I said, “Mom, Can I go outside and play with my friends?”
“May I go outside and play with my friends,” she replied.
“You can do whatever you want with your friends. I just want to know can I go out and play with my friends?”
“You have the ability to go out with your friends, but it should be, May I go out with my friends?”
“Why do you keep bringing your friends into the conversation? I know that I have the ability to go out with my friends. I’m not stupid, but you have to let me go first. So I repeat, “Can I go out with my friends?”
“That’s not the correct way to ask,” she said.
“Sorry,” was my reply. “Can I go out with my friends, please?”
My mother looked like she was getting a bit flustered. “Thank you for being more polite, but you are still saying it incorrectly. It should be May I?, not Can I?
“May I what?” I asked, quite confused.
“May I go out and play with my friends, please?” was her reply.
“Why are we talking about your friends again? It’s fine with me, you can go out and play with your friends or anyone else you want to play with, as long as I can go out and play with mine.” I thought for a moment and thought I figured it out. “Wait a minute I think I got it. It’s fine with me, you can go out and play with your friends or anyone else you want to play with, as long as I may go out and play with mine.”
My mother just threw up her hands and said, “I give up. This time you were okay the first time, it is acceptable to say as long as I can go out with mine. Yes, you may go out with your friends.”
———
So I went down to the park to play with my friends. I still had no idea what had just happened. But at least I got to go out. Of course, you can guess which street game we decided to play…Giant Steps better known in my neighborhood in the Bronx as “Mother, May I?”
I did not do well in that game. Every time I was told to take a step, whether it was a tiny step, an umbrella step, a scissor step, or any other kind of step I either forgot to ask if I was allowed to, or when I did remember, I said “Can I?” which for some reason was not considered correct, and I got sent back to the starting line.
I can’t wait until I get back to school ware I hope their going to teach me what I’m doing wrong. I think it has something to do with language.
Betty was not feeling well. After calling her automated doctor, she was referred to a specialist in advanced neurobiotic illnesses at the local hospital. Schedules being as they were, and her symptoms pushed her to the front of the line when she reached the hospital.
After a brief intake interview and a number of tests, she met with the Chief of Neurobiotics. He told her that her condition was serious. The synapses in her neurons had misfired and were failing. Immediate action was necessary.
There were several options she could choose from. One was to have surgery done, which would correct the positioning of the neurons in her brain so that they would fire correctly. This was an invasive operation, and the survival rate was just over 50%. However, if she survived, her prognosis for a long life was excellent.
A second option was to try and limit her pain by using medication that allowed her to function normally. This had a greater survival rate. However, there was no guarantee that she would be pain-free, nor would it solve the cause of the problem. If it worked, hopefully, her life would be more bearable. This was a more costly option, as she would need to take the medicine for the rest of her life.
The last option was that she could take part in a new experimental neuron/synapse replacement procedure. If successful, this would alleviate all her pain and give her the best chance at survival. The success rate so far had been very good. This procedure could be done relatively non-invasively, leading to a normal life. It’s amazing what modern technology is capable of. So far, the only known side effect of this treatment was that her memories would be impacted since the replacement neurons would be taken from her memory cortex. She would lose the memories she had and would have to start relearning all that she knew.
The choice was hers to make.
Betty sat there in stunned silence. The obvious choice seemed to be the experimental treatment. However, she had led a full life. She had so many memories of times and events past. Her family, growing up, the places she had visited, the people she had known, her adventures, and all the stories she had to share. What would life be without them? Sure, she could relearn how to do things but all those events and people. They would be just stories other people told her. Would she still be the same person?
What was she going to decide? What would you decide in her position?
As much as I would like to write about one of the prompts this week, I have decided to share some things that have happened to me since last Wednesday (April 19).
The first part will be a summary of the events. The second will be about some observations and thoughts that happened along the way.
Part 1 – What happened?
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, I felt some pain in my chest. After calling my cardiologist to see if they could push up my June appointment to a sooner date, it was recommended that I take a trip to the Emergency Room at the hospital, where more tests could be done than in their office, which Christina and I did.
The follow-up to that trip was 4 days in the hospital, many tests, a coronary catheterization, which turned into a coronary angioplasty in which two stents were put into the right side of my heart, and time spent in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.
