The Storyteller (a community storytelling effort)

This is a story called "The Storyteller." We're all writing this story together.

In case you are wondering: Yes, you are included in "We're all."

See, I had this idea a while back, but I'm not quite certain how the execution will work. Perhaps it will work splendidly, and a bunch of new readers will travel here and start following the blog and we'll all have a big orgiastic internet storytelling adventure. Perhaps, on the other hand, this experiment will fail horribly. We'll see...

I am going to post the first three sentences of a story. In the comments section, you can write the next three sentences of the story. The next person can write the next three sentences. Et cetera.

You can write as many continuations of the story as you would like, with one stipulation: Three other people must post before you can post again.

There are no other rules. You can introduce new characters. You can develop the direction of the story. You can write in whatever style you write in. We're all writing this story together.

(Anytime you are about to post an addition to the story, I advise you to check and make certain no new additions have been made before posting, that way the story will stay continuous and congruent.)

This will continue until Friday at 4:PM EST. Then I'll shut down the comments section, and if there is no conclusion I'll take care of that.

If this sparks something for you (that is, if you decide to help us further the story, or if you just decide to check back frequently and read the story as it progresses), please help us spread the word. The more people who know about this, the quicker the story will grow and the grander it will become. Use your blog, your twitter, your facebook, your boss's email account. Whatever. Here is the short link to this post: http://bit.ly/9JkKyH

Share!

Let's write this story together.

Let's have a bit of fun.

Three sentences. Wait three people. Give us three more.

Begin.


The Storyteller


The storyteller squatted and picked up dirt from the ground and kept walking and let the dirt trickle down through his fingers, and the wind caught the dirt.

The young boy walked alongside the storyteller.

"Be cautious of where you march your feet," the storyteller said, and the young boy quit walking.

64 comments:

  1. "But why?" the boy asked.

    The storyteller pointed at the dirt, still swirling about him.

    "It lives," he said.
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  2. The boy took a step back, eyes widening.

    "Don't go back either", the storyteller said. "Just stand still and listen and I'll tell a tale to take us away..."
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  3. ". . . In ages past and days drifted by. A teller sinned, he told the story wrong. The sages cried and cast him from the tale."
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  4. "Cast him from the tale?" the young boy said.

    "Please," the storyteller said, "please, do not interrupt, please only listen and let me tell this story."

    The young boy was quiet, and the storyteller spoke, and the world melted around them.
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  5. The ground shifted and groaned.

    The boy clung to the storyteller's leg.

    "Watch your feet," the storyteller whispered.
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  6. But it was too late. Amid the dry, red dirt, a crack opened, widened, and down the boy fell.
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  7. LaurenelizabethApr 20, 2010 06:57 PM
    He was now on this adventure on his own. The teller had hoped to impart more wisdom before the boy left to experience the world below. Afterall, the world below is where the tale takes place.
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  8. The Teller cursed by sages many years before watched as the boy spiraled to his world. 'Tis a world of dread and fear spin from a heart of darkness.

    The cursed Teller knew this boy was central to the tale, he would obliterate him, and the tale would be as if it were never told.
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  9. The young boy opened his eyes and his feet landed and the world around him was bright and loud and lively. A marketplace.

    "Watch where you're going, kid!"
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  10. The boy turned towards the melodious voice. Two bushy eyebrows glared back at him but the eyes twinkled with mischief.
    The creature threw back it's shaggy head and roared with laughter that would shake the pillars of heaven.
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  11. "And where did you come from" asked the creature? "You do not look like you are from here." The boy wasn't from there, did not even know where he was, but was drawn to the mysterious stranger.
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  12. The boy attempted to answer, but his words were garbled. He furrowed his brow in frustration and pointed. Up.
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  13. The stranger with bushy eyebrows, tilted his head to the side, and a snaggletooth smile stretched across his face. "Ah, my boy, it's a dangerous land you've come to. Wouldn't want to wander here by your lonesome."
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  14. a knot tied in the boys throat. he felt a pointed nail stroke the underside of his chin as he tried to gulp down the visible signs of his fear. his childish hands began to sweat and slime as he realised this strange creature was no friend.
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  15. The boy reached for an apple on the nearby cart and was slapped instantly by the vendor.

    "Pay first child. With your life. There are no children in the marketplace. You see?" The old man growled and spat.
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  16. "Run, child." A young man swooped in from nowhere and slashed the monster's throat.

