The Storyteller

a short story

The man was a crook. He went around with his cart and his donkey taking advantage of the credulous piety of the common folk. He would take random worthless items, make up fantastical stories about them related to this or that god or saint, and then sell them promising magical cures and supernatural help. The item could really be anything and it did not matter in the least if it was mineral, plant or animal, artificial or natural, just as long as it seemed curious enough to trigger his imagination. What he sold really were stories, not objects.

It is a part of successful business ventures that investments be made, and if a curious item was offered for a bargain price, or another was found by a river or a road, he would take it and then think of what it would be, and so he always had in his cart items that had no story yet but which he had judged to have the potential to be the centerpiece of a good one. Even if a customer would ask, What’s in that box, the storyteller would say, That is not for sale yet. Adding that last word served only to sharpen the customer’s interest, a broad one, for he is now taking another item from the cart, a dark red gem, which will improve virility, let us not invade the privacy of this patient and add no more than this to the description. The man left happy after hearing the instructions on how to use it, Boil water with it inside, let it cool, and then clean the area with it. But of course the man bought it because it was the crystallized blood of a god, sacrificed on a tree, or was it a wooden stake, whatever it might have been, the god bled and this was his blood, if you can believe it. The customer could, so he bought the gem.

By the time the customer had time to test out his new purchase, the salesman would be gone, having moved on to the next town or village, and he would only return to the same one after many years, when it was improbable that anyone would remember him or the item, this being a common occurrence in those times, whereas in ours there is no need to wait that long, customers can be fooled repeatedly in much shorter intervals. Because of this necessity of the trade the man also never got to know that most of his promises to his customers were fulfilled. If he had known about the curious result, he would probably say it was what future people will call a placebo effect, but he would be wrong, and the explanation much simpler, The story was too good to remain a lie, the god of that rock or that weed or that metal or that object would exclaim, and then make it happen. Sometimes, however, the spirits of this or that thing, the saints implicated in this or that relic, were not happy with the story or the fraud, or both, and so the item would not work. In general this did not affect the credulity of the customers, Nothing in this life is guaranteed, they would conclude, We’ll go back to praying, it never hurts.

The box the customer had asked about contained a piece of cloth, stained with blood and with a clear imprint of a face. He found it already inside the wooden box, in an abandoned haystack where he happened to sleep, and it was the quality of the wood that first caught his attention. He asked the innkeeper how much he wanted for it, and though the price was high he felt compelled to buy it, because he knew there was a good story to tell about it. Two months later, however, he wasn’t yet ready to sell it. Though he felt that the story to be told was that the cloth was the burial shroud of the son of the highest god, he wasn’t inclined to tell it. It was usually safer to go with lesser gods, smaller saints, more trivial personages. That story of the crystalized blood was an act of desperation, it could get him in trouble, but he really needed to eat something that day, it had been many without anything but stale and moldy bread. And the poor donkey too hadn’t eaten something proper in many days.

When business was good the man could pay to have his donkey and his cart parked safely and stay at an inn, like the one where he bought the box and the cloth. He could then both rest and spread some seeds of the stories he would tell the next day to sell whatever items he happened to have in his possession. Lately, however, business had not been as good. Miraculous relics and objects were becoming commonplace, especially now that gods were multiplying every year, appearing like mushrooms after a heavy rain, even though people now liked to call them saints. And so even the most desperate peoples could not be sold the most extraordinary stories. Worse, more often than not these last couple of years, when he tried to sell an item, he would be told that it could only be a fake, and that the real one was sold the week before he arrived in town. He would ask what the story was, and he was always disappointed, What a load of bull excrement, what lack of imagination, my stories are much better. And though they were, he seemed to be losing his timing, arriving late to sell the teeth, or the sandals, or whatever else. Even when he tried to convince them that his were the real items, the people wouldn’t believe him, getting there first is everything, and he was becoming accustomed to being second or third or fourth. And to add insult to injury, by now his stories were being told by others, having somehow travelled faster than he, and so not only were the items already sold, so were the stories.