I’m home now, feeling a bit tired and somewhat bored since I’m not allowed to do anything for at least a week and have the fun outlook of having to go back to the hospital within a month to have more stents put in the left side of my heart. I’m glad I made the choice to call my cardiologist when I did.
Part 2 – Are we having fun yet?
When you go to the emergency room desk and say that you are there because you have chest pains, and your cardiologist suggested coming in, you tend to get bumped up to the front of the line. We got there between 4 and 5 pm. I was taken in, given an intake interview, and had blood drawn, a chest x-ray, an EKG, and an echocardiogram. I was taken upstairs, where more blood was taken (3 times, each separated by an hour), a CT scan (with and without contrast), and probably more tests, but I can’t remember them. The total time spent testing was about 6 hours. It was decided that I would be their guest for the night, with the distinct possibility of more tests and an angiogram the next day. Christina went home, and I was sent to what could be referred to as a holding cell until the hospital could find a room for me. While there, the attendant, in the act of putting another IV port into the back of my hand (because he couldn’t find any veins in my arm to stick me with), managed to blow a vein in my hand. If you’ve never had that happen, it means he punctured a vein in two places, so the blood leaks out. It heals quickly; however, the blood swells at the site, which could take over a week or two to absorb and return to normal color. My left hand looked like I lost a prize fight with a brick wall, a nice shade of purple and still spreading. Every other nurse and attendant in my stay there said I had beautiful veins, so easy to find.
Since it had been 11 hours since I last ate, I asked if some food was available. Even though the hospital cafeteria was closed, the attendant got me some food. By midnight I was wheeled to my room on the 16th floor of the hospital.
My roommate was separated from me by a curtain. In this room, each bed had a TV on the wall. The TV speaker was the remote you kept by your side. It turned out that my roommate was a big fan of the Movie Classics station, which he had on whenever he was in the room, whether he was sleeping or not. Then there was all the beeping of monitors all over the place, loud conversations of people in the hallway, and loud emergency announcements over the hallway that they always repeated three times. Sleep was not an option.
The next morning I was taken to get another echocardiogram around 9 a.m. I wasn’t allowed to eat because my next port of call would be the operating room. I was supposedly number 6 in line. For some reason, the hospital feels it necessary to prioritize ER patients coming in with real heart attacks. I did not get wheeled into the operating room until 4 p.m.
Did you ever go to a class where you knew you were getting the best teacher available, and instead, you got a student teacher? The doctor slated for my procedure was the chief of cardiology at a different hospital branch. He is only at the hospital I was in one day a week. I felt confident having him do the surgery until I heard he was also a teaching physician. He was listed as the attending physician on the list of people that were part of my surgery. Also listed on the credits were two “Cardiac Fellows.” It turns out that the attending physician did the angiogram, while one of the Fellows did the putting in of the stents under supervision. What was supposed to be a simple procedure became more complicated when there was coronary artery perforation. Once resolved “under supervision” by the attending physician, I was invited to stay in the CICU (Coronary Intensive Care Unit), where I would be monitored for the rest of my stay. I finally got to eat some food some 19 hours after my last midnight meal. Though at that point, I wasn’t very hungry.
With a blood oxygen detector on my right hand and a blood pressure cuff on my left arm (which automatically took new readings every 1 to 2 hours), connected by wires to a monitor, I was ready to recover.
Did you ever try to get some sleep with wires on both sides of your body, such that no matter which way you turned, you would tie yourself up? I figured out that I could disengage the blood pressure cuff, so in the middle of the first night, when I wanted to go to the toilet (which was in the room), I attempted to. It would have been nice if they had told me I could not leave my bed. The moment I stepped off the bed, lights flashed, and alarms rang out. At least 2 nurses or aides rushed to my room to tell me I wasn’t allowed to do that. For my entire stay there, I was not allowed to pee in the toilet at all; I had to pee into a plastic urinal bottle. It seems they had to keep track of fluids that left my body.
I always had a nurse call button beside my bed if needed. The main nurses’ station was just outside my room. No matter how many times I pushed the call button or tried to call out for assistance (my room had an open door), it took a while for someone to come to me. It was a good thing that I was in ICU.
