In the beginning were the walkers. They looked just like you and I – some were short, some were tall. Most were young, though there were a few who were old. Their skin was coloured in varying shades of bronze and gold. The walkers traveled with the sun, and the sun was bright and warm.

They followed the sun. To stop, to rest, was not a need known to them. The walkers never tired of walking – it was what they did, it was their life. For the walkers, walking was the same as breathing is to you or I. They followed the sun and traveled around the world. They knew not what nighttime was. They had never seen the great big silvery moon, nor the multitude of twinkly stars that are night’s treasures. The sun beat their skin into gold and bronze. They traveled with the sun, and the sun was bright and warm.

One of the walkers – let’s call them the Young One – walked with the sun and traveled around the world the same as the rest. It never occurred to the Young One that they were actually walking around in a circle across the Earth. All that mattered was that they traveled with the sun, the sun that was bright and warm.

Once, the Young One fell, and their leg was hurt. They got up, and continued walking, but the hurt in their leg was slowing them down. The sun, usually bright and warm, was getting ahead of the Young One. That had never happened before. The Young One tried to walk in step with the sun, but tried as they might, the sun was leaving, continuing without him. The sky was turning red – It had never done that before. The sun was bright, but the Young One could no longer feel its warmth.

Then the sun disappeared. The world around the young one was disappearing, growing more and more dim. Their skin felt different, but the Young One did not know it was because they were cold, because they had never felt cold. Then it was dark, and the Young One was terrified.  They did not know what to do. They tried walking as they had before, but without the sun shining the young one bumped into trees, tripped over rocks, and fell into ponds and rivers. Without the sun, the Young One was lost in the dark, and cold.

There was no moon, and there were no stars, for this was the time before the moon, and before the stars. The Young One did not want to walk anymore, for they could not see, so they lay down. The Young One’s leg was hurting even more, and they felt that they would not be able to stand up again.

After a long while, the Young One noticed a change in the darkness. The darkness was giving was to something new. The sky turned pink and red and orange. Then all was brightness – it was the sun!

The Young One tried to stand, but could not. So they sat, and gradually they saw the small shapes of the other Walkers in the distance. As they came closer, the Young One cried out, and the other Walkers gathered round them. Moved by the Young One’s plight they sat down and kept them company, each sitting down for the first time in their lives. They watched the sun travel across the sky, felt the cold hit their bodies as the sun, which was bright and warm, slipped over the horizon.

And the other walkers were scared, and it was dark, and cold. But the Young One spoke up: Fear not! And they spoke in careful words to the others of the sun, that it was bright and warm, and how it shone as they walked. The Young One described how the sun felt on their skin, and how it shone brightly in the blue, blue sky. The Young One spoke also of how the darkness would give way to light, and that the sun would return. By and by other voices chimed in, describing the sun and the things that they saw as they walked, until, almost without them noticing, it was dawn. And the sun arose, and it was bright and warm.

The walkers stood up. The Young One stood with them, their leg was better. The walkers were happy to be in the sun again, and resumed walking, traveling once again in sync with the sun. They were glad to be with the sun, which was so very bright and warm.

But, over time, the walkers’ pace become slower and slower than that of the sun. They spent more and more of their time in the darkness. In the darkness, they gathered and spoke to each other of the sun, and how it would return. These tellings of the return of the sun, of the passing of time, and of their time as walkers gave the walkers the strength to brave the darkness until the sun’s return. The sun was warm and bright, but the night, while dark and cold, was becoming as familiar and as important a part of them as their time in the sun. The stories they told together at night reminded them of where they came from and that the sun would return, that warmth followed cold, and light became dark. This is why at night we dream – for dreams are the stories that remind us of our time in the sun, of who were are, and who we were, and they speak to our return once we wake.

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I would like to start the analysis portion of this post with this image:

This illustration is Pandora by Arthur Rackham, an artist whose expressive and stylistic depictions of scenes from fairy tales informed the imagination of my childhood self. I chose it because of Rackham’s association with the fairy tale, which was how I was introduced (and learned to fall in love with) storytelling. The fairy tale does have its shortcoming, but that is a analysis for another day and another post. I chose it also because it is a depiction of one of the oldest origin of evil stories, that of Pandora’s box. While I love Rackham’s work, I am conflicted about this image, but chose to include it as it illustrates perfectly the aspects of the origin of evil story that I find troubling (namely, woman as responsible for origin of evil and evil as divine punishment), as well as many of the tropes and themes of fairy tales of the Anglo-American tradition.

