I have a great story to tell you.
It is one of magic and wonder, of possibilities and questions. I must warn you though, as I have warned those who arrived here before you. This is a one-way trip. Once you get to the end there’s no way to un-see the pictures created in your mind while you wandered through these sentences.
The First Day.
When the earth sprang into existence, it happened both all at once and not at all. It was as though in one second there was nothing, and one second later there was everything, but the time in between never happen. Or did it? It’s a lot for the mind to contemplate. Must be magic, or something of the sort. In the seconds, minutes and hours after the spontaneous creation, a balance was bargained for. Summer was made, with winter to oppose it. Spring and fall came sometime after, a way to transition. To make it all go around in circles. And with the seasons, then came the trees, and from the trees came the forest and the birds. And so on and so on, until the oceans became oceans and all the water started flowing through all the rivers. The creatures started showing up in a similar fashion. One second there was nothing, and a second later there were fish swimming. But the fish were always swimming, weren’t they? They must have been at least. Time can get fuzzy sometimes. After all, have we ever been able to decide if it’s a circle or a straight line? What’s a beginning and what’s the end, if all you do is going around and around? There is an answer, in case you were wondering. The beginning is the end and they are both created as soon as you stop. And that’s the trick my friend, time never stops.
So now there was creation, there was balance, and there were all the very best and very worst of creatures. Then came the humans, and with them came the first night. The first moment that we became aware that time was passing was when the sun set. With the sun gone, what could possibly balance the lack of warmth? The lack of light? And it was then that the sky exploded with stars, who brought with them their friend Moon. The stars reflected brightly in the eyes of all who beheld them, and with that a peace settled in the world. How could there be anything but balance, when you can see the network of stars mapped out like connections in the brain, all floating around a central conscience, a soul, a moon. Just as quickly as the sun had left, the stars and moon did again upon its return.
The Second Day.
Now the world existed, and so does everything that lives on her. Time existed now too. Maybe not in circles, but not in straight lines either. Perhaps a long, flat oval. Something that will let you eventually get back to the start. It was after the first night that counting had begun. First, count the fish in the river. I see 12, maybe 13. How tall is the tree? At least 100 feet. How many starts were there? Too many to count, but never enough to lose the wonder. One, two, three, four five. One was a lonely number. Two was good for pairs. Two was a number for balance.
The last day
Many thousands of years later, there would be stories told about the day that the perfect balance ceased to exist. It was a day of discovery, a day of imagination. It was also a day of wanting, a day of asking. On this day, humanity started to ponder. Why must there be a balance? Why not have more, if we should want it? Why does the sun have to set every night? They say it was a woman who tipped the scales for the first time. Perhaps it was, or perhaps the story was simply lost somewhere along the way. What did she do, you ask? She wanted more than she was owed. She asked for love, the greatest of the human emotions, from a sky that could not love her back in kind. She asked for the seasons to stop, to stay in a warm summer forever. The fall still came to sweep her off her feet, and it left her alone in the cold embrace of winter. She asked for more time, but the clocks never stopped ticking. Sadness came, as it would have always come. Something to balance out the happy, something to take credit for the disappointment of being told no. The sadness left small cracks in her heart and in her mind, and it was through there that evil entered the world for the first time. She told stories to the generation that came after her, stories of betrayal, of sadness, eventually of anger and mistrust. Each generation then told them to the next, and somewhere along the years the tone became darker, and the tales more gruesome.
End.
While writing this, I discovered a few things. First off, I found out just how much time had passed since the last time I wrote a story. (Grade 10 English, ouch) I also discovered just how much of my thoughts and beliefs about the world came from books by Maggie Steifvater. Should you ever find a spare bit of time, Steifvater’s series The Raven Cycle, is based on the magic of ley lines and old myths. (If you follow the hyperlink, scroll almost to the bottom.) Thomas King has a very unique voice in his story telling. The way he structures his sentences is as he even describes “recreat[ing] an oral storytelling voice and craft the story in terms of a performance for a general audience.” I found his voice very engaging, the way he was telling his story made me want to keep reading. I tried going for a similar style with my writing (trying being the key word here).
Works Cited:
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.
Steifvater, Maggie. The Raven Cycle. Scholastic Press, 2012. Print.
