The Storyteller sat on his old rock and stared at the crescent first moon in the early evening sky. Darkness had fallen and, as it was the season when both suns set at the same time, dark red embers smouldered on both sides of the planet.
In the distance he could see the Bloons surfing the sand dunes. The odd drunken cry reached him on the wind and he guessed they’d been at the wine-streams all afternoon. Soon the second moon would rise and they’d come running to hear that night’s chapter. These days, he noticed that their usual exuberant joy was tainted with anxiety each time they saw him cough and gasp for breath. He resolved to make more of an effort to hide his illness.
He wondered, as he had done thousands of times before, if he would ever have begun the Story had he not stumbled across Bloonland on his travels. Until arriving on this planet of blue cheese, he had told countless Tales on countless worlds to all manner of audiences. There had been planets of psychics who drank in the narrative telepathically without a word needing to be said. Then there had been moody giants who had taken offence at his jokes and forced the Storyteller to flee for his life. On some worlds, his arrival had been celebrated as that of a prophet; on others, as an omen of ill luck and disaster. Elsewhere, the locals saw him as an old wandering vagabond with the odd amusing yarn to spin.
But, whatever the reception, the Storyteller always made an impression. After all, that was the role of the Storytellers: they told their Tales. The rest was up to the listeners.
We are as the insects spreading pollen, Aleph had told him as a youth. We Storytellers must collect and absorb all we hear, see and feel on our travels, and inseminate the galaxies with our experiences. Our words are like seeds planted in the hearts of our listeners, and it is they who must burst into flower. We are but the messengers.
The Storyteller paused as he thought of Aleph. Why did the memory of his visit still trouble him? Was it possible that his old friend and teacher was right? That it had been a mistake to stay in one place for so long and tell the same old Story?
You have lost control, Aleph had insisted, your Story has taken over your mind and awakened thoughts and passion that should have been left forever buried. It has become poisonous and addictive – as much for you as for the foolish blue creatures that you hold so close to your heart. Your Story is doomed and that will spell the end for you both: do you not see what your Story means to them?
Yes, he knew. The light in the Bloons’ eyes as they came running each evening was what kept the Storyteller going. He had arrived on this planet as a weary old traveller who had been too long on the road. He had found himself scattered around a dozen galaxies, drifting through space from world to world with a knapsack full of tales, no longer knowing his place in things. Upon discovering Bloonland, he knew in his heart that he had come to the end of the road. He had found a home.
The innocence and spontaneity of the Bloons was a tonic to his spirit. Their readiness to see and believe cured years of bitterness and fatigue accumulated on his travels. The Bloons loved the Story with all their hearts, and thus they loved the Storyteller too.
Or at least in part.
It had taken him a long time to admit that he had avoided telling whole chapters of the Story. For thousands of nights, he had pretended that there was nothing to worry about. Now he wondered whether he had skipped over the dark and painful parts in fear that it might frighten away the Bloons. Could they have handled seeing the truth? Was he right to keep all the pain and suffering hidden?
He didn’t know. No one from his race had ever dared to undertake such a Story. Among the Storytellers, it was a strict rule to tell a Tale for no longer than three days. The characters and plotlines were then shed like the skin of a snake, and they moved on.
But why? he had asked as a younger man. Why can’t we go on with our Tales a little longer to see what happens next?
It would spell disaster and ruin, he was firmly warned by his elders. We Storytellers are but vessels for the Universal Muse. Creativity flows through our veins and fills us up – but wait too long and we overflow. We would drown in the flood of our own minds.
He had not believed their words back then. Yet he had no choice but to submit to the wisdom of his teachers. Then he had come of age as a Storyteller and for a time he forgot his early curiosity. He joined the ranks of thousands of other Storytellers travelling though space like stardust.
The distances between the galaxies were great and it was a lonely life. The Storytellers were trained to endure solitude and silence, wandering through the blackness and darkness without losing the tiny flame of the spirit that burned within. They arrived on unknown worlds and were warmed for three days by the attention of their audiences. Then they took a deep bow and departed without ever looking back.
