Storyteller

a cleansing purge that would make me feel lighter—less hemmed in. I am a small bottle of ink and I want to just, sort of, shove myself over so that my contents can gasp “glug, glug, glug” and spread across the page like a shiny, dark cloud getting bigger until there’s nothing left. Until that very last hesitant, little drop that was clinging to the rim of the neck of the bottle decides it needs to join the rest of that cumulous, inky cloud on the page and so it breaks free at last and is lost in the sea where it will eventually soak into the fibers of that page and the several beneath it and dry to a permanent stain.

And so, I ask myself, how do I want this humanity of mine to spill onto the page or pages? Do I want it to simply reflect me at this moment in the mirror as a piece of non-fiction or do I want to take the essence of this feeling and assign it a different age, a different perspective? Add some color and fluff up the pillows so it looks like a couch, within a room, within a scene, within a life that somebody might be tempted to sit down and stay within awhile. People always seem to envy the fly within a room and his privilege as nobody and nothing special—allowed to remain on the wall and to see it all. We read a story to see somebody else’s life—even if it is not actually a real life—and get lost in it for a little while. It is an affordable and highly portable escape.

Humans are all so very different, but beyond that are some very similar truths and some very relatable fears. Beyond the light and the shade is love and hate—faith and hopelessness. I don’t know what the magic sauce is, though. I can’t figure out why we are all so guarded and dishonest, but let’s try to put on another hat and a pair of old and tattered shoes and feel confident that we’re not all that different and so with the human element intact and in our most painfully honest voice—let’s create some fiction worth reading. It is possible that we can relate through a less direct medium. Storytelling.