    The boys legs carried him double time through the throngs of buyers until he landed heavy against the chest of a man in rich robes, a gold crest on his cheek.
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  17. But looking more closely the boy could see the crest was a swastika atop a five pointed star.

    "I am sorry sir, sorry, really"

    "No matter to you" bellowed the man as he turned, gliding into the crowd.
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  18. The boy looked around. Nothing was familiar. He closed his eyes, hoping that he would open them and find himself back with the storyteller.
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  19. "What was that just now?" he asked the story teller who snorted to his question.

    "It's not the what that's important, boy. It's the where" said the story teller.

    The story teller wave his hand and the whole world shattered, revealing another world behind it.
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  20. This new world bustled with energy like waved irritated and tossed by a raging storm. Something odd tickled the boy's imagination. He looked at the Storyteller who smiled.
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  21. "Now you begin to understand what I haven't yet begun to tell you," he said. "The way of the world is not true, yet there is truth in its lies."
    "I have traveled a great distance, from here back to here," the boy agreed.
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  22. "Ah," the storyteller leaned in toward the boy and looked into his wide eyes, "but is here here or is here there?"

    "You speak in riddles," laughed the boy."But I like this game. Where are we going next?"
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  23. The storyteller touched the boy on the shoulder. His eyes grew big like a cat's. "You ask where we are going, but this is your story; you are learning what you must learn to someday become an immortal storyteller, and so we are going to whatever world your mind takes us to next."
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  24. The boy abruptly awoke, gasping, panicked. Fearful still, he focused on the model airplane suspended above his head, slightly askew. "I made that! he whispered.
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  25. From the darkness, the storytellers voice echoed in the room.

    "This is where you take us, boy? What makes you think you're safe here?"
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  26. Of course he is not safe in that room with the security blanket, the teddy bear, and the soft-voiced assurances of his doting parents.

    But in a moment of terrifying clarity, he knows that he is not safe with the storyteller, either.

    A storyteller who's been cast from the tale has nothing left to lose.
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  27. Heat filled the room.

    Then screams of terror seized him, as the earth shifted.

    He was falling again.
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  28. INTERJECTION:

    [Dear Reader, thank you so much for participating - what a lovely little project this is becoming! Please help spread the link so we can keep filtering in new voices. And look for some thoughts on this project, which I plan to post tomorrow morning. Keep up the awesome work!]

    CONTINUE...
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  29. As the boy descended he heard a noise. A familiar sound that became louder and louder. It was children playing children laughing.
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  30. And not just any children, it was his brother, his two sisters and how could that be, it was him!
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  31. The boy hesisted to go near them as he heard their laughs. However, he did not recall this scene in his memory. One of his sisters were born dead.
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  32. The three were gathered around a small object that lay on the ground; the boy could not make it out. As he approached the group, he realized they were still oblivious to his presence.
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  33. As they were to his. Close enough to smell them, he leaned over the object and felt sick. "It can't be!" he gasped.
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  34. The body of his cat, Frederich, lay in the dirt near their feet. The children were laughing and poking the poor animal with a stick. The boy began to scream.
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  35. The storyteller said, "You can't bring that animal with you, boy. Bad enough you brought all these children! Do I look like a babysitter to you?" Come, I have more to tell you!"
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  36. Tears welled in the boy's eyes. He barely heard the storyteller or felt him tugging at his shirt collar. The boy stared at Frederich, then at the children, and the other "him." How he wished he could make the world change again.
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  37. "Is that what you wish boy?" asked the storyteller, "to make the world change again?".

    "I didn't say anything" stammered the boy.

    "Oh, but you did, you see?" said the storyteller.
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  38. The boy shook his head, feeling confused and helpless. "Stop it," he said, closing his eyes, "I want to go back to the beginning!"

    The boy opened his eyes, wiggling the sand that was not the same sand (why did he know this?) between his toes.
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  39. It's all a product of your imagination. From your mind the world around you is created; think it and it is; dream it and it will be; the sand is not the same sand because you thought it so."

    Looking at the Teller, with confusion fogging his mind, the boy replied, "Do you read minds?"
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  40. Joan Richmond GreyApr 22, 2010 01:30 AM
    "No I can read your eys boy, you want to go back and change things back to where they were ,before the cat died"...
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  41. "Friedrich was not just any cat" he wailed, he was my friend. The storyteller knelt down beside the child and whispered "meow meow". The boy threw his arms around the storyteller's shoulders and began stroking his hair.
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  42. INTERJECTION:

    [Dear Storyteller(s), this is my second and final interjection. I wanted to let all of you know that I have posted some thoughts regarding this awesome little project of ours, and I have opened the comments section to your thoughts as well. Stop by and share and discuss. And keep up the stellar storytelling!]