The best example of critical awareness of patients was on the morning of the day I left. I was given permission that if I wanted to get up, disconnect the BP and O2 detectors, and walk the halls, I could do so. That’s exactly what I did. As soon as I disconnected and left the room, I heard a steady beeping coming from my room. I assumed it was because I was disconnected. On my way back to my room, as I passed the monitoring station in the hall, I asked the attendant behind the desk if the flashing light and beeping on the computer at the other end of her desk was me. She first said no, then sliding over and viewing the computer, she said, “Yes, it’s you. You left your room.”
As I said, it was good that I was in ICU, and they were right on top of things.
There are probably a number of other things I could share with you about my experiences in our efficient hospital system, like the 40-page packet of all my results, information about the new medicines I was to take, and recommendations of things I should do both dietary and exercise, I was given as I left, which no one went through with Christina or me. But I’ll have to save those stories for another time.
For now, I’m glad to be home. I’m not looking forward to Eluting Stent Placement – Part 2. But I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
This is my 8th year doing the A to Z Challenge. Each year I try to do something different. For the first four years, I picked a theme and wrote individual stand-alone pieces connected to the theme. Three years ago, I added one piece to the challenge that took place over several letters.
In 2020, I did a story entitled “A Birthday Present,” which took place over the letters (F, H, K, M, Q, R, and S). Here’s the link to that story if anyone is interested: http://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=2021
In 2021, I wrote the story “What’s in the Bag?” which took place over the letters (B, D, G, J, and M). Here’s that story if anyone is interested: https://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=2518
2022’s theme for the month was epistolary entries (all my entries were in the form of letters from someone to someone else). The story I created was “Tale of Two Kingdoms,” which took place over the letters (K, Q, S, U, and X). Here’s the link to that story: https://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=3103
In January of this year, in one of my writing groups, I was given 20 minutes to write a story using the words: door, eye, mystic, and realms. Following the sharing of that piece of writing, a number of the participants in that group suggested that that piece sounded like an introduction to a series of stories. I liked that idea. Following my A to Z interest in writing a continuous story over a period of days and my interest as a storyteller in my writing, I chose my theme for the 2023 A to Z Challenge. I would take that initial piece I wrote for that group and make it the introduction to a 26-part adventure. The only change I made from that original writing was to replace the word “realms” with “kingdoms” since I felt it worked better.
In the past, preparing for the A to Z Challenge meant that I had to start writing before April 1st. As I finished a piece, I would schedule it to be posted on the appropriate day. Usually, towards the end of April, I was only a few days ahead of actually writing the pieces I was posting. Knowing that I was writing a complete story this year, I wanted to make sure that the whole thing was written before April 1st. I didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of April, not knowing how this story would end. In that respect, I was very successful. I finished writing the story on March 26th.
The story, called “Save Me a Story,” involves my foretold quest to find stories (including folktales, fairy tales, and fictional tales) that had been stolen and characters from those tales that had been kidnapped to the world of Selat, where they belonged. I would run into characters from all those stories along the way to help me. My friend Ronald, who has appeared in other blog entries, was part of it too. I decided not to make my story linear from A-Z and followed five interspersed strands until the end. The strands were Harvey (that’s me and the characters that worked with me), Ronald (and the characters that didn’t exactly work with him, but more or less associated with him, Necroma (who was the sorceress, with the evil plan to get rid of all the stories), Information (which included information on certain settings within the story and specific questions and riddles that were posed by/to multiple characters), and Team Story (which involved the final team that I gathered/inherited and led to the conclusion of it all)
In the past, I had used friends, relatives, and elementary students I worked with to help brainstorm ideas. This year, I did most of the brainstorming myself. As I was writing, I enlisted the aid of ChatGPT to help come up with ideas and suggestions. For example, I asked it questions like Give me a list of folk characters that are good at solving riddles; Make a list of folktale antagonists that start with a particular letter (like H or O); Describe Cinderella’s stepmother in one sentence. I never took the entire answer it gave me in any of my writing but used its suggestions to pick out words that worked with what I was writing or did research on some of the characters it named that I wasn’t as familiar with, so I could use them in my story.
I wondered how writing one story would affect my viewership this year. I wasn’t sure how many people would want to read an entire story over 26 days instead of jumping in periodically just to read one or two individual pieces, which happened in previous years. I also stopped using Twitter a while ago, so one venue for advertising my posts was no longer available. I replaced it by sharing the links to my posts with my writing and storytelling groups. I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. I think I got more readers.
