A HEROIC STORY WILL BECOME A LIFE

A stunningly beautiful woman came up and spoke to me. I couldn’t even look at her because of how beautiful she was. I believe she asked me something about myself. “Tell me about yourself.”

That is a complete lie. It seems I am a compulsive liar when it comes to beautiful women. That just did not happen. There is no woman, beautiful or otherwise, to ask me about myself. She never said anything of the sort.

You mightn’t have understood her.

Tell me about yourself. “What do you want to know?”

You ask the beautiful woman what you want to know.

Can I see the world through your eyes? “Absolutely!” Follow you? “No, I’ll follow you.”

Behind a hidden door sit a group of men around a campfire in an ancient wilderness. They are dressed in animal skins and furs and there are spears nearby.

“You are one of them.” How can I be, I am with you? “You sing songs and tell stories of the long forgotten ancient times.” I do? “You all do. They are songs and stories passed down to you from generation to generation. The oldest amongst you learnt them as a boy and the youngest amongst you will pass them down to his grandchildren.”

“You were the first ones to tell stories and sing songs.” Writing came later I presume? “Yes, at first you only had to remember.” What do you remember?

“There are hungry wolves howling out on the plains.” Ravenous? “They too search for a home.” A Den? “A home for their young.” What do I do? “You welcome them into your home.” I am a generous man. “You are not a man.” Then what am I? “You are a hungry wolf.” I can see that I am. “And so am I.” This is a strange campsite. “Full of old songs and old stories.”

You prowl around in the wilderness as if it were your natural habitat. The evening has been uneventful in your household. The children have gone to bed early, as they do normally during a school week, and your wife is next to you in bed reading a book.

The next morning, the men are on a hunt. Hunger drives them on. The women collect roots and berries while the men form a pack with their domesticated wolfs and hunt deer. You are a leader among the pack but not the leader of the hunt. You are the storyteller. This hunt. This battle of life and death will become another story. There will be heroes and bravery and fear and loss and victory.

Every day is a battle. “In what way?” To be able to tell my story. Everywhere I turn someone or something is trying to stop me. “And do they?” How can they? I am the tribe’s storyteller. People can’t live without stories. It’s what I am meant to do. “Why do they try to stop you?”

They are not of my original tribe. “What do you mean?” My original tribe was conquered many centuries ago. We only have what is left in our stories. “You carry them within you?” We are not yet totally lost.

The hunt returns with provisions. One of the hunters is injured but he will recover. All are heroes to members of the tribe. The women welcome you openly and lovingly. This is the taste of freedom, and it is in your origin story.

How dearly you love your children. They will do so much more than you. They are a future you cannot possibly imagine. You have dinner and then the children go to do their homework. No more TV tonight. They will dream, as you do, when you are alone in bed.

“Do you belong here?” I do now. “Do you now see yourself as one of them?” I see them as one of us. “We are a tribe.”

“Once upon a time, when your tribe was hunted, the world belonged to only two tribes.”

Why were we hunted? Were we at war?

“Because truth requires conflict and resolution.”

Who won?

“It was won by the imagination.”

Was I one of the victorious heroes?

“You were the comedic fool who believed in idiotic fantasies. So yes, you were victorious.”

Today is like every other day and you are happy. Your loved ones mean more to you than ever before. There is a bright future assured for them.

“The future is not yet written down. You must write it for your tribe. They must hear the words from your mouth. And you must believe in those words.”

Once upon a time, by ancient lore, a boy became a man through trial by combat. His passage would mean that he will bear the scars of battle and a mark of victory. He journeyed to the end of the world to find the one-eyed monster. A giant who tortured and devoured men. “But he could not defeat you.”

“You battle the creature. You use enchantment and artifice to achieve victory. Two words not often in use by today’s youth.” Was it assured that I would win? “Failure would mean a different ending.” A less assured future? “Not yet for you.”

The endings to some of your stories are not written by you.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a journeyman, a storyteller, who believed wholeheartedly in the stories he told. They were never solely works of the imagination. “Once upon a time, long, long ago, you lived a story without an ending.”

The storyteller made himself a god in that story. Mighty, powerful and, most importantly, immortal. “Until one of your creations surpassed you in magnificence.”

He was very vain as well as self-obsessed in that story. “You could not bear to be parted from this most beautiful of creations. Even for a minute.”

He made her immortal too, and they were to share immortality together. “But forever is a long time for a creation and she wrote you out of her story.”

You can’t imagine a world without the people you care for and love. It is for them that you hope for happiness that lasts forever. They exist independently of you. They always have and must.

Tell me a story, Grandpa. “You want a story about what?” You know, when you were a little boy. “Haven’t I already told you plenty of stories about when I was a little boy?” Tell me the story you remember the most.

“One Saturday morning when you and I were walking home from the park we decided to take the time travel Taxicab home. Is that true, Grandpa!? It most certainly is. We were too hot and tired to walk all the way. So, I called the Taxi’s special number 1729 and within a minute it found us on the street and we hopped in. I sat in the driver’s seat, and you sat beside me in the front passenger’s seat. Off we went, and before we had reached home, there was a bright flash of light, and we were back to when I was a boy and at the same park we had just left.

You hadn’t changed at all, but I was a five-year-old boy again. That’s right, we were the same age for the first time ever. Also, the trees in the park were much smaller, and the play equipment was very different, but we were in the same park. And do you know what the best thing was?” What, Grandpa? “I was able to play just as I used to. Without any aches or pains.”

You would be able to run and jump like me. And swing on branches and climb up trees. “We did all that.” And play ‘hide and seek’ and hang from the monkey bars and draw pictures in the dirt. “We did all that.” That would be great, Grandpa. “Yes, it would be great.” You wouldn’t get tired. “No, never, I was always running around when I was a little boy.” Were you always ‘creating a nuisance of yourself’, like I do? “Yes, absolutely, that was me too!”

You used to make up stories when you were a child, and you would always make yourself the hero of those stories.

What ever happened to me? “You grew up.” Why can’t I still make up a story and be the hero? “You can, the world is much more complicated as an adult, but you can still be the hero of your own story.” I want to be the greatest hero that ever lived. “Your ambition has grown too, I see.” Why can’t I be? “You can, I’m not stopping you.”

Once upon a time there was a very ancient legend of a great warrior who tried to defeat death. “Are you to be this ‘great warrior’?” In the legend he learnt that death could not be defeated but that a life lived selflessly and by giving to others would make death powerless over him. “I know the story. It has come down to us from very ancient times.” I will be that great hero. My achievements will live on in others after I am gone. “So, your life will become a heroic story?” A heroic story will become my life.

You try to have a heroic story become your life. One in which death is not the end. This is for your children. Whoever they may be.

Who am I? “I am real.” Where do I belong? “By your side.” What am I doing here? “I have become alive.”

When did he begin his story? “Since time immemorial.”

How can he tell the difference between us? “He is the writer.”

Peter Stavropoulos is a Greek-Australian writer based in Sydney. His poetry and prose have appeared in Poetry Australia, Iota, and Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. His work has also been adapted for performance on stage and broadcast on radio. He lives with his wife and is the father of two daughters and grandfather of three grandchildren.