One of my angsts over the last year or so is that my son demands a story before bed every night, and I dread it, and this is deeply at odds with my sense of myself.
I discovered today, however, that this is because he demands stories “of when you were a little boy”, and I went through all my good stories long, long ago. Also, life stories from memory are not that fun for me; I have an unreasonably good memory, but the indexing is crap, and trying to call stuff up from thirty years ago is difficult at the end of a long day.
Tonight, however, he wanted a story about “monsters”, and so I got to improv a story on the fly for the first time in many, many moons, and that was a lot of fun. And so I record it here, because why not.
–Once upon a time there lived a young boy, and let’s say his name was Jack, because boys in fairy tales generally are called Jack, it’s a thing. He lived in a village, and it was extremely boring, because the thing about living in a village is that like twenty people live there, and you’re related to half of them, and nothing ever happens. So Jack said to himself, “I will See The World!”
–Jack looked out from his village and he saw a far-off mountain at the edge of the world, and he decided that he would climb that mountain. So he walked and he walked and walked through the woods, and he crossed a river, and more woods, and he came to a town, and it was HUGE, there must have been like a hundred people living there. And they had an inn, and Jack had lunch there.
–Do you know what his lunch was? It was a bowl of soup, and the soup was made out of goat, and he had a big chunk of brown bread, and a lump of cheese, which was very good but also very stinky, and finally an onion. And he ate his lunch, and then he kept on walking. And he crossed more forest, and then a big wide grassy place, and then into the hills, and then the grass stopped and he was just climbing rocks and then he FELL
.
..
…
but he landed in a pile of straw, so that was all right. He thought to himself, “What’s a pile of straw doing here in the mountains, that’s odd.” And then he thought to himself that he felt like someone was watching him, so he decided to start climbing again.
–Jack kept climbing up the side of the mountain, and he thought again that he felt someone watching him, and so he turned to his right, and several yards away he saw
a Big Pair of Eyes
and a Long, Long Nose with Greasy Nostrils
and Whiskers
and a Big Mouth with Sharp Teeth
and a Big Long Tongue going Aaarhhlllaaughhlllh!
–And Jack thought to himself, “OK, that’s a monster, I think maybe I’ll go over here,” and he turned to his right, but right there in front of him was
another Big Pair of Eyes
and a Long, Long Nose with Greasy Nostrils
and Whiskers
and a Big Mouth with Sharp Teeth
and a Big Long Tongue going Aaarhhlllaaughhlllh!
and the Monster said RRRAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
–Jack did not know what to do. He did not have a sword or a shield or a bow or a suit of armor or an airplane or a giant fighting robot that he could use to defend himself from the terrible Monster, so he did the only thing he could think of. He roared right back RRRAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!
–And do you know what happened next?
–Do you remember how back in the town Jack ate the onion and the goat stew and the stinky stinky cheese? Well, all of that gave him stinky, stinky breath, and so when he roared RRRAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!! the Monster said ACK-KOFF-KKKKKK-thppth-thppth-wubba-wubba-wubba-koff-koff-koff-WHEEZE – <<two thumbs up>>
–Jack’s breath was so stinky that all the Monsters of the mountain had to pay him respect as a stinker after their own hearts, and they left him alone while he climbed the rest of the mountain. So Jack climbed to the top of the mountain, and he Saw The World, and then he went home.
–And no one believed him.
–Well, because they didn’t have Monsters in his village.
–And also his breath wasn’t so stinky any more, because it had been a while.
–Now go to sleep.
Originally published on Google Plus