Having finished and scheduled all the writing before April 1st gave me more opportunities to read other participants’ blogs during the month of April, which was also enjoyable.
For those interested in reading this year’s story, here is a chart listing all the threads. I suggest you read the Save Me a Story intro and follow the links to the next part at the end of each piece. I tried to summarize the plot and what was going on at the beginning of each piece of writing, so if you are inclined to read my story by threads, you can do that too. For that, you need to follow the links on this plot graph.
This was a fun experience this year. It was harder than any other year though it was a lot more satisfying. Whether I do another like this in future A to Z Challenges is still to be determined. I guess you will have to wait until next year to find out. You’re always welcome to continue following my blog throughout the year. I usually post at least once a week. Trust me; you’ll never know what you are going to get.
This is the continuing story of my adventures in the tale: Save me a Story. If you wish to read the introduction to understand what is happening, click this link:
Otherwise, I’ve tried to summarize what happened at the beginning of most of the sections of this story.
Zeitgeist
Necroma was gone. Where to is still unknown, but what is known is that her powers are gone, at least for now.
Getting the characters back to their own homes was easy. Reviving all their memories was not. It was a slow process. It required a lot of storytelling on my part. First of all, I didn’t know all of their stories. It helped that some of the characters from those stories hadn’t been under Necroma’s spell and could help me. Once those characters were back in familiar settings and they started hearing parts of their own stories, their memories returned. There just were a lot of stories to tell.
The caretaker was kind enough to allow me to go between our worlds to do more research into the stories I didn’t know. And because of my services, I could ask as many questions as I needed without paying for them.
And then, there was the problem of differences in perception as to how the revived stories should play out. This created a lot of debate. This time, both groups held the meetings together rather than apart. In some instances, the ones that Ronald had found enjoyed the notoriety of being the villains and chose to let their stories remain pretty much intact. Others didn’t like the idea of being killed off or having a bad reputation and decided to have their stories start the same way but to have their characters grow and change in perception based on learning a lesson that occurred by the end of the tale. Since no one in Selat ceased to exist as long as their stories were told, it didn’t matter to its inhabitants how they were viewed outside their own world. However, within Selat, there was a greater acceptance of each other.
As for Ronald…dropping all the villainous characters on me to deal with and leaving me alone to solve the problem was, well, Ronald as usual. His involvement in uniting the characters, defeating Necroma, and recovering the stories wasn’t part of his plan. He liked coming up with ideas but never followed through on them. I am usually the one stuck with picking up the pieces. When the caretaker allowed Ronald to return to our world, he also wiped him of any memory of Selat and his adventure. When I returned, Ronald was just Ronald again, probably coming up with some new ideas for trouble we, or should I say, I, would get into.
Eventually, time continued on at its regular pace. The stories that had been rewritten became part of the norm where we lived. More people were reading and sharing them. They loved the action, the detail, and the lessons that were taught through them. Some tellers and writers even wrote their own updated versions of them. I was the lucky one, for I could remember them all.
———-
Zeitgeist is defined as the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history, as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time. Stories capture the zeitgeist of our lives.
So long as the stories are remembered and shared, Selat will continue to exist, as will we.
———–
“If you don’t know where you’re going, it will take longer to get there, but oh, the stories you will have to tell.” –
Thanks for listening to my story – Harvey Heilbrun
This is the continuing story of my adventures in the tale: Save me a Story. If you wish to read the introduction to understand what is happening, click this link:
Otherwise, I’ve tried to summarize what happened at the beginning of most of the sections of this story.
Yielding Power
Lorn – an island in the kingdom of Selat, now filled with story characters without memory of who they were or the stories they belonged to, held under a spell by the evil sorceress Necroma. Without help, they are destined to all disappear with their stories.
Necroma – the most powerful wizard that ever was, with the temporary help of some lower power-hungry wizards and magicians ready to take on the last of those that stood against her wishes, which were to be the focus and master of all written and told tales.
As for me, I’m a storyteller from New York, hoping, with about a hundred or so good and bad characters from stories that have not been co-opted by Necroma yet, tasked to stop her and save Selat.
At least, that was what a mystic foretold I would do.
