Tall Tales

Once upon a time, as any good tale begins, there was a small girl. She was from a small town, full of similarly small people, but around that small little town ran a tall fence, so tall that you couldn’t even see above it, not even if you stood on your tiptoes. This tall fence ran all the way around this small town, keeping the small people safe inside their little world. The people worked hard to make sure the wall stayed sturdy and strong, but every once in a while, cracks formed in the stones, and if someone looked hard enough, beyond the wall could be seen. The Mayor warned everyone to stay away from the wall when it cracked.

“It’s dangerous,” he would say.

The townspeople all agreed with the Mayor, beyond the wall was dangerous, but every once in a while, those brave few would take a peek through the cracks. Rumors would fill the town of what they saw beyond the wall, and soon everyone would be whispering of what could be beyond. Dreaming and imagining.

“Don’t listen to those tall tales,” the Mayor would harumph. “They’ll only distract you from making sure our wall is strong and safe.”

And so, the townspeople would go back to their small lives, rejoining the ebb and flow of their monotonous little town.

Which brings us to this small girl, from a small town full of similarly small people. Everyday she would walk along the perimeter of the wall. Once one way, and once the other. She would collect small stones as she walked, ones that were perfectly round of horridly jagged, and when asked what she was doing, the girl would simply say,

“Collecting.”

Satisfied with her answer, the curios townsfolk would wander off, leaving the girl to continue her collecting. But it wasn’t just stones she collected, in fact it was something much more precious. On one of her trips around the perimeter the girl had discovered that there wasn’t just something to see through the cracks in the wall, but there was something to hear. Every time she came across a crack, no matter how fine, the girl would press her ear up against the wall and listen. Whispered through the crack, as clear sounding as if they stood beside her, came a voice that would tell her fantastic stories about what lay beyond the wall. Stories that greatly rivaled anything those who had peered through the cracks had told. Just like the stones that weighed down her pockets, the girl collected these stories, and locked them away in the back of her mind. She didn’t want to be accused of telling tall tales after all, and more importantly she didn’t want to have to stop collecting.

On one of her walks, as the girl bent down to collect a particularly smooth stone, she noticed the tiniest of cracks, no bigger than a single hair. Surely, she thought, there might be a way to hear something even from such a small crack. So, she pressed her ear against the wall and listened.

“Listen closely,” crooned the voice, “and I will tell you all there is beyond this wall. Everything you have ever wanted to know, but there is one condition. You must share your knowledge with the rest of the town. It is selfish to hide such a story as this, and I don’t tell my stories to selfish people.”

The girl agreed to the voices demands and listened to their story. Indeed, it was the most unique tale she had ever heard. After she was done the girl ran to the center of town, and gathered all the townsfolk. There she told them the tale of what lied beyond their wall, and as she told her story, full of beasts with dripping maws, and eyeless creatures that ate at your souls piece by piece, the townsfolk swore they could hear growls and hissing coming from beyond their walls. But that couldn’t be, they thought, it was just a story. The Mayor came rushing forward begging the girl to stop.

“Please , you must not continue. Tall tales are dangerous.” He cried.

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

I found that not too much had changed content wise in my story when I told it to family and friends, but of course, inflection and tone can emphasize and highlight the parts I wanted to draw the audience in. I always think something really interesting to consider is how these inflections would shift or change if it was someone else reading this story, who hadn’t heard it before. It always makes me think of the YouTube channel “Editing is Everything” in which the creator will take scenes from a movie or show and edit them into different genres to show how easily tone and meaning can change. The same thing can be applied to written works, especially if they are taken out of context. I found this practice of moving between “written” and “oral” narratives a good reminder of this concept.

Works Cited:

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: a Native Narrative. House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003.