These Stories We Tell Each Other

We tell one other stories of these times and places. We have no choice.

Without the story of the morning about how the sun rises beyond those far hills, our days could not begin.

Without the stories of the animals moving across these landscapes and the tales of how the plants grow we would have nothing to eat. Then our dry bones would be the only story we could tell to that warming sun. Without the long twisting tale of the river we would have no fish, nothing to drink and no way of taking ourselves down to where the sea waits. Its waves tumbling over one another in their haste to hear us tell the great legends of the sea and the tales of the seafarers who risked all to travel across it is search of more tales to tell. The tales of distant lands and peoples who each have their own stories of how this world came to be, and their place inside it the sailors tell us on their return.

Without you, I would have no tale to tell of how it feels to wake and not be alone with only the trees and the animals to sing my stories to. Without your stories of children that grow inside you, then break free to run across these hillsides making the stories of their own life then there would be no-one to tell all these stories to.

And what else is there, except these stories we tell one another?

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]