When telling this story for the first time I began, without thinking, with once upon a time. These four words together are such an incredibly strong signal for story (at least according to a more Western, European fairy/folk tale informed storytelling tradition) that the compulsion to begin a story with the words “once upon a time” is reflexive for me.After reading Chamberlin, I realize that this compulsion to begin my story with OUAT is part of the ceremony of telling stories, of accessing the realm of true/not true. It is interesting, and telling (not to mention incredibly amusing), to peruse these ceremonial words of story starting in other cultures/languages (see link above, and also here*). My personal favourite is what is identified as a “Traditional West African Opening”, which goes as follows: “A story, a story, let it come, let it go” (Bybell). To me, this phrase speaks to how stories are part of the collective knowledge, and exist primarily in the telling. The story that comes and goes is singular to that telling of it.

Challenges with retelling and reimagining stories

Finding a way to retell this story was a challenge. I was initially committed to telling a story about the origin of evil, but after perusing a few other (excellent, well thought out, and admirably written) student blogs, I was struck with the question: Does this necessarily have to be a story about evil? Is the origin of evil at the core of the story that Silko is telling? Or is it rather that of the invincible power that ideas hold when transformed by words into story? I think Silko’s story focuses more of the latter.  This power is by itself neither good nor bad – the responsibility of how a story is used to influence lies with the teller, but also with the listener. Evil is an excellent device to demonstrate the potency of this power, for I think most people recognize how powerful the idea of evil is.

Aspects of Silko’s story that I like are as follows (and, where applicable, I tried to include them in my own telling):

• That it is humans (kind of) and not gods who bring evil into the world
• The being who is responsible for the origin of evil is not gendered (unlike in the origin stories that I am more familiar with, such as the stories of Pandora’s box and Adam and Eve)
• The creation of evil is depicted as a willful act and a not as a result of the naive mistake of an innocent and clueless individual.
• That is keeps intact the human motivations of intent and discovery (curiosity), and discards the trope of evil as divine punishment.

In trying to come up with a story that explained the importance of stories without using an overt notion of evil as a device, I ended up telling more of an origin story, taking King’s position that “the truth about stories is that’s all that we are” as my inspiration.  This choice did not lend itself well to brevity in story, even after refinement through multiple tellings. It was hard to pare things away from this story – whether this is the fault of myself as a storyteller, or a testament to the patience of my audiences, or something else entirely I am unsure. I think the stylistic device** of repetition that I used – “and the sun was bright and warm” – ended up serving to lengthen the story, for repetition as a device requires some measure of length in a story in order to be effective. This makes me ponder whether the inclusion of evil in stories allows, in part, for conciseness, as it assumes the listener’s pre-knowledge of innocence.

Another difficulty I encountered during the story creating process was navigating my choice to use genderless pronouns. In using ‘they’ as pronoun, I found the story became a bit confusing to tell – I relied on inflection and gesture to separate the single ‘they’ from the plural. This is lost in the text version, and does make for a confusing read at points.

* Yes, it is a wiki link (gasp), but I was not able to find a better webpage that illustrated the subtle differences in the OUAT signal, with the signal written in the original language as well. Consider it a bonus hyperlink 😉

** An Financial Times article article by Sam Leith assigned for another class, this is an expert analysis of one of the more powerful entertainment award acceptance speeches out there. Leith’s analysis shows how it is those speeches (and stories) that are deftly crafted and thoughtfully structured which remain with us long after they are told.

Works Cited

Bybell, Betsy. “Folktale Openings”. Jennings & Ponder, Ageless Tales and Music. Tim Jennings and Leanne                         Ponder. 18 October 2009. Web. 31 January 2016. 

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

Lauriola, Rosanna. “Pandora, The Beautiful Evil: the Coming of Evil to Light in Ancient Greek world”.                                    EspacoAcademico. Espaco Academico. September 2005. Web. January 31 2016.

Leith, Sam. “For Deft Use of Pathos, Study Viola Davis’s Emmy Speech”. Financial Times. The Financial Times Ltd. 18 Sept. 2015. Web. 31 January 2016

Rackham, Arthur. Pandora. n.d. Location unknown. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 31 January 2016.