Stories I Need to Share with My Readers
Yesterday, as I do on most Thursday mornings, I headed to Ionia's Sozo Coffee Roasting to write with MMWG. During these mornings we share out any 'homework' prompt creations and then spend time receiving prompts, writing, and sharing out with the group if we so choose. There is always powerful writing, and yesterday was no exception.
When this first was read, however, it seeped into my heart and I asked to share it here, with all of you. Please enjoy this magical story written by a talented writer and friend, Jim Kinsey, and inspired by 3 prompts:
No one expected the giraffe barn to catch on fire
I am suddenly jolted awake!
You see, long ago…
An azure blue colored dome arched over Mama Gator’s Bayou and its sand spit village of the same name. Mama G, oscillating tail propelled, glided pond center to await Saturday’s feast. Fourteen multicolored pelicans kited over bald cypress tops and dropped down toward the pond’s open waters. Bottom jaws hung down to skim surface feeding fish. Mama G, with the swiftness of speeding turtles, aimed her open maw and readied for a gourmet delight of mullet stuffed water fowl. Targeted birds, bills filled, rose skyward. Mama G’s spirally launched body followed upward. Timing was everything. Today was not the right time. Mama G’s twelve foot long body cannon-balled. Waves pounded shorelines and chased herons and egrets into the bald cypress forest’s tops. The azure blue colored dome’s residents returned to summer’s silence.
Gator Bayou’s Carnival Street homes were all cut from the same blueprint, except Number 12. Faded rainbow colors still drew attention among other greyed cedar-sided dwellings. Circus artifacts hung on a wrap-around porch’s rafters. Originally, a galvanized steel roof was painted with stars and new moons. Today, the roof has become rusty brown with only smudged traces of its stellar past.
Calypso Santiago sat on a cushioned bull tub on the front porch and awaited the arrival of fourteen grandchildren. Every Saturday morning, a din of school stories filled with complaints irritated Calypso’s old hound dog, Tapeworm. Grandpa C feigned a listen with hearing aids silenced. The school yard debriefing always took twenty-eight minutes. Santiago’s grandkids, whose skin colors reflected humanity’s vast diversity, negotiated and tussled for one of the four remaining bull tubs. The top’s never softened even though elephants stomped and spun on the brightly painted stands. Grandpa C had covered them with memory foam and faux leopard skin. Every Saturday morning, Grandpa Calypso regaled the assembly with tales from his Fantastic Louigi Garibaldi Circus days. Under the cover of a grandparent’s trust, animals talked, pigs flew, rabbits laid eggs and Dumbo starred in most episodes. Each week, like clockwork, Eva Jones, a child of four, would see the story’s impossibilities and, in her melodic voice, shout, “Grandpa C. You’re just kiddin us, right? Mama told us to never lie. Tell us real stories.”
Thirty minutes after the last child arrived, Calypso spoke, “You see, a long time ago when….” With that phrase, chatter ended and children turned toward their beloved grandpa. Opening words were repeatedly uttered. “You see, a long time ago when the traveling circus was a hotter ticket than a Beyoncé concert, people came out of the swamps, off farms, away from cities to see unfamiliar animals, marvel at weird performers and to hear steam calliopes that deafened the ears. I, Calypso Santiago, was the resident veterinarian for all the weird and wondrous animals.”
Little Khalid waited from Grandpa C to take a breath. “Tell us again about the angry Jack-a-lope. I loved how he kicked that clown, Roscoe, in the butt. Please!”
“Sweet boy, today I want to tell the story of Knestra and Knestad. One day when the circus was in St Petersburg, Florida and I was taking my afternoon siesta, I was suddenly jolted awake by a powerful idea. You see, a long time ago there were no giraffes in anyone’s circus. They were too tall for a rail car to haul them from place to place. The idea sat on my right hand and chatted about its suggestion. Well, the idea told my mind to build a barn on a semi-trailer. I pitched the idea to Mr. Louigi Garibaldi, the circus’s owner. Lou rubbed his neck and thought about it. ‘I know where we can get two old giraffes. A zoo in Detroit wants to give them away. I trust you will a faithful caregiver. I’ll put up some money for the barn built on a trailer.’”
“Khalid stood and looked his Grandpa C in the face. “If you put the Jack-a-lops in the barn, they’d behave! Giraffes scare me. You’d see the Jack-a-lopes tame right down.”
“No one expected the giraffe barn exhibit to catch on fire like it did.” Grandpa stopped mid-sentence when Nashi screamed, “NO!!!! I don’t want to hear about a fire that killed the giraffes.”
“Oh, sweet, tender Nashi. What I used was an idiom, a verbal expression. ‘Catch on fire’ means it became extremely popular. Everybody wanted to see the tall animals. Knestra, her long eyelashes fluttering, fell in love with me. She wanted me to scratch her ears while she put her head on my shoulder. Knestad became jealous and would bite the top of my head. That’s why I’m bald. Kids, don’t let a giraffe bite your head. It doesn’t hurt at first. But it makes your hair fall out.”
A sneezy-grunt swung heads toward the street. Mama Gator had come to check out the tender meat smells that wafted from the children’s bodies. Feet were pulled up and tucked under bottoms. The obviously discouraged Matron of the Bayou ambled around the back of Grandpa C’s house and slid into the swamp.
When the story ended, the children gave their grandpa a boa constrictor-like hug. Calypso hated saying ‘Good Bye.’ ‘Good Bye’ meant entertaining himself until next Saturday.
Loneliness pulled dreams from forgotten pockets in his brain. He thought about stories even he knew were made-up to create feel-good moments. The Jack-a-lope was as genetically impossible as were the stories of frogs marrying pigs.
Fear struck each Saturday after the kids left. When they grew up and learned what he’d said wasn’t true, would they ever believe him when he said true things? Today was a true story but it didn’t excite this crowd the way fake ones did.
A troubled Calypso went to bed wrapped in uncomfortably hard questions. As he fell off into slumber land, words drained from his mouth. “You see, a long time ago I was…….”
j. lyle – storyteller 5/6/21
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