Necroma knowing that we were coming, was prepared. She stood strong, centered in the middle of the island of Lorn in an open field. She had gathered her minions to stand with her for support and added power. Dawn was breaking as she gathered up all her strength. She would wipe her enemies’ minds as she had done before to those that now inhabited Lorn.
We knew that eye-to-eye contact and Necroma’s spoken word would overwhelm us. We had a plan.
Once we crossed the waters surrounding Lorn, we walked toward where she was located in groups of three. This strengthened our individuality. We either held hands, were carried upon a shoulder, or flew in a tight formation.
To prevent her from looking into our eyes, all but one in each triad closed their eyes. If the one leading us with eyes open felt someone encroaching on their mind, they would close their eyes and signal another in the group to open theirs and take over. As we got closer to where she was located, the groups of three joined together to become groups of six, then twelve… In case everyone in the group had to close their eyes, each group also could be led by other animals traveling with us, ones that were blind. There were bats, moles, and even three blind mice.
To prevent anyone from listening to the words Necroma might be chanting, we had a chant of our own. Everyone loudly sang the chorus of my song “Tell Me a Story” as they marched.
Tell me a story of dragons and kings
Of heroes and villains and magical rings
Myths and Legends and Folktales galore
Tell me, oh just tell me more.
**(note – see the link at the end of this section
for a video of me performing my song
Tell Me a Story.)
We kept our thoughts on our captive friends, hoping they would help shield us from Necroma’s spells. But none were seen.
We were to keep moving from the four crossings into Lorn until we all joined hands and encircled Necroma.
———-
Unbeknownst to Necroma and us, all of the inhabitants of Lorn had had a strange dream just before sunrise. It was more of a request. In their dreams, they all heard a voice recite the following:
The time has come to join the quest
You now must wake and join the rest
Go hand in hand and circle round
The one who stands on center ground.
Protect the ones behind – defend
For with their help, your spell will end.
They awoke as a whole and left as one. Hand joining hand, marching toward where Necroma stood.
The timing was perfect. As the ensorcelled of Lorn connected their circle around Necroma’s position, we connected our circle around them.
———–
Necroma, though surprised at this turn of events, was not deterred. After all, she was the most powerful sorceress, and destiny was on her side.
She called on her magic and tried to send it to our line of storybook characters. But her spells fell short. Every time she tried to get a spell through the inner circle to us, it was deflected. She could not get past one of her own spells without breaking that spell of the inner circle, which would have added more numbers to her opposition. So she called for more power.
But she was not attacking individuals. We were all connected through hands, wings, feet, and whatever contact we could make. The group of us became one individual. Sweat poured down her face as she called for even more power. She called out, “I AM THE MOST POWERFUL SORCERESS THAT EVER WAS. I WILL RULE ALL. NO ONE WILL STAND AGAINST ME. IT IS MY STORY THAT WILL BE TOLD OF THIS BATTLE AND NO ONE ELSE’S!”
And that was her fatal mistake. She was getting weaker and weaker, and saying that she was the only one whose story would be told, was finally heard by Grenwin and all those that were supporting Necroma and her quest for power.
Grenwin called out, “That’s not what we were promised. Since that is what you want, you will no longer have our powers added to yours. If the story is to be yours alone, then you shall be alone.”
Grenwin stilled the power he had added to Necroma’s as he said that. And one by one, so did all the other sorcerers, sorceresses, magicians, witches, and wizards who supported her.
Necroma stood alone, expending all of the power she had left. Well, almost all of the power. She realized that she had lost. But she would not be defeated and captured. She used the rest of her power to transport herself away from Lorn.
With her powers gone, the spells she had cast on the inhabitants of Lorn slowly faded away. And Selat, the land of story, was preserved.
This is the continuing story of my adventures in the tale: Save me a Story. If you wish to read the introduction to understand what is happening, click this link:
Otherwise, I’ve tried to summarize what happened at the beginning of most of the sections of this story.
X – Marks the Spot
The piper and I returned to the rest of our so-called team. We explained to them what the Wizards had told us. The sorceress that we were fighting against now had a name. She was called Necroma. She was the most powerful user of magic that there ever was. It was up to us to stop her. We needed to devise a plan before we reached the island of Lorn.
I have to admit that some were skeptical. What could a small turtle or a hen do to stop a power like that? How were all of us to get across the water that surrounded the island at the same time so that Necroma didn’t just pick us off one by one?
