The Last Storyteller-A Collection of Back Porch Ramblings & Surges of Sensibility

“Why aren’t you telling a story?” The young boy inquires.

Pouting his lips, the Storyteller produces a meager trill. The chilly night air captures his breath, rendering a gray, limp cloud. “I have no more stories to tell.” He answers the inquisitive lad.

The boy remains quiet, closely studying the old man. Cocking his head to one side, his eyes explore the man’s face searching for a hint of teasing. Grown-ups like to tease, especially when it is little kids being nudged. But he sees no evidence of trickery. Taking a step closer, the lad gazes into the man’s eyes. The bright blue irises of the Storyteller’s youth have long ago faded into colorless orbs. The boy carefully surveys the lines that cross the Storytellers face; deep lines beginning at the corners of the colorless eyes and spreading out in every direction. His mother calls them “laugh lines”. He thought the old man must laugh a lot. Silvery-gray stubble conceals the furrows that drop below his high cheek bones. No, no signs of teasing. What he did see, but could not understand at such a youthful age, was the worn look of despair.

“But you are the Storyteller” he finally discerns.

“Look around,” the old man chuckles, “the park is quite empty. The benches are bare. The few people out tonight don’t even know I’m here…except for you of course.”

Obeying the Storyteller’s command, the boy looks around the park. It was true, only a few brave folks stroll through Jessup Park. Dusk has quietly arrived; with it, dropping temperatures. The lampposts have all been lit, casting their yellow light in the shape of halos. A light snow is falling, dusting the empty green benches with a fresh, pure whiteness.

“But you must tell a story,” he says, returning his gaze to the old man, repeating his earlier declaration, “you are the Storyteller.”

This persistent boy you see before you, has been coming to this same park every Saturday night for four of his nine years, anticipating the tales of the Storyteller, is named Oliver James Goode. His family and his friends call him Olly.

The floor of the gazebo where this unexpected meeting is taking place creaks under the copious weight of the old man. He too has a name, but it has been long forgotten by most who only know him as the Storyteller. This elderly fellow was christened Jacob A Jessup when he arrived screaming and sucking in his first breath more than ninety years ago. The “A” stands for nothing, unless you believed his father who claimed the “A” dubbed Jacob the first child. Alas, no siblings were ever born to prove this theory. Jacob A Jessup, just like the small boy sharing his stage, is an only child.

Jessup Park, our setting on this frosty winter night, was named after the Storyteller’s grandfather, Claudius Alexander Jessup, a founding father of this small New England town. Our Storyteller, Jacob Jessup has never been further than five miles outside Newshire. This is only astonishing when you considered the amazing stories he has told. Many of them include settings from around the world, from the Far East to the Old West; a world he has never seen.

The Storyteller folds his hands as if to pray and smiles at the boy. “Why don’t you tell me a story?”

The boy, looking up at the old man, “I can’t do that. I don’t know any stories. Only the ones you have told, and those are yours.” He sits down on the bench next to the Storyteller. “I couldn’t do that.”

“A story requires only two things to come alive. Do you know what those are?” The older one asks the younger one.

Olly shakes his head, “No.”

“For a story to come to life, the first thing it must have is someone to tell the story.”

“That’s you!” Olly exclaims with youthful triumph.

The Storyteller smiles at the boy’s enthusiasm, “Yes that’s me. But not only me.”

“You are the only storyteller I have ever known.” He informs the old man.

The Storyteller rubs his worn hands over his stubbly face. It creates a sound like coarse sandpaper on a plank of wood. The mostly empty park offers no competition to the sound. Olly found it quite fascinating, rubbing his small hand over the smoothness of his own face.

“Oliver, don’t limit the world to what you have only seen,” he warns, “I have known many storytellers in my lifetime. They come and they go just like winter’s snow. There will be more, I suspect…or I should say I hope.”

Olly considers the words for just a moment as he looks at the snow falling from the darkening sky. By morning the ground will be covered with a new winter blanket. The Storyteller re-lights his pipe, tiny orange embers dance over the bowl.

