despair as he watched his sister walk away. He was torn between wanting to discover what was in the mysterious room with his sister, and obeying his father. After several seconds of indecision, he called out after Mary, “Wait up! I’m coming!”

The two stood outside the large wooden door, Mary with the key in her hand that she had taken from her father’s room, and Mark with a look of apprehension. In a few swift seconds, the door was unlocked and the door swung open with a loud creak.

“Hello there,” a raspy voice called to them from the back of the dark room. “Mary and Mark – I’ve been waiting for you.”

“How did you know our names?” Mark demanded, slightly frightened.

“That is unimportant,” the voice shrugged. “What is important is that you two finally came.

No matter how hard the two of them squinted in the darkness, they could not make out the source of the voice.

“Come on in,” the voice said. “Would you like to hear a story that you’ve never heard before?”

The two of them stood apprehensively, wanting to leave this strange, unknown room but a part of them feeling extremely curious as to what kind of story this mysterious voice had to tell.

“S-sure,” Mary stuttered. “But we don’t have a lot of time, so please do make it quick.”

Without further ado, the voice jumped straight into the narrative of the story. It was a story filled with darkness darker than the room they were in, full of chaos and destruction – concepts that were, until then, strange and unknown to Mary and Mark. The story was one of betrayal, of sin, and of disasters, one after another. It wasn’t a long story – rather, it was quite short. However, once it was over, Mary and Mark were trembling on the spot, regretting ever having opened the door to this attic, to having ever agreed to hear this terrible story. They felt something that they’d never felt before, and it took them a while to find the right words to describe it.

“….Mark? I’m scared.” Mary whispered, tears pouring down her cheeks.

Mark, too, felt extremely scared, frightened at this strange new emotion. He, however, refused to show it, and instead yelled at the voice, “take it back! I don’t want to know your awful story anymore. I hope you stay in this room forever!”

And with that, he took Mary’s hand and the two of them ran from the attic as fast as they could.

“Let’s just try to forget that ever happened,” Mark whispered to Mary once they were out. But it was too late. Everything looked different to them. As the two of them looked out their window, the island that they once found so beautiful was changing before their eyes. Torrential rain poured from the skies and trees were struck by lightning left and right, losing all their leaves and several of their branches.

Suddenly, the door of the house burst open, and Bill stood there soaking wet, a devastated expression on his face. As his eyes landed on his children, a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“Why didn’t you obey me?” He questioned his beloved children. “I tried to give you everything you ever wanted, that you could ever desire. Why did you have to do the one thing I forbade you to?”

“We’re sorry, Father!” Mary and Mark wept, running to him. “Please, we will never do that again. Tell the voice to take its awful story back – we just want things back to normal, like they used to be again.”

But it was too late. The damage had been done, and the innocent beauty of the island and of the children had been destroyed by the story they’d just heard.

For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world.

Commentary

Writing this story was an extremely fun experience, as it made me think creatively and of how to add my own twist to a creation story about how evil entered the world. Through this story, I wanted to highlight how evil in the world has tainted the innocent happiness and contentment of the people in the world, and of how, sometimes, bad news can change a person’s extremely happy day into one of sadness and frustration in a very short amount of time (much like how the length of the story above was short, and yet had a huge impact on Mary and Mark).

I think that the amazing thing about short stories is how they have the power to tell a story that can be interpreted in many different ways, by many different people, from the author to every reader who reads the story. I believe that one idea – the idea of how evil entered the world – can easily mean many different things to different individuals – and that is the beauty of storytelling in itself.

Works Cited

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2003. Print.

“National Storytelling Network.” National Storytelling Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2016.

“The Five Important Elements of a Short Story.” The Five Important Elements of a Short Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2016.

Today, in the age of social media and the world wide web, publishing content for the world to see is extremely simple to do. With the click of a single button, a person can share their thoughts, criticisms and ideas extremely easily. Social media, especially, serves as a uniquely effective tool with which users can send articles or recommend books that they particularly enjoyed with their friends, who will then share with their friends. This will eventually cause these forms of literature to become widely distributed across various networks.