    CONTINUE...
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  43. A dimly remembered lullaby hissed under the breath that blew through the gap in the storyteller's front teeth.
    The boy felt his eyes go sleepy and his mind relax when it struck him.
    'You have a gap just like mine!'
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  44. "We are the storytellers, boy. You and I. Yesterday, today, and forevermore."
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  45. "The future may bring our story full circle or spiral it out into the unknown," he added.
    "How will we know which way it is to go?"
    The storyteller chuckled, a deep timbre of mirth tainted by retrospection.
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  46. "Whichever way we go is the right way, boy.

    You see, there are stories to be told everywhere, and stories to be gathered from everywhere.

    In our power lies just that; to tell stories where they need to be told, to change the stories that are not as they should be"
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  47. "There's that stinkin' storyteller again," Rueben said, looking up from stirring his potion. "And this time he's got a kid with him."

    "Who but a boy would listen to him and his endless drivel," Myrna said. "I'm surprised the idjit didn't die from chronic logorrhea years ago." She thought a moment, then grinned. "But if that didn't kill him, maybe we should. What say you?"
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  48. Myrna frowned at Reuben's silence.

    "Hey, are you listening?"

    Reuben pulls his head back, his face drenched with blue colored liquid, "Huh, what?" he said.
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  49. Suddenly, he heard a new sound. He turned.

    "What was that?" he thought.
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  50. Something was stirring in the depths of the potion. Something was bubbling and coming alive.

    No, Reuben thought, No, it can't be...
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  51. Backing away in a rush Reuben toppled over his own legs.

    Myrna stepped near him and shrieking he told her to get away, get the hell away.

    Myrna hesitated, it was too late.
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  52. Fire erupted from the potion container. Myrna screamed as she was consumed by the flames. The story teller seemed unconcerned as he watched the flames rise and slowly disappear.
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  53. "Did you hear something?" the boy asked, looking at the story teller.

    "No" said the story teller, grinning victorious.

    The boy looked towards the horizon, watching the glorious orange glow of the sun disappears behind the veil of purple and black.
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  54. Just as Myrna was consumed by the fire, so too was Rueben consumed by his grief--and a creeping desire for revenge.

    Myrna was a miserable, nasty hag, true. But she was his hag...
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  55. Justice would be violent, but slow rather than swift. Rueben swept the ashes of his hag into a pile. Slowly, with purpose, he began to sing.
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  56. In the world where the storyteller and the young boy walked (What world? Who knew? The young boy certainly had no clue anymore), rain began to fall.

    The young boy held out his hand to catch a droplet.

    The droplet of rain was red.
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  57. The Storyteller cursed.

    The boy was gone.

    Cackles of laughter echoed with every splatter of rain.
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  58. His mind, too, went red.

    Fear shook him like a violent wind and as his eyes swept up he saw a shape coming slowly into to focus - a shape like a man with short, wicked horns at the sides of his skull.

    "You know me, Child, they have told you what happens to little boys who tell tales - LIARS."
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  59. Images flashed in his mind of the boy who was bound by barbed wire, gagged, and unconscious.

    Streams of dried blood clung to the boys face like old wounded tears.

    He loses sight of the boy as the horned man thumps him in the chest.
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  60. The impact on his chest caused him to awaken. Startled, he looked around, then sighed in relief. The little boy lay sleeping next to him, his cat curled up in his arms.
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  61. Frederich was warm against his flesh, purring quietly and steadily.

    The boy closed his eyes for a moment, remembering Frederich as he had last seen him; the macabre scene was still vivid and living in his mind. It was in that moment that he was suddenly brought back.
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  62. He was again on the road with the storyteller. The dirt from the man's hand was still swirling in the wind.

    "I'll be careful where I march my feet," the boy said quietly.

    THE END
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  63. Dear Storyteller(s),

    Awesome.

    It's been fun, yeah?

    I enlisted WOTV to conclude the story, since she had been the first one to post. Tough to close out such a long (sometimes disjointed) story in only three sentences, but an admirable job on the conclusion! And an admirable job all around.

    For continuing thoughts, comments, and discussion regarding the story, you can go here.

    And keep your eyes open for the time when we do this again.

    The end.
    ~J

    P.S. It turns out that I have no clue how one would go about closing comments for only one post, so...consider comments closed here. Consider the story finished.
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  64. This was amazing.
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