Exhaling a mask of smoke too large to be legit, “A story,” leaning into his aging voice, “requires but two things. One to tell….” He magically waves the smoke cloud away.

“And one to listen!” Olly answers too loudly. Off in the distance a dog yelps, begging his master to open the door that separates the wintry night from the warmth of a cozy home. The pleading hound’s voice compliments the bleak night.

“And tonight, I will listen. It is your turn to tell.” Olly Goode sits silently looking up at the Storyteller, unsure of what to say. The old man continues, “Do you believe anyone can be a storyteller?”

“I don’t know. I guess so.” Olly answers.

“Well they can if they so desire. But most would rather hear a delightful story.” He looks around the park again, “Well at least they once did.”

Olly recognizes the sadness in his last statement. At nine-years-old, a boy doesn’t know what to do with sadness, particularly sadness that belongs to someone else. He struggles to find words that would cast away the Storyteller’s sadness. He fights off an instinct to reach out and touch the old man’s face, a gesture he had witnessed his mother do when he had been sad. It didn’t seem like the appropriate thing to do. He thought that he might say to the Storyteller, “The night is just too cold, they will be back to hear your stories.” But Olly knew that could be a lie. Every Saturday for more than four years Olly Goode had come to this same gazebo to hear the Storyteller tell his tales. (Except last year when Christmas came on a Saturday.) Even at this youthful age, Olly had taken note of the diminishing audience over the past several months. An idea arrives, “You can tell a story you have told before,” He offers, smiling, “I will listen!”

The old man smiles again, “Of this I have no doubt. You have been here many times, and I appreciate that. But tonight, I am tired. Too tired. I would rather just listen. You tell a story, Mr. Oliver Goode.”

Olly shakes his head again, “I don’t know how.” Wondering how the Storyteller knows his name.

“Oh, I think you probably do. You just need some help to get the train rolling.”

“The train?” Olly asks.

Chuckling, the Storyteller continues, “A metaphor. A majestic tool for a storyteller. The train is the story,” moving his hand up then down, “and rolling is the telling of said story.” He taps his pipe on the edge of the bench before sneaking it back into a hidden pocket. “Oliver, do you know what fiction is?”

The boy sits up straight, excited he knows the correct answer, “It is story that’s not real.”

The Storyteller chuckles, “Well, I believe all stories are real.” Reaching up pinching his weathered cheek between finger and thumb, “As real as the storyteller.”

“I mean,” Oliver recants “the stories are make-believe.”

The old Storyteller sits quietly peering past the young boy. He scrunches his face, closing first one eye and then repeating the facial jitterbug with the second, as if attempting to focus his vision. “Perhaps in their once upon a time beginning.” He finally remarks.

It was the boy’s turn to ponder, churning the small muscles of his face in a comical imitation of the old man. After a comparable amount of moments have passed he asks, “Do you mean like in a fairy tale?”

“Yes.” He answers, “Like in a fairy tale.”

“But those aren’t real!” Olly pokes. “Rumpelstiltskin and the Big Bad Wolf were only make-believe.”

“It would dampen their spirits to hear such sad news. Nevertheless, I do believe that there is story just waiting to be told…not by me, but by you, my young friend.”

Oliver shakes his head slowly about to offer another negative reply, but the Storyteller holds up a hand indicating he had more to say.

The old man stood, emitting a distinctive harrumph as his antediluvian knees pop loudly. He walks slowly across the painted floor stopping only after arriving at the hand railing which runs the boundary of the gazebo. Turning his shoulders half to the left, he places his right hand upon the rail while motioning with the other for the boy to join him. With admirable obedience Olly crosses the floor arriving at the rail albeit more quickly than the Storyteller has just accomplished.

Appearing quite winded the old man points at the sky but utters not a word. Olly looks in the direction the Storyteller offered, heeding a raspy vibration that accompanies each breath the elder took. The late-evening walkers have wandered away, the park was now desolated, framing a lonely portrait of and an old man and young boy gazing towards the night sky.