The one overriding thought that kept us together was that it wouldn’t make a difference to our existence – unless she was defeated. We would all cease to exist. I wasn’t sure if I was included in that because I wasn’t part of any known story. But the impact on my world would change, and it wouldn’t be for the better. At this point, I had to trust in the foretelling.
After lengthy discussions, we agreed on a plan that actually sounded plausible.
First, I taught everyone the first song I had ever written. It was one that I use to introduce my storytelling programs. I explained to them how it would be used when we entered Lorn. We split into four groups as we reached the edge of the waters surrounding Lorn. Each group would cross over to a different side of Lorn. For now, most of us would stay hidden until we crossed at dawn; however, during the night, certain individuals worked on constructing bridges allowing us to travel simultaneously to Lorn the following day.
One bridge was constructed by alligators and crocodiles, led by the infamous tickingcrocodile from Peter Pan. They lined up front to back across the water so that one group could walk across on their backs. They were aided by many turtles’ backs also.
With the help of beavers and elephants (O Best Beloved), the oni and the ogre constructed another bridge. The oni, the ogre, and the elephants (with their long useful trunks) continued to rip up as many trees and branches as possible, throwing them into the water, where the beaver and his family built a huge structure that could be traversed.
The third bridge was made using the powers of the Snow Queen and the White Witch. They used their cold winter powers to freeze the water, making a passage that could be carefully crossed.
The last group needed no bridge, for they could travel through or over the water. They included the Selke people, the Sea-Witch, the birds, and bats. There was no reason for this group to work overnight.
As morning approached, the crossings were ready. We all formed groups of three as the sun began to rise.
“X marks the spot I called aloud. We meet again in the center of the island. Necroma…We’re coming!”
———–
There was no need to call out our presence. Necroma was well aware of what was happening. She was quite pleased with it. This made it much easier for her. She didn’t have to search for the rest of the ones she wanted to get rid of. They were all coming to her, and she was ready.
This is the continuing story of my adventures in the tale: Save me a Story. If you wish to read the introduction to understand what is happening, click this link:
Otherwise, I’ve tried to summarize what happened at the beginning of most of the sections of this story.
Wizards’ Wisdom
Sitting together in an open field were two of Selat’s greatest wizards, Gandalf and Merlin. They were having a discussion.
“We are almost spent,” said Gandalf.
Merlin remarked, “I have tried everything I know to stop Necroma.”
“We are no match on our own to defeat her,” Gandalf replied.
A third wizard appeared and joined the discussion. Both Gandalf and Merlin turned to greet him.
“Hail, good Dumbledore, what news do you have to share?” asked Merlin.
Dumbledore stroked his long white beard and sat beside the other two. “None that is good. The number of captured individuals on Lorn has grown. There are not many left for Necroma to collect. I do not have the power anymore to help. I am too weak.”
“As are we,” added Gandalf. “We must find another way.”
At that point, they heard a large group’s approach. Looking up, they recognized most of the characters heading their way but not the person leading this group.
All three wizards, at the same time, cast a protection spell around themselves as the piper and I went on ahead to talk with the three wizards. I recognized all three of them from afar.
When I almost reached them, I could see they were concerned about who I was. A clue was that Dumbledore had cast a “Petrificus Totalus” spell on me, and I could not move further. The pied piper walked up to them and, since he was recognized, and explained to them my identity. At that point, Dumbledore released me, and I could continue forward to talk with them.
I went through my whole story again. The trip to Selat, the meeting with the Caretaker, meeting up with all the characters from Selat, both good and bad, the clues left by the Caretaker we had followed, and now the search for Lorn.
All three of the wizards were very impressed. They explained to me that the evil person we were looking for was the sorceress Necroma and that, at this point, she was the most powerful user of magic there ever was. They explained to me how she controlled everyone, what she did with everyone who had been captured, and what they guessed was her intent once all the stories and characters were eliminated. They were also impressed that we had gotten as far as we had.
“So how do I defeat her and return things to the status quo?” I asked. “If the three of you have failed, what hope do I have?”
The three wizards were quiet for a while. They told me to wait where I was and took a few steps away from me. They spoke in hushed tones to each other, so I couldn’t hear a word they said.
When they returned, each gave me a piece of advice.