That night, having spent the money that he had on fresh bread and some carrots for the donkey, he parked his cart in a clearing of a nearby forest. It was summer and the air was dry and hot under the stars, so he took out the canvas off his cart to look at the night sky while resting his back and thinking of what to do next. The moon was waning and almost gone for good, around him there was only darkness. He thought of the items he had, all of them he had sold before, a large fishbone that a saint in the east had miraculously pulled out of a dying child’s larynx and that cured ailments of the throat, the wooden mallet with which a female saint had beaten a devil and that could be used still whenever one appeared, the feather of another saint’s pet rooster that helped to protect domestic animals from disease. All those fantastical stories and the items that accompanied them had lost their market value after being reproduced beyond all reason. Damn it all, these people today have no foresight, they bring it all to market at once, lowering the prices and undermining the confidence in every other salesman, I wish there was property in stories. Then he thought for a minute, hearing the words echo in his mind, Property in stories, property in stories, and then he said out loud, Not only does that make no sense at all, how can you own something that can be infinitely reproduced, and furthermore, everyone who tells a tale makes it his, or hers, let’s not forget the women, they can tell a good story too, as one people to the west are known to say, whoever tells a tale adds a full stop, and the only reason they do not specify that whoever adds a full stop adds a capital letter right in front, starting a whole new sentence with unheard of details, is that they also have another saying which assures them that, for one of good understanding half a word is enough, by which they mean that one must always draw one’s own conclusions if one is able to, but only if. The man had let his mind wander and was now ready for the uninspiring conclusion, If I could take credit for making up the stories then everyone would know they weren’t true. And right as he had this thought he saw two shooting stars, That’s my cue to go to sleep, tomorrow is another day, maybe I’ll sell the cloth after all, or at least the box, an idea will come, it always does.

But he couldn’t sleep, because the clearance was suddenly full of light, as much light as before there was darkness, and he could still see nothing at all. Then a tall man and a tall woman, very pale and fair, dressed in white, appeared from the blinding light, and the man spoke, As many of our brothers and sisters have said before, be not afraid. They laughed among themselves but tried to disguise it, We do come in peace, Who are you, Gods, said the woman, Or angels, said the man. We forget what terminology you use in this country, We call them many things, Yes, yes, as does everyone, What do you want from me, have you come to take my life or my soul or both, Don’t be so dramatic, How do I know you’re not devils, We’ll tell you a secret, shake our hands. The angels extended their hands, the man was still afraid but he extended his too, You feel them, Yes, This is how you know, if you ask a devil to shake your hand he will either decline or, if he or she accepts, you won’t feel anything, How do I know you’re not lying, You can’t, you have to trust us. The man thought for a while, and realizing there was no way for him to know for sure, he asked instead, What do you want, We have a mission for you, For me, why, I am just a salesman, Yes, there is nothing special about you, we just happened to notice you, and then we came to know that you are suited for the job we have in mind. But then the female angel or god spoke, Some however might say that you have been chosen, or that it is your fate, and then they laughed again. Recomposed they told him how his stories became true because the heavens appreciated his creativity and also because they thought his customers did not deserve to be duped, and then they told him about the cloth, You see, most times your stories were not true, but this time what you imagined is the real story, that is indeed the cloth which covered the body of our lord Jesus of Nazareth, and though it came to you by chance, it is now your duty to see that it is delivered to an important order of knights for safekeeping, but be careful, show it to no one, in fact, it is best if you stop your business altogether, but don’t worry, we’ll make sure you get enough to eat, and so they gave him a loaf of bread, saying, This one will never be stale, and a bite will fill you for the whole day, and the loaf is more than enough to last the whole trip, And after that, After that the knights will take you in, you’re getting too old anyway for the life you’ve been leading, and so is your donkey. Meanwhile, as the tall male angel spoke, the female was petting the donkey, while he smelled the woman with excited curiosity. The man was shaken, so he said nothing at first, he accepted the loaf and then they asked him one last question, Do you accept the mission, and how could any man deny an angel or a god. They left and the forest was again dark. The man didn’t sleep that night. Before the sun rose he was ready to leave.

Poor old man, Yes, he probably thinks we were laughing at him, They can never understand that to us they look like babies look to them, Funny in a cute way, Yes, cute but funny, And then to compensate they make up these stories that we’re all stern and serious all the time, To be fair there are quite a few stern and humorless spiritual beings, Yes, but they are usually devils.