At length, the Storyteller finally speaks, “There is a story or two, (perhaps many more) inside each of us. To awaken these stories, to breathe life into them, to have them rise above the confines of one’s mind, requires little more than imagination, a commodity rich in abundance yet seldom appropriated” He pauses, allowing the boy a moment to comprehend, “Do you see the star Oliver?”

The night sky is crowded with mammoth snow clouds. From directly above their heads and as far east as the eye could see the gray billows stretch across God’s canvas. Olly trains his young eyes upwards. He sees a few snowflakes falling slowly, brilliantly white against the dark gray sky, but he saw no stars.

“I can’t see it.” He confesses.

“Often, it helps if you just close your eyes.”

“Close my eyes? Then I won’t see anything.” Oliver protests.

“Close them and see. Once you find what you are looking for open your eyes and search the sky again.”

Oliver closes his eyes tightly, squeezing out the night, the sky, the gazebo. Even the old Storyteller. Lids closed, dark colors of gray and black swirl. Tiny muscles move his eyes to the right and then to the left causing the darkness to swirl and then divide. The tiniest of sparkles appear along the line created by the division. And then another, and another. A smile blooms on his small face. “I think it I see it!”

“Now open your eyes.” The Storyteller whispered.

The boy looks out past the trees of Jessup Park and into the twilight. His smile melts away, replaced by a frown so sad the strongest of men would shed a tear.

“I still can’t see it.” A sad song from a saddened child.

The old man coughs and then speaks tenderly, “It’s there. Look again, not up but out.” He points a curled and wrinkled finger straight out as if touching the frigid air directly before him. Olly again follows the proffered direction. In the fashion of a soldier’s salute, he raises his little hand just above his eyes shielding a light that isn’t there. Suddenly Oliver Goode shouts, “I see it! I see it!”

Directly east and slightly north of the old gazebo, a small opening in the dense cloud blanket, no larger than an October pumpkin, has crossed into his vision. In the center of this fortuitous opening a small star sparkles playfully.

“Exceptional Oliver! Truly a monumental accomplishment on such a dreary eve.” The Storyteller removes the previously stowed away pipe clasping it between his teeth before setting a light to it. Oliver smiles up at the old man, taming a most uncontrollable desire to jump about.

“Now Olly,” he exhales another great cloud of smoke, “you have a character for your story. But you must provide this heavenly character with a name. What would you call her?”

“Her?” Oliver asks.

“Or him. Your choice.”

The erstwhile smile fades from the boy’s face, “I don’t know.”

“No hurry.” The Storyteller offers reassuringly. “Now, look across the street, at the shops, and tell me what you see.”

“People walking.”

“What kind of people, Oliver? Are the small like you, or big like me?”

“Both.” He answers.

“And what else can you see?” The old man prods.

“The stores, a few cars.” He looks to left and right, then again to the left, “And a lamppost.” He finishes.

“A lamppost! Oh, what a wonderful word. And I must say a very good feature for a story.”

“It is?” he asks. “Do I need to give him a name too?”

“Him?”

“Or her.” The boy smiles.

“In due time, Olly. In due time.” Placing his hand lightly on the boy’s shoulder, “We should sit down now.” His breathing is heavy and labored.

On the bench, the old man rubs his right knee through the thick breeches. Olly watches silently, hoping the Storyteller is okay.

At last he spoke, “Now Oliver, let us take inventory of what you possess. You have a setting for your story, in fact you have two—the sky and the street. You have also two characters, yet to be named, a twinkling star and a lamppost.” He smiles, “Very good constituents for story, I say!”

“What story?” The boy asks.

“Indeed!” The Storyteller replies.

“I don’t understand. How can a story have only a few things? That’s not a story at all.” Looking down at his shoes, “It’s just things.” Hopelessness shades his innocent face. Oliver looks up at the old man, waiting.