Gandalf stared, “Necroma regains her strength after she casts a spell. But as she is casting her spells, her strength weakens. There must be a limit to how much magic she can use, so she casts her spells on individuals and small groups. She may not regain her magic if she goes beyond her limits.”
Dumbledore said, “We were no match for her because there were too few of us. As a group, if you were all connected, she would have to use more power to control you. This will weaken her more.”
Merlin ended with, “Necroma cannot repeat a spell on someone she has already bewitched. If a person possessed by her stands in her way, between her and you, she has to work even harder to get through to you.”
Gandalf added, “At this point, we are too depleted of strength and magic to help you. You and that army you have behind you must complete the task that was foretold on your own.”
I thought about what they had shared with me. Even though some ideas began to emerge, it would be better to explain to everyone what was said and ask for their input. If we were going to succeed together, we needed to all be part of the planning.
I thanked the three wizards for their words of wisdom and promised that I would do everything in my power to have this quest succeed. They all wished me well and said that they would be watching.
The pied piper and I walked back to the awaiting group. On our walk, I explained my idea to the piper. He agreed. The time had come to listen to others.
This is the continuing story of my adventures in the tale: Save me a Story. If you wish to read the introduction to understand what is happening, click this link:
Otherwise, I’ve tried to summarize what happened at the beginning of most of the sections of this story.
Visions and Small Victories
Stories and characters from the Kingdom of Selat had disappeared. They had been abducted by the evil sorceress Necroma to the isolated island of Lorn. The characters had their memories wiped. They did not know who they were or their lives before they found themselves on Lorn.
I was tasked by a mystic in my world to find all these characters and to return them and their stories to where they belonged in Selat. I was informed that the impact of my mission could affect my own world and that failure to succeed would have disastrous consequences on all worlds.
So here I stand outside a forest in Northern Selat, surrounded by friends and foes in the world of Story. These characters had not been abducted yet—their stories were now incomplete. They all, at my suggestion, agreed to work together to solve the mystery of the disappearing characters and put aside their differences, at least temporarily, until a solution was found.
Since I made the challenge to all groups and they seemed to accept it, I was the one that had to organize everything.
Did you ever try to resolve a problem between two forces that were radically opposite each other in every way? Well, up until now, neither had I.
My first thought was to put them in heterogeneous teams so that I could assign different tasks to each group. Each task would be like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. In the end, when all groups finished their tasks, we could put together the puzzle and have a plan. Well, that wasn’t going to work. There were just too many conflicts that could occur within each group to have any group actually accomplish anything.
I decided to let the opposing sides keep their own teams, and I would be the liaison between them. I kept the pied piper with me at all times. His power was known, and he had a good reputation with both sides, and surprisingly, so did I.
I met with each group and asked them if they had any information about what we were up against.
In the group I started out with, the caretaker of Selat had originally given me information (that’s who my friend Ronald said belonged to the voice that started me on this journey in Selat. Ronald then, not surprisingly, abandoned us) that I would find these stories and characters in the north. With Red Riding Hood’s granny, Jack, and Puss in Boots, who I had met along the way at the beginning of my quest, we found a letter at one of the meeting places. Fox left it. It talked about a witch casting a spell, with her words, that erased memories and also referred to an island in the north.
In the meeting with the group Ronald had been part of, they spoke of an inscription on a stone they passed while they were in the woods. That inscription stated that looking into someone’s eyes might cause you to lose all thought. It also mentioned an unnamed island where everyone had been sent to.
The most confusing part of both messages was that they ended with the same word, “forlorn,” which made no sense in the context of each message.
I felt good that we had made some headway in that both messages confirmed some of the same information. What we were looking for was in the north, where everyone was. They were on an island. And the person responsible was very powerful. You would lose your memory when she looked at you and/or spoke some words. I considered that a small victory to know that ahead of time.
It wasn’t until the next day, after a night’s sleep, that we discovered a new clue about one of the things in our messages that we couldn’t answer. It appeared to us all in a dream.
Everyone that night seemed to have a vision, more of an auditory one rather than a visual one. We all heard a voice saying, “Oops, my mistake. It should have been two words, not one.”
I didn’t have to identify who had that vision because everyone was discussing it simultaneously. But how did that fit in? I shared both messages that we had found with each group, so they all had the same information I had. Was there a connection?
