I have a great story to tell you about how evil came into the world, it came during the earths creation.

The story goes that there are these non-gendered, spectrum-type, beings who created the world in the same way one paints a picture. These beings first created light, and with light brought colour. Each being had a favourite colour within the spectrum. One group loved the variations of blue that could be mixed like one mixes paint on a palette. From this they created the oceans; they made the darkest of blues that colour its depths, the teal that we now find in the tropics, the lightest of blues which we find amongst the crashing of waves. Another group adored the variations of green that could be made, this group created the trees and plants which dance with the wind, displaying their many forms. Each being came with a colour and with each colour the world continued to grow and develop. These beings shared colours and created new beings, the animals, the humans. They created the elements, and the foundations for life. But it was one being who had foreseen the repercussions of what will come of the world who had a warning. This being saw the horrors that can form from what has already been made, and told the others of the world’s impending terrors. This being claimed that something must be created to stop these terrors from ruining their collective artwork. The beings looked at their painting, their masterpiece of what they call earth, and claimed that it is not possible for something so beautiful to turn ugly. And so, as a punishment to the others who would not listen, this being created the colour black. A colour that is not even classified a colour, a colour which bore disease, fear, lies, and evil. Once this colour was created, there was no way to go back and erase it- no matter how much the others wished it. The painting was infected with this evil, and the world must learn to deal with the horrors that come from it. “For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world” (10 King).

I really enjoyed this weeks blog posting assignment, although it took me a while to think of a story which I would like to create. I even took to the internet to see what I could find on how to even tell a story. After going over the story in my head and repeating it out loud I realized, much like in King’s book, each re-telling would begin and end in the same or a similar fashion. This made me think about how its not necessarily how you get the the ending, so long as you get there. So long as the moral has been told, the story remains whole. I’m interested in whether anyone else found this, when practicing their own stories. I also enjoyed this assignment because I work with kids, and am often reading stories to them – more often than not they are simply looking at the pictures and I tell the story based on how they react to the pictures instead of simply re-reading the words; this method makes it more interesting for me, especially when I’m reading the same book multiple times in a week! Even for them, as long as the moral of the story stays in-tact, they are content with the events that lead the characters to their conclusion. 

When thinking about this weeks lesson, it also reminded me of a TED talk that I watched, which talks about the dangers of story-telling in the sense that by telling only one story, you can forget to think about the other side of a story. Very interesting!

Works Cited:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story. TED Global. TED, 2009. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.

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

Mensa Foundation. “The Art of Storytelling.” Mensa for Kids. Mensa Education & Research Foundation, 2016. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.