Taking a long draw on his pipe, the Storyteller exhales the largest smoke cloud yet. The white smoke floats magically in the thin air as if tethered in place; not moving away as raffish smoke clouds are apt to do. With a crooked finger, as straight as he can manage, the Storyteller swipes a curl through the cloud causing a tiny opening to appear. This eerie replica of the night sky with the pumpkin opening lasts for just a moment before finally being carried away by an imperceptible breeze. “Everything has a story. You, Oliver Goode” he pauses with dramatic flair, “are the Storyteller.”

Minutes pass, the two sit silently. The world outside the gazebo, outside Jessup Park, carries on unaware of this odd pair. A car horn sounds far off in the night, the jingling of a bell rings out a tune of invitation, laughter of a young couple, madly in love, moves through the night before fading into memory. Snow has begun falling at a steady pace, concealing any remaining signatures of autumn. Oliver, equally unaware of the world outside considers his words, “You are the Storyteller” as he watches thousands of snowflakes fall from the sky. The clouds have swallowed the pumpkin hole along with the star inside.

“Of course, Oliver, it goes without saying, yet I will because of its immense importance, every story must have a lure.”

“A lure?”

“A beginning. A way to prick the ears of the listener. Words that when spoken can only lead to more words.” He pauses, “Do you understand?”

“I think so. A story needs a good beginning.” He says roundly. The young boy scratches his ear before adding, “And a good ending too.”

“True, true.” The Storyteller coughs a terrible cough before continuing, “But the ending is not required to form the beginning. Indeed, the best endings are not known until they arrive unexpectedly. Why, I have begun many a story with no knowledge of where it would end.”

Oliver sits quietly, uncertain if a reply is required.

“Next week,” the old man breaks the silence, “come to the park Oliver, and tell your story of the star and the lamppost. Think about it during the week—but not too hard. You will see the story, more precisely—your story— take on a life of its own. A story that will cry out to be told. For you see dear boy, until a story is told…it is not a story at all.” Whispering the last, he slowly stands “But now it is time to depart. My grandson has arrived to take this old raconteur home, and I believe your father is waiting in a nice warm car by the curb.”

Oliver had not noticed the man enter the gazebo, now standing beside the Storyteller. Nor had he observed the family car parked just as the old man had said.

“Are you ready to go Grandpa?” The man said taking the arm of the Storyteller.

“I am never ready to leave this gazebo, but you know that.” He chuckles, “Daniel, this is Oliver Goode. He is a storyteller.”

“Well, it is my pleasure to meet you Oliver Goode.”

“Thank you.” Oliver responds. He reaches out, touching the Storyteller’s hand, “I will see you next week.”

“And I will hear you next week.” He laughs “With a story to tell?”

“With a story to tell.” Oliver repeats as he runs to his father’s car.

Oliver’s father startled as his son bounded into the car. “How was tonight’s story?” he inquires as Oliver buckled his seatbelt. As it turned out, Mr. Goode did not utter another word all the way home. Oliver, filled with an excitement reserved for the very young, spoke endlessly about his unexpected adventure with the Storyteller. Not the smallest detail was left out as he recounted the evening’s events, commencing from his arrival at Jessup Park, and then lingering longer than required as he repeated the Storyteller’s invitation. If you had feigned a fly on the wall inside this family’s dwelling on this particular Saturday evening, you may well have counted at least a dozen times that Oliver retold, each with increasing excitement, the escapades that unfolded beneath the covering of that old gazebo.

The boy’s excitement carried him through Sunday church, past Sunday supper and well into the new week. His days were filled with the constructing of a story that would be worthy of telling. At night, with his small head resting upon a pillow, visions of sparkling stars, endless heavens and rustic lampposts crowded his imagination, until at last, wearied by flights of fancy, his eyes would close, an unlaundered smile on his face.

As for the most important beginning, or the lure, come Saturday morning, the same Saturday which would serve as Oliver Goode’s inauguration as a storyteller, young Olly was without.