One of the most inarguably popular social media platforms today is Facebook. Through the use of Facebook, users are able to share digital literature, stories and articles sometimes faster than they are able to read them. Facebook specifically allows users to select from various options as to who they would like to share with, from solely the user (“Only Me”), to the user’s friends (“Just friends”), the user’s “Friends of friends,” and lastly, “Public” – which ultimately allows the post to be seen by virtually anyone with access to Internet. Because of this, news is able to spread extremely quickly. An example of such a case is a fairly recent one, when Paris was attacked by suicide bombers on a fateful Friday last year in November. Almost immediately, articles were posted on Facebook, not only by news outlets but also people who were personally affected by the tragedy – whether by having experienced it in person or being related to somebody who was personally affected. Sympathies and condolences were, in return, shared in waves, as those who read the news and articles were compelled to react.

The key point to note here is that despite being thousands of miles away from the place where all this took place, I learnt of the situation in Paris within minutes of it happening. Sitting in my room that night, looking out, there was no possibility of me experiencing what those in Paris were experiencing – and yet I was able to learn of the news by typing a few words on my laptop and scrolling on my mouse.

Another popular social media platform is Twitter, which allows users to share their thoughts with millions of followers within a 140 word limit. This forces users to be creative in what they choose to share with their audiences. However, many times, users may find themselves with much more to share than can be contained in 140 words. In those cases, many of them resort to the use of hypertext: proving their audience with a brief summary and then linking them to another site that hosts a much longer, more detailed article, story, or literary text.

In the age of today’s rapidly changing technology, the world of literature and how stories are spread is also changing. It is now possible for the sole distributors of articles and literature to be the authors themselves and other users on social media, which, ten years ago, would be something that was unheard of. All of these appear to be changes for the best – beneficial to users as information becomes more readily accessible to a growing audience. However, with all the changes happening, the role of literature and the distribution of literature in the modern world is also shifting. People are constantly bombarded with multiple distractions, thus making the task of aiming to keep readers engaged something that authors must take into consideration when writing. Apart from vying for the time and attention of millions of social media users, authors will have to consider their target audiences and be wary of how to engage their audiences, in order to compel them to spend their time reading their work instead of on the multiple outlets of entertainment readily available on the Internet.

Hello! Welcome to my blog dedicated to English 470a.

My name is Amelia and I am currently a fourth year student studying Computer Science at UBC. In taking this course I am admittedly delving into unfamiliar territory: not only has it been a while since I’ve taken a literature course, I also have a lot to learn about Canada’s history and colonization. However, I hope to challenge myself and further improve my knowledge on these topics as I am keen to learn more about the country that I have spent most of my life in, through the voices of talented authors.

Despite being Canadian, I have oftentimes found myself slightly confused as to what being Canadian truly means. One of the things that I have long associated Canadians with is the vibrant multiculturalism and welcoming culture reflected in movies and the general worldwide reputation for Canadians being “nice.” Although I strongly believe that the two points listed above are not devoid of truth, I am sure that Canada has much more to offer than that.

As Professor Paterson briefly stated about Engl 470a, this course aims to provide us with a scholarly study of Canadian literature and history, with a focus on the intersections and departures between European and Indigenous traditions of literature and orator. In short, through this course, I will have the opportunity to examine what being in Canada and being Canadian means to many different people, and thus through this I hope to finally determine exactly what it truly means to me.

Works Cited:

“First Major Poll of 2016 Puts Canada As #2 Country in the World to Live.”Notableca. N.p., 20 Jan. 2016. Web. 13 May 2016.

“Canadian Multiculturalism: An Inclusive Citizenship.” Government of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Communications Branch. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2016.

“What Canada Means to Me.” Government of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Communications Branch. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2016.