Now that the Storyteller was old, he didn’t have to listen to anyone. When Aleph had arrived he had tried every argument in the book. Throughout that long night, his old friend had encouraged, scorned and even threatened him. The council of Storytellers planned to expel him from their order, Aleph warned, and he would never be able to return.
The Storyteller heard these arguments passively. I have chosen my course, he replied. Please grant me the peace to follow it.
All right, Aleph snorted. If you care not for yourself or for the good name of the Storytellers – what of them? And he gestured at the distant rocks where the Bloons cowered in fear at this dramatic encounter. What will happen to them when your Story poisons itself, and you along with it?
Aleph then turned his back and floated off into space, his cloak flapping around him.
His old friend was right, the Storyteller knew. But all the arguments in the world couldn’t change the basic facts: it was too late. He could not stop telling the Story now, even if he wanted to. He had never imagined the Story would go this way, but there it was – there were things buried in his mind that had been awoken by the Story and it amazed him still.
Take the Hoomans, for instance. The Storyteller had never planned to write them into the Story. They had started off as rather charming apes with a fondness for bananas. Then began that business with the reversible thumbs…. And now look at them: they had taken over much of the Story for themselves and all but forgotten their hairy origins.
The antics of the Hoomans amused, astonished and sometimes horrified the Storyteller. In them he saw the hidden processes of his mind, and it was both the most wonderful and terrible revelation of his life. Why hadn’t he realised what kind of trouble they would make? The answer was painfully obvious. He had chosen not to see their true nature for fear of what it might reflect of his own troubled soul. Instead, he had stayed deaf, dumb and blind to the dark side of Hoomanity and, in doing so, he had locked a part of himself away. Numb to the pain, the Storyteller became half the man he used to be.
There were times that he found himself sitting on his rock with no idea of what he had been doing for the past few hours. He felt the dark side of his nature struggling to take control of his mind and it seemed to be getting stronger all the time. Even when he came to, he could still sometimes hear mocking whispers in the corners of his skull. Dark secrets echoed through his mind and he shuddered to think what happened to the Story on the occasions when he lost control.
The whole thing was overwhelming. Despite his years of training, the Storyteller was frequently on the brink of losing his sanity. It was only by telling the Story each night that he managed to keep a grip at all. When he saw the merry expressions of the Bloons as they gathered each night, he remembered why he carried on. It was for them that he continued to fight for breath, even though his lungs burnt each time he inhaled.
These days, the Bloons wanted to hear little else but the adventures of Bozo and his Hooman friend, Theo. They didn’t understand much of what went on, but they did sense that the entire future of the Story was at stake. Though the Storyteller tried to explain the meetings with the AOs in terms they could grasp, in reality he was also striving to understand. The Story was so close to him that it was only now, through the eyes of Theo, that he could perceive where it had gone wrong.
He looked up at the Kraggy Mountains and saw that the second moon would soon rise. Overhead, a star trembled and then fizzled out in a streak of light. Will that be how it is when I die? he asked himself. The moon then pushed over the lip of the mountains and the conch shell sounded in the distance. Bloons all over the slopes picked themselves up and ran full pelt over rocks and cheese dunes in their eagerness to arrive early.
The Storyteller watched with a poignant blend of love and regret. What would become of them if he died and the Story faded away? Would the Bloons lose hope and drift off into space, as Aleph had suggested? How did he have the right to give them something they could then no longer live without?
He didn’t know. The juices of the Muse were flowing through him and it was time to tell the Story. His eyes simmered red, then yellow, then green, and his rolling, sonorous voice poured out the first images of the Story.
As there are currents in the oceans and winds in the skies of the Story, so too there are invisible patterns of energy that have moved the Hoomans to great and terrible deeds over the ages.
One of these centres of energy they now call Israel, and the continents can be seen to spin slowly around this point like the flailing tails of a kite. Armies and empires have long conquered this dry patch of stones and sand without ever knowing why.
Even today the religions still fight to control the ancient city of Jerusalem, each adapting their history and beliefs to suit them. No wonder, then, that our brave adventurers, Bozo and Theo, should also make a call.
Having destroyed half a library, they find themselves in the front row of a circus, a place where Hoomans come to see themselves in ways they never thought possible….