The Storyteller

by Bradford K. Hull

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I like to go to the park and watch the old man tell his stories for the children. The old man is one of those timeless people; he is old, I can tell, because he’s bald and the fringe of hair that remains to him is pure white, but I cannot tell how old at all. He could be 40, he could be a hundred years old, he could be older than civilization.Likewise, his origin is impossible to guess. His skin is wrinkled as befits an elder, but is of a color that would be at home on any continent – he has no clear characteristics by which I could say “he is from India” or “this man is Brazilian”, but instead has enough of each to cancel out any guess. He speaks with a sweet lilt to his voice that speaks of a distant land, but I cannot place it.

One thing is certain: his eyes twinkle with a merry life that makes young mothers trust him more than one would think possible in this nervous age. I don’t know when he started this story telling, but when I first took notice, groups of children would drag their mothers across the park like so many industrious tugboats coming into harbor for a holiday. More come now, but never so many that they can’t all hear his stories.

The old man sits on the corner of a planter with his hands on his knees and waits until the depth of the crowd of happy faces is exactly right, and then he smiles, leans forward conspiratorially and begins, in a quiet voice. The raucous children fall silent instantly, so they won’t miss a word, and their mothers blink at each other in envy of his ability to find silence in them.

His stories are simple, and like his face, they tell only their own story and not his. Simple characters, who are sometimes foxes or hawks but are always very human, play out scenes and dialogues that the children always find greatly humorous and delightful. The old man knows the art of drawing his audience into the story – they laugh at the times he laughs, in the same voice as his laughter. He sometimes sings simple songs in funny voices, and the children join in and sometimes dance or wave their hands in time to his careless music.

What makes me watch so closely is that, while he is telling the stories, he is watching every child and reading what will delight them. If he sees a little nose start to wrinkle, one of the characters in the story sneezes at the exact moment the child in the audience sneezes. The children are transported with delight at this magic, and dance again like leaves in an autumn breeze, weightless with happiness. Wiggling small boys become part of the plot of the story; a noisy ambulance, passing by, howls part of the story. Everything is woven in, so that nothing can break into the story without being captured by it.

When the story is complete, the way it ends is satisfying to the whole group. Tomorrow, they know, there will be another story, and knowing that is enough to carry them home. The old man stands and brushes leaves off his pants leg, then turns from his story telling spot to leave.

As he passes me, some days he says to me, “Did you like my story today?”. My answer is always this: “I like the way you tell it”. He smiles in answer, and passes by.

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