I have a story to tell you. It is a great story. I think you might have heard it. I have heard this story many times as I traveled through the world and each place tells it different. It is the story of how the evil came to the world.
There was a small village on top a mountain in an island far away in the ocean. The village is full of different kind of animals and many colorful plants and trees. You see butterflies hopping from one flower to another. Birds and insects flying in the fresh air. Lions and monkeys playing and giggling. Elephants and sealions bathing together. Zebras and tigers walking through the long bush of grass and disappear in the sunset. It was a happy place.
No one in this island troubled anyone. They shared laughter and happiness.
They spend their days playing with each other and swimming in the lakes.
Every night, all the animals gather around a bonfire by lake and sing through out the night.
They lived peacefully with each other.
One day, a lion called Lolo and a tiger called Toto were taking a walk and laughing about something that had happened that morning. I am not sure what it was but that doesn’t matter. Toto is rolling on ground with laughter as Lolo was telling the story while laughing with tears. It was then that they saw a wild creature walking towards them.
They both stopped and looked carefully at this creature they had never seen before gets closer to them. The creature had two feet and erected body with two arms coming down from the top. Small head, small eyes, small jaw line. It was something they had never seen before.
“Hello”, said Toto. This new creature replied “Hello! What a beautiful day” as it got close to them. No one has ever come to this island, so Toto and Lolo did not even know what to say. Lolo said, “This is something I have never seen”. The new creature replied “What? You have never seen a human before”. They both replied “Nope.” Toto followed by saying “You are beautiful creature!”
The human told them he had been traveling on a boat for days and he found this island. He told the story of where he is from. He told them he had never seen a tiger and a lion hang out before and that they are enemies where he is from. They were confused. They asked “Why?”. Human says “A tiger and a lion eat the same kind of food: deer, zebra and other animals. They are always competing for food, so they are enemies”.
Lolo said “What! We do not eat other animals. They are our friends. We eat grass.” and Toto nodded. The human said, “You my friends, have never tested the warm blood of another animal and how delicious it is”.
Lolo and Toto looked at each other. They felt something they have never felt towards the other before. It was unexplainable. There was silence for long time. The human broke the awkward silence and said “Hey, you can be friends in this island. It looks like there is plenty of food. Ignore what I said.”
From that day, nothing was the same in the village. The lion and the tiger were no longer friends. They started feeding on animals weaker than them. Evil spread in the village. No one was friends any more.
For, once a story is told it becomes loose in the world. You cannot take a story back. In the end, you always have to be careful of the stories you tell, and perhaps more importantly – the stories you listen to.
Reflection
It was a fun exercise to tell this story to friends and family. I wrote the story before I started telling people, so I know it by heart. I told the story to my older brother, his wife, one of my friends and my neighbour’s daughter who is 5 years old.
I told the story differently to each person. It was not my intention to tell the story differently but each person listening to the store responded differently as I was telling them which then affected the way I told the story. My brother keeps interrupting me and asking me questions like why the lion and the zebra are friends. After explaining I ask him where I was and retell the story. It took the longest to tell him. His wife, on the other hand, waited for me to finish the story before she started explaining the meaning behind the story. Her take away was that, humans ruin everything (which is true) and our conversation got deeper and led us to discuss how humans are ruining the planet. My 5 years old friend loved the story. She said she wished the human didn’t go to the island.
This is the first time I ever wrote a made-up story. While I was writing the story, I was remembering an island in Norway that I watched on planet earth, part the Lion Kind and some stories I was told growing up. What sparked your imagination and story creation? Was this exercise the first time you wrote made-up stories, or have you done it before. If you write fiction stories, what is your creative process like?
Works Cited
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2010. CBC Massey Lectures. Web. 21 Jan. 2020.
King, Thomas. “The 2003 CBC Massey Lectures, “The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative.” CBC Radio. 2003. Web. 21 Jan. 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-2003-cbc-massey-lectures-the-truth-about-stories-a-native-narrative-1.2946870
Haha your story had very interesting elements that surprised me throughout the time I was reading it; it went in a direction I completely didn’t expect. I thought it was interesting that evil stemmed from a human stepping into a peaceful environment, triggering the other animals to think of something that led to unnecessary bloodshed. I wonder, how do you define evil? I had a lot of trouble defining it. In your story, it seemed like evil stemmed from an idea, and curiosity towards another route of potential joy. However, these animals were already happy and had everything they needed to continue being happy. Their quest for additional happiness was what ultimately destroyed their current happiness. Do you think that even the most powerful predators would have despaired at the peace that was lost just to taste meat?
Oh shoot, I am going to add to this because I forgot to answer your question. My imagination wasn’t sparked until I began writing. I thought it would be cool to make the world created from a sunflower because oftentimes, humans rather than animals or plants are thought of as the most important. My dad compared that to racism, calling that speciest. I wanted to counter the framework of humans being superior to animals.
Then as I continued writing about how the sunflower created the world, new ideas popped into my head: Harm is often created unintentionally yet people get angry and place blame on those who unintentionally do something. I wanted to portray this idea by having a human boy naively pick the sunflower because he thought it was beautiful, and therefore unintentionally create evil.
I have written some fiction stories before, usually I create the story as I go along rather than planning it out. I find the story goes in very interesting and unexpected directions that way, and for me, it is like an adventure where I am experiencing what I am talking about and it’s exciting to go any direction I want. However, I think my best stories are actually the planned ones. I write an outline of what I want to portray, and plan out the personalities of each character going deeper and deeper into why they are the way they are and how they will click with other characters.
I forgot to say, but I really liked your story! It was very interesting, surprising, and refreshing. I did not expect anything that came along.
-Gaby
Thank you, Gaby, for the elaborated comment. I am really glad you enjoy reading it. Honestly, I found this assignment the most challenging because I have never done any creative writing whatsoever. It makes me feel good you enjoyed reading it.
I think before I started writing my story, I knew the evil is going to be humans, but I had no idea to go about it. The idea grew from what we see everyday how humans are unkind to nature and always disrupting the process. So, I created an environment where everyone is friendly and kind until humans come to the place. However, you pointed out that evil is an idea, which I did not see it that way until you mentioned it. You are right, even in my story it was just an idea that led to curiosity which in turn led to absence of good. I think it goes the same for your story too, but in your case the evil was created unintentionally. By the way, I also really liked your story. At the end, you did not really see the introduction of evil as a very negative thing but as balance which a very positive and rich word.
I look forward to reading your new blog!
Hi Wongelawit,
I really enjoyed your story, but even more your reflections on how the story changed with each telling. This illuminates how the listener has power over the story, a kind of power that the reader can never have. The words on the page won’t change according to your response, but the storyteller will. Thank you, insightful and creative. And, you inspired two great comments, you should respond. Thanks.
Thank you, Prof. Patterson! Yes, I think the fun part of the exercise was telling it to other people. I had a discussion on another blog and the person told the story before they wrote it, whereas I wrote mine first. According to them, it helped them shape their story line. On the other hand, when told the story people were influencing my story and I tired to stick to what I wrote. Because of that the listener did not influence it as much it did with the story that existed only orally. It is interesting to see how stories are told orally and written.
Thank you very much for your feedback.