“I have a great story to tell you.”
Something happened long long ago, years before you and I, when there were only two territories on earth that of the land and that of the sea. . The land and sea people had never physically encountered one another , however they had both heard stories which had been passed down and been remembered well.
The people who occupied the land lived in peace and harmony. Families worked in unison to gather food and water, and to build shelters. People lived off the land, shared and traded goods and food. There was no war or poverty. The land provided more than enough for all .
The water people lived similarly until a corrupt leader named Shugra took the sea throne. The once peaceful society the sea people knew and loved changed dramatically when Shugra decided he deserved more than others and implemented a rule where a half of every family’s food and belongings were to be given to him. He introduced money into their society, and soon there was a large gap between the rich; his friends & family and the poor.
His younger brother, Shutsy, pleaded and begged Shugra to abolish the money policy that was causing such inequality and dissension. However, Shugra would not budge despite the obvious destruction of the once peaceful community of sea people. Some lived in abject poverty while others gained from Shugra’s reign. People began to think only of themselves and to thieve from each other. The sea world was in complete chaos.
Shutsy knew there was no rationalizing with his stubborn, materialistic brother, and his only choice was to try and get help from the land people. Shutsy, much like the majority of his community had only heard stories of the land people, so he asked the elders where he might find them. After speaking with nearly the whole elderly population, he had a general idea as to where he might find the land people and set out to find them.
After fifteen days of swimming and ten hours of walking, he saw what looked like a small village. As he got closer, he began to get teary-eyed as he realized, the village looked just like his had before Shugra had taken over the sea throne. The land people saw Shutsy who was sobbing loudly now and began walking towards him. A curious elderly man asked, ” Why are you crying? Who are you, and what brings you here?”
Shutsy sighed and began to tell the tragic story of the poverty and bloodshed occurring amongst the sea people due to his brother’s greedy hand . The land people were horrified and couldn’t believe the terror Shutsy revealed. They pleaded to Shutsy to “call the story back”(King 10). “But, of course, it was too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world”(King 10).
To my surprise, this story actually took longer to write than some research papers. In high school, creative writing was one of my favorite classes however, after majoring in Sociology and writing mainly research papers and literature reviews, I have definitely lost touch with my creative side. While I had somewhat of a writer’s block for a good hour or so, I definitely had some fun with this exercise! Thanks, nice to use a bit of my right brain for once!
References:
King, Thomas. “”You’ll Never Believe What Happened” Is Always A Great Way To Start.” The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi, 2003. 1-29. Print.
Paterson, Erika. ““ENGL 470 Canadian Studies ;Canadian Literary Genres.”University of British Columbia. UBC Blogs. 2014. Web. Web. 16 Jan. 2014.https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470/unit-1/lesson-12/
Very well written story! I liked how you’re version of the story used the two territories of land and sea, which had heard of each other through story buy never actually seen one another. I enjoyed how you explained the peaceful previous lifestyle of the water people and how it all changed by one corrupt leader’s regime.
Immediately I made a connection of the water people’s previous lifestyle to that of First Nation’s people prior to European contact, where community was the way of life,which results in almost no poverty. I likened Shugra to many powerful national organizations whom extract so much from their employees; sometimes to the point where a full time worker can’t even live comfortably enough to support themselves.
It is really interesting how unregulated capitalism can create so much disparity between people, as in your story when chaos spread from Shugra’s laws. Lastly, it was interesting how you concluded with Shutsy telling the land people (his first sighting of them) of the chaos using Thomas Kings quote of taking the story back. When used in your story I imagined it as people from 3rd world countries seeking for help from developed countries, where the developed countries don’t want to hear their stories.
Hello Sam,
I had actually had the First Nations people as well as the Occupy movements in mind as I was writing the story! Its really cool that you picked up o that!
Thank you for your response.
Hi Maya,
What a beautiful, creative, fantasy-like story you shared. I share much of the same experience in writing a fictional story as you expressed in your reflection. The last time I wrote a fictional story was back in elementary school, and I remember it not being so hard. I, as well, majored in Sociology. So why is it that after going through university, along with other post-secondary life events that we find it harder to use our imagination to create stories? It brought me to think, are we encouraged by the ‘mainstream’ education system/work-culture to suppress our creative minds? Is it because we are exposed to and taught such a particular type of regimented, fact-based, regulated writing style that cripples us when delving into a different way of creative writing? Or have we placed on halt the practice of exploring creatively for such a long time that the ‘skill’ has been diminished…
I believe that creativity is without doubt in all of us, and I feel that creative expression, whether in the form of art, music, writing, story telling, performance, or what have you, is both something that comes naturally to us and a skill that can be developed with practice and encouragement.
At least that’s how I feel… So I’ll continue to practice and explore as I pursue my personal journey in (re) connecting with my creative self.
Vivian
Hi Maya,
I loved your story. I especially love the land and sea aspect. I loved that we saw the vision of the world before his brother took over. The society seemed very imperialistic and the division of the rich and poor reminds me of a lot of what goes on in society today.
My question is how do you think the land people reacted to this story? Can you see them accepting this new person into their life? Do you see this story changing the land people, or was their community strong enough to overcome it?
Hi Maya!
It’s good to know that I wasn’t the only one suffering from writer’s block! I had trouble writing my story too and didn’t realize how hard it was to come up with inspiration for a story until I forced myself to really focus and think about how my daily life could be somewhere I could draw inspiration from. I loved your story and how you used basic elements such as the land and sea as a basis for your story.
I’ve noticed that many of the stories I’ve come across for this assignment seem to include two opposing lands or places that change because of a slight problem resulting in the need for ‘the story to be taken back’. Just as my own story includes the two categories of a pure and evil world yours includes a land and sea world. I’m curious, what made you come up with the theme of land and sea? And I’m really curious about what the effects of the story would be on the people of the land as the story cannot be called back?
Julie
Hello Julie,
I actually hadn’t thought that far ahead! I guess realistically speaking, the land people would be disturbed with the fact that there is such horror that exists in society and would try to continue to live the peaceful lives they were leading prior to their first encounter with “evil”
Maya, thank you for your creative story, the dialogue you have sparked, and for using your right brain so nicely! My hope is to warm you all up to finding a balance between your critical thinking skills and your creative thinking skills, and learn to use them together! Really excellent work, thank you.