The Storyteller

 

 

The Storyteller

Once there was a storyteller.

He lived in a house on a hill, and wrote stories of flat prairies he wished to one day visit.

He loved the sky when it was cloudless.

He walked backwards to get somewhere.

He ate 5 meals a day in half portions.

He carried a pen and paper with him always.

Once there was a girl.

She lived in a house on a rock, and danced to old records to pass her days and be

merry.

She loved pineapple juice through a bendy straw.

She skipped to get where she stood.

She ate in spastic frenzies when she chose.

She had a picture of her dog in a hat with her always.

One day a path was altered, and a road brought these two planets crashing into each other .

Both apologized for they were in their own orbit, oblivious to the commandeering road-snatchers and comets of a busy street.

Too often encounters are brief, and stagnant, and theirs was no exception,

except both the storyteller and the girl wanted to be in constant motion, so they asked to walk together.

They talked.

They talked about the weather, about politics, about everything they hated to talk about.

Then they formalized themselves, and decided to voyage out some night and sail the uncharted skies of what they oh so secretly wished to talk about.

From one star to the next they jumped. 

From one day to the next they slept, then awoke, then tunneled underground to their secret vaults, 

where both had stored the other.

Hands never seemed so needed, as they now had one to hold.

Lips never seemed so vital,

and planets never seemed so willing to orbit.

 

She told him she was scared of spiders, and he of snakes.

They relocated to a street that was curved and windy like some prairie dream.

But dreams are clouded by new opportunities; new jobs.

The girl decided to sling her trajectory in a way that would break their pull.

She wanted to be a clown who cried on a stage,

and the storyteller wanted to write stories of never-ending publication.

Three weeks is close to 5 months in dog years.

Black and white is never better than color she used to tell him.

He showed her that her palm lines said she was a natural klutz,

but he had hoped she wouldn't have been with his planet.

You can't always get what you want he told her before she left to go goose-chasing.

Goodbye is his least favorite word.

Hers is,... she never told him.

He now drank cranberry juice threw a bendy straw.

He skipped meals and walking.

He now carried a picture of a distant galaxy, 

and a girl.

She now stared up into the sky.

She would jump backwards, but mostly fall.

She now carried two pictures, but one was not

funny anymore.

Then, as most solar winds do, they blew two lone stars back into their trail.

Two desperadoes who hate fences.

Two freaks in clothes and shoes and hair.

 Then with out any science,

without any hesitation,

they knew what to do with their fingers, 

and they intertwined two planets for what they hoped would be until the universe folds in on it's head,

and even then they might both object.

Once upon a time there was a storyteller who wrote out his story,

but it was not really his, 

but rather theirs,

for a certain girl seemed to lean over his shoulder and tell him where his grammar was off, and

what words to fill in the spaces he had left blank.

I guess it's fair to say this story would be cosmically impossible to tell if two planets had not

met and settled the universe beforehand.

oh, and they lived happily forever, after, and beyond.

 

by Storyteller

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