When I was younger, I thought evil was a person. You see, there was a woman, let’s call her Butterfly, who lived in the forest right around the corner from where I grew up. My sister once told me, ‘She’s a horrible witch who can turn you to stone with one look. She is pure evil.’
Believe it or not, that was one of the more flattering descriptions of Butterfly. You see, I grew up in a tiny town, about 2 hours outside of Vancouver. It was a place where everyone knew everyone else’s business, because they went out looking for it. And, if they couldn’t find it, they would simply make it up, which brings us back to Butterfly.
She was rarely seen around. You could only ever tell she was still alive, because she would leave old pots and water bottles at the forest’s entrance. She must have been nearly 70. Yet, growing up, we were scared of her. Walking to school, we used to run and scream past the entrance to the forest. As we aged, we would dare each other to run into the forest, trying to see who was tough enough to get the closet to Butterfly: the freaky tree lady.
A friend of mine once told me she saw Butterfly catch a squirrel and eat it alive. Another friend said he was out walking with his parents one night, and saw Butterfly cause a car accident. But these were all just stories.
When I went back to my hometown last year, I ran into a friend I went to school with. After discussing her fiancée, and our parents, I asked her about Butterfly. I wanted to know if she was still around.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She passed away last year. She was buried beside her husband. Apparently, she had been married years back, but went nuts after his death. Who knew!’
After turning away from my friend, I started to cry. All the mean stories we had told over the years began circling in my mind. Butterfly must have felt so alone. She must have had her own story, but we all gave her a false history.
Those rumours I had felt so harmless repeating as a child, mattered to me all of a sudden. Because the thing is, ‘once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world. So you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories that you are told.’ (King, 10).
Work Cited
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi, 2003. Print.
I chose to take Leslie Silko’s story of evil, and really turn it into a new tale based on a woman who lived in my town growing up. I sent this story to my father, who still lives in our village, and he told me our ‘Butterfly’ now has a bench outside our town hall with her name on it. I found that quite touching.
While I wrote this story to have a similar morale to Leslie’s, I found that by the end I had a second morale as well: be nice to your neighbour. I think that second morale does fit into the first. We should be generous to those around us by listening to their stories, and by not sharing stories that are misleading or untruthful. As displayed in this week’s lesson, stories are very powerful, and we should use them wisely.
BryonyRoseHeathwood
September 26, 2016 — 11:53 am
Hi Tillie,
I really enjoyed your story, firstly because it was a real story that you have personally been a part of, though you regret spreading some of the stories around. But what else I like is the idea of contradiction that appears. You introduce Butterfly, a name primarily connected to the insect itself, but gentleness and beauty, but instead the name in this story is connected to a witch. A person of evil and darkness. This contradiction kind of works as a foreshadow for the entire story, because if we had just originally thought of the gentle, beauty of a butterfly when looking at this woman, then the stories of the evil witch may have never been created and thus learning to be careful spreading stories would not be something to look out for…. maybe. Overall I just really enjoyed the contradiction imagery here.
jamie
September 26, 2016 — 8:50 pm
Hi Tillie,
I’ve read through about a quarter of the blogs and I enjoyed your story the most. It reminded me of elementary school, when kids were willing to believe most things. As soon as a rumor spread, whether it was the truth, or not, it would effect the victim negatively. It was probably more prominent in high school and still relevant in the world around us now.
Making up stories are just like words that could be left unsaid. Some stories slice through your heart, others crush it, and even more cradle it in a sea of tears. Stories are indeed powerful, and we’ll have to be careful what we say. We never know who might be listening and how they might be interpreting it.
mikauber
September 26, 2016 — 10:50 pm
Hi Tillie,
I really enjoyed reading your story. I liked that you shared a personal and relatable experience. It made me think about how imaginative we are as kids, to the point that we are willing to believe anything. Evil witches, princesses, and magic all seem so logical. Anyways, I am glad to hear that Butterfly now has a bench.
Did you get a chance to tell your story to someone? If so, how was the experience for you?