I finally realized where I had heard that voice in the dream before. I had heard it when I first entered Selat. It was the voice of the Caretaker of Selat. And if it was the caretaker that constructed the clues in both messages, it would seem to reason that there was the same mistake in both of them. I called on everyone to look through the messages for similar words and find ones that might be made up of two words.
None of them made much sense “is land,” “be ware,” and “for lorn.”
An old Greek storyteller named Aesop came up to me with the answer. Though he spoke in a foreign tongue (ancient Greek?), I could understand every word he said.
“The answer is “for Lorn” with a capital L.” Lorn is an island in the north of Selat, once inhabited by many, but now deserted due to its poor living conditions and harsh climate. No one speaks of it anymore. It was abandoned well before my time, but I had knowledge of it.
“Can you lead us there?” I asked.
Aesop answered, “I believe I can.”
So with Aesop in the lead, followed by the piper and me, and then the rest of our story-seeking force, we slowly moved further to the north.
This is the continuing story of my adventures in the tale: Save me a Story. If you wish to read the introduction to understand what is happening, click this link:
Otherwise, I’ve tried to summarize what happened at the beginning of most of the sections of this story.
Unity?
As the pied piper continued playing, more and more characters that had avoided being captured came out from the woods until the ground was covered in front of me with sleeping people, animals, and other story characters. All were mixed together so that no story faction was in only one area. The decision I had to make was what to do next.
I asked the piper if, in his playing, he could bring all the sleepers back to semi-consciousness so that they could hear me but not fully wake up.
He nodded yes, and the tune he played must have changed, for I began to see stirrings amongst the seated.
I began by telling my story. I told how in my world, their stories flourished. Tales were shared by our elders orally. Stories were shared through books, schools, parks, theaters, and homes. I spoke of how writers and storytellers transformed stories and adapted some of them for the times we live in. In some of these stories, points of view were changed so that a character with a bad reputation got to defend themself. I told them how characters were not limited to who they were; they could grow and change positively and sometimes even negatively. I explained that I was such a teller of tales.
I continued to recount to them how I was taken from my world to help them save and recover their identities and stories. I pointed out that though it might have been foretold that I was to do this, I couldn’t do it alone.
I ended with the fact that we needed to find the source of this thievery and return to all the kingdoms of all worlds what was our destiny. We needed to work together.
I asked the piper to stop playing, and we both waited as the crowd of story characters began to wake fully.
I had no idea what to expect. Would they wake up and continue the battle they had been starting before the piper played? Had they heard what I said, and would they be willing to work together? Could they put their egos aside and focus on the whole picture, not just their puzzle piece? For if they didn’t, I had nowhere else to go.
At first, there was just stunned silence as everyone looked around at each other warily. Some of the characters, like the little red hen, happened to be sitting next to an especially hungry wolf in sheep’s clothing, whereas the wolf from Red Riding Hood found himself sitting next to the tooth fairy.
Captain Hook, never the quiet one, stood up and shouted, “And which of our stories do you plan to save…only the good ones? We saw you chumming up with Pan.”
Red’s Granny responded rather loudly, “And why not? Why should we care what happens to you and your stories?”
Cinderella’s stepmother had an answer for that and screamed, “Because we’re always the ones that get the burnt end of the stick. We deserve some recognition too!”
I could see that things were about to get out of hand, and I turned to the piper and told him to put the flute to his lips but not play anything.
Everybody saw that action, and there was an immediate silence.
I now raised my voice. “Do I need to make you all go back to sleep again with a magic flute? My task is to save ALL of the stories. How you deal with them after they are saved is up to you. We have friends and comrades that need our help. Our whole existence depends on their survival. So make your decision now. Will you all work together with me to accomplish this task? Time is being wasted here. We need to act now!”
There was some murmuring amongst them all. I turned toward the piper and shouted. “Can you play a tune that only those sitting can hear?” Whether he could or could not, he nodded yes.
I turned to the crowd and said, “All those willing to work with me and save our destiny, stand up. The rest of you stay seated.” I turned back toward the piper.
Before he could play a note, I heard a great rustling from the crowd. I turned back to see everyone standing.
Whether or not they were all being honest or just standing to avoid being put under a spell was yet to be determined. To my astonishment, all good and bad characters agreed to do the same thing for the first time in folklore history.
