The Adventures of Storymon

The Adventures of Storymon

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. — Muriel Rukeyser

In the islands there is a legend- a tale of a person with a unique ability.

The locals called him Storymon. Everything his gaze falls upon reveals its story to him. Each day he sees hundreds of stories, yet he can’t remember any of them.

Legend goes of a quiet moonless night when a scream of pain knifed from Storymon’s tent. They say he saw a story so violent and intense his mind built walls between his perceptions and his memories. He can see, he can tell, but he cannot retell.

Now he lives alone in a tent on the beach. He is in his eighties and isn’t in any hurry anywhere. Twenty years ago though he was feared in his village because he could see everyone’s secrets, but over time people learned he did not judge them by the small bumps and eddies in the river of their lives; how could he when he saw where those river were going and how they would eventually run dry?

So there sits Storymon- quiet and open. He smiles, but not all the time. He weeps, but never for long. Everynow and then he claps his big hands and calls for the village kids.

“Every object has a story”, he would say to the children  gathered around him on the beach to watch the sunset. “Each grain of sand, every coral and seaweed here has traveled a great distance and endured a life of struggle and joy. Just like you.”

Gesturing over his shoulder at the village behind him, “That surf board or fishing net has a story too. Each thing was created out of other things. They will live and grow through their days and eventual death back into other things. Each with its own story.”

Pika, a little girl who sat at the edge of the group asked, “I see things  all around me just like you but I don’t see any stories. What does a story look like?”

Storymon’s eyes found the horizon as his face glowed gold in the sun’s waning rays. “It is like a song. I can say it is happy or sad or fast or slow but you still will not know the song until you hear it.” He then smiled and fell silent as the waves thumped and hissed on the sand.

Pika sat and listened. She felt the sun’s warmth on her legs, she felt the slam of the waves travel through the sand and the wet kiss of the sea spray. After a pause she asked quietly, “When you look at my face what is my Song then?”

Storymon had been asked this question hundreds of times. “Have you ever stood between two mirrors facing each other? They reflect back and forth bending away to forever. It is similar to this. I see your sweet face, but under it I see your other faces like oil on water. And you are beautiful.”

He continued,“Do you see this rock I sit upon? It was born in the entrails of a volcano that is rooted in the center of the earth. I see it cool in the steaming water and then break off and tumble through the waves until it lands here; where I sit. After I get up and walk away it will continue to be crushed and spun into smaller and smaller pieces of sand. So it has always been….”

Storymon lowered his grey head and smelled the air he was breathing.  By now the sun had finished burrowing below the horizon and the sky released a burst of colors like a cheering audience.

Moments passed. The palms sighed in the wind. A bat flew low over the sand.

Storymon opened his green eyes and floated his gaze slowly over the children. “Look, every object you see is like a flame. You see it dance- you feel its heat and smell its smoke but when you reach out to poke it with a stick there is nothing there to touch. For flame is not a thing but a process. We are like that too.”