Fran's Journey

You are standing at the start of a storytelling journey. Your responses will contribute to a story that will tell itself. The story will be made by many minds...woven into a pattern that no-one can foresee...the unthought tale…

There will be questions and challenges.

Let them echo in your memory. Use that memory as your starting point.

Challenge Number One

Please answer the following questions:

Cautious or risk-taking? < Fran chose Cautious

Nature or gadgets? <Fran chose Nature

Birds or fish? <Fran chose Bird

Arriving at a small hotel in the middle of the night, you take a room on the ground floor. In the morning you wake up early to the sound of bird-song. You step outside. A bird watcher stops and asks you for a story. What do you tell them and why?

Fran wrote

Once, there was a boy named Raymond who got lost. He was sent out to the shops in a storm- it was too windy and rainy to keep going on his bike, and decides to stop. He had no idea where he was. Raymond wanted to get in somewhere warm, so he ran to a big building and pushed open the doors. Inside was a massive library. It smelled of dustiness and yellowed pages. It was completely deserted, and Raymond wandered around staring at the impossibly high ceilings. At the top of the ceiling was a big dome, painted with the image of lots of famous stories. As Raymond craned his head back to look at it, he slipped on some water dripping from his jacket and he fell down, hitting his head.

The bird watcher laughed.

“Hah...poor Raymond, I know exactly how he feels. I was a young lad once. Left school aged fifteen. First job was a butcher’s apprentice. Had to carry deliveries on my bike. Remember once I slipped in the rain and the mince went flying. If only I’d found the place he found. Would have loved to park my bike, read a book, have a sleep. It’s like you’re telling me the life I could have lived. What did that lad dream about by the way?”

Fran Wrote

He dreamed of many things. Vicious sea monsters and hungry pirates. Enchanting fairies, celestial witches, ferocious dragons. Groaning zombies and cackling psychopaths. Things so wonderful he could never have imagined them while awake, and others so terrible he would never quite be able to forget them, as a man.

First of all he jolted back into his body on that library floor, thinking he was awake. He was back under that gleaming library rotunda, with the painted images of gods and heroes, beasts and magic staring down at him. Raymond was only a boy, but he could feel that something pretty fundamental had changed. He couldn't put his finger on what.

The silence seemed thicker, the atmosphere somehow charged. The light just didn't...scatter quite right. He didn't yet know it, but the library had come alive.

Fran wrote

Though the books' dark pages began to envelope him, Raymond couldn't find anything in him to be afraid. He felt simply as if he were going through a door into another room. As soon he could no longer see the expansive library around him, Raymond blinked and suddenly he was somewhere else.

He found himself in a forest. All around were tall, densely packed trees; he could only barely see the sky, but he knew it wasn't the dark and stormy one he had been cycling under only a short while before. Instead of dust and polished wood, he could smell pine, fresh air, and the earthy sort of scent after it rained. Nearby, he could hear the sound of rushing water...

Raymond walks towards the sound of water, enjoying the cool breeze and slowly drawing nearer, as the rush turns into a tumult….and now he stands near a great rushing waterfall gushing between rocks...there is a grove of trees nearby and beyond he sees a cave….The sound of the water echoes and resounds and he feels driven by its ferocity to take shelter...the cave is dark and...in the darkness he sees an old woman gazing at him….she puts a finger to her lips and smiles a pale, wan smile of welcome….She points, gesturing back towards the water, Raymond hesitates….then she points again towards a box….it seems that there is something he must choose between…

Does Raymond

• Goes towards the box?

• Looks into the water?

Fran chose > Looks into the water

Raymond follows the pointing finger back towards the waterfall...but as he returns he realises that the waters have fallen silent and still..something is waiting for him there in their depths...he comes nearer and gazes down into them...they are glassy and offer him a vision….of himself...a head….a shape….to his amazement he realises that he is someone else…

What reflection does he see?

Fran chose a human head

Raymond realises his identity has altered, he sees another person there...who is it who is there...rich or poor, male or female, young or old...describe them, who is he now?

Fran replied

The waters were swirling around his reflection, although...was it his own reflection anymore? Raymond had an instinctual feeling that this water wasn't acting as a mirror, it was showing him what was inside himself. He felt uncomfortable leaving the old lady behind him- he had the distinct feeling he did not want to have his back turned for too long, but he was transfixed by what he saw.

The reflection was showing Raymond a man much older than himself, a man whose black hair was greying at the temples, but who shared Raymond's warm brown eyes. He had seen those eyes many times before, but hadn't for a long time. The dark skin, the plump cheeks, the sharp grey brush of a moustache, all of these were familiar. Raymond gaped, and the reflection copied him. He waved his hand, and the person in the water followed suit.

Raymond didn't know how or why, but he knew he was seeing his late father for a reason.

Raymond stood up. He was transformed. He felt as though he had lived a life-time. He felt the weight of years and experience and wondered what it was that had changed. His father had often told him about his ancestors, told him stories that were half truth and half fable. Stories that had inspired him when he was a child. Now they came flooding back. Stories of knights and ogres and dark forests and tales of castles and bright gardens and caves and hermits.

He could no longer be satisfied with who he was. He could no longer be an errand boy in a village. He must be as his father had been. He too must pass on stories and inspire generations to come.

He turned back towards the cave. The old woman was standing between the trees watching him. She smiled. She pointed the way back to the river and waved him to walk along.

He walked. As he walked the waters whispered, and he invented stories. So many of them, half true and half imagined.

He walked on in a daze of story making. The gloom faded. The morning came. The forest thinned out. The river continued. The birds began to sing. Raymond began to sing with them too. And everything he sang was a story.

Now he knew who he was. He was the watcher and listener. He was the story maker and teller. His errand had turned into a quest.

He came out of the forest. He saw a bridge, and a village, and a building that had a sign over it. It was a hotel.

He began to whistle the tunes of the birds. His new life would begin that very day.

Someone came out of the hotel. The morning was so fresh and bright. The birds sang so happily. It began to rain lightly, with each drop brilliant, like a jewel.

Raymond walked towards the hotel visitor. He wished him good morning. He asked his name. It was Nick. Then Raymond asked Nick for a story.