The Storyteller.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:46 pm
The Storyteller.
‘Once Upon a Time,’ he began, batting the flies away from his face. The sun was slowly slipping beneath the treetops, as the little group of dishevelled figures crouched furtively around the storyteller.
And what stories he could tell! He could, they said, paint a future with the colours of Rubens, a future of fullness, of meaning. He could splice words together that could hold even the attention of the most wandering and fearful minds. He would summon from syllables worlds far from here, far from these disinterested blocks of redbrick.
He could even take, they whispered, his listeners home. Together, swooping and soaring beyond the slow glow of the western sky, they could visit the shattered cities and rebuild, brick by brick, the buildings where once their young selves had run and chattered, back then when this place was still a place for breaking horses. His stories were never long; he never left a story unfinished, for he knew his audience was always changing, never the same.
But, oh, how even in this place his listeners, for a little time, could all rise above their ever-gnawing hunger as their ears fed greedily upon his yet rich and fulsome voice. He fed, they said, upon words alone.
Yes, they nodded silently to each other, eyes intent: by his words he worked to make us free.
‘Once Upon a Time,’ he began, batting the flies away from his face. The sun was slowly slipping beneath the treetops, as the little group of dishevelled figures crouched furtively around the storyteller.
And what stories he could tell! He could, they said, paint a future with the colours of Rubens, a future of fullness, of meaning. He could splice words together that could hold even the attention of the most wandering and fearful minds. He would summon from syllables worlds far from here, far from these disinterested blocks of redbrick.
He could even take, they whispered, his listeners home. Together, swooping and soaring beyond the slow glow of the western sky, they could visit the shattered cities and rebuild, brick by brick, the buildings where once their young selves had run and chattered, back then when this place was still a place for breaking horses. His stories were never long; he never left a story unfinished, for he knew his audience was always changing, never the same.
But, oh, how even in this place his listeners, for a little time, could all rise above their ever-gnawing hunger as their ears fed greedily upon his yet rich and fulsome voice. He fed, they said, upon words alone.
Yes, they nodded silently to each other, eyes intent: by his words he worked to make us free.