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.
Please answer the following questions:
Day-time or Night-time? < Cristina chose Night-Time
Ice or Fire? < Cristina chose Fire
Gifts or Party? < Cristina chose Party
In the middle of the night you wake up and listen to the silence all around. Somewhere in the distance there is a faint sound...it’s laughter. This is too much to resist, you must find out who is partying. You set off to investigate - who do you find around a fire, and what are they doing there
Cristina wrote
I take the path to the beach. When I reach the corner, I stop behind the olive tree to listen some more and to spy from a safe distance. There is light from a big bonfire, an orchestra is playing this song:
Their ship was wrecked in a storm. They all wear costumes and it appears like a small fete. The man who is singing almost levitates and has a smile on his face but a sadness in his eyes that makes me shiver. The air feels warm against my skin. My mind wonders and I want to join them. Suddenly, there is a scream behind me.
I jerk round sharply and see that a woman in white is standing close to me. She is riveted on the fete and does not see me. Her eyes are staring, she holds onto the olive tree for support. She starts to walk slowly towards the bonfire. The man sings on, his keening piercing voice fills the night.
The woman is getting closer to the fete and I cannot resist it, I must follow her. Once again she utters a piercing scream and the orchestra falters and falls silent. The man stops singing. Everyone turns to stare at her. The fire crackles in the silence.
What happens next?
The woman says ‘I’ve got what you want, have you done as I asked?’
The man says ‘why have you come now, after such a long time?’
The people from the shipwreck break into applause and beckon her closer
Cristina chose "The man says ‘why have you come now, after such a long time?’"
The woman walks forward in silence. She stands in front of the man and then looks around at all the shipwrecked people….
What does she say and what do they reply?
Cristina wrote:
Her eyes linger over the faces of all the shipwrecked people. She searches for a wrinkle, for a familiar line, something that she might recognise; anything that might make her heart skip a beat. Her eyes become sadder and sadder until they are sorrowful. She asks the man playing the cello: 'Have you seen my son?' and then she starts asking in a frenzy: Where is my son? Have you seen a beautiful boy with curly hair?
She points to a gentleman from the orchestra, saying: 'This gentleman has taken my son and won't give him back! Where did you lock him? Why did you take him away from me? Where is my son? Please, please, Sir, can you bring him back?' Everyone is silent, a young lady tries to speak but the woman is obviously not listening. It breaks my heart so I go over there and I hush her, trying to comfort her. Sara is now the child. I hold her tight in my arms and I whisper: 'Sara, your baby boy is not here. Let's look for him somewhere else!'
We turn away together and walk a few steps across the beach. I sense that Sara trusts me, I whisper to her gently ‘what happened to your son?’ She stops, lost in the memory - ‘my husband is...was...an explorer…he came and went...I used to dread his departures...but one day Albert came home and said he was never leaving again...I was so happy...but that night...there was a fire...I don’t know what he was doing in his study...but I woke up...and smoke...oh...terrible….’ She gasps for air in the memory of that terrible night. Now she seizes my shoulders and looks into my face…’and my boy...I couldn’t find him..and the next thing I knew…. Albert was standing there, our son in his arms...and he said to me...he’s burned...oh...oh….and there was only one thing that could save him...and he would take him there...oh...’
She turns back, where the people by the fire are still waiting. They seem to have expected this, because as we retrace our steps, the young woman who had tried to speak before now manages to speak for all of them. She says ‘madam, we took your husband with your son at his request...he was so badly burned...forgive us…’
Now behind her the assembled crowd begins to sing. It is solemn rhythmic music….a sea shanty...and it tells a story….
The song fades away. The fire has burned lower and lower and now it flickers and fizzles out. The sea whispers in the vast darkness. Everyone has frozen in their place. I step forward, kneel down by the fire and take something from the ashes. Then I turn to Sara.
What is it I have found? What happens next?