Stories I Won’t Be Telling…

On Thursday, I’m taking part in an event called The Story.

It’s been organised by Matt Locke and I’m massively pleased to have been invited to contribute.

Basically, all the speakers have been given twenty minutes to respond to Matt’s brief that The Story be…

“…a celebration of everything that is wonderful, inspiring and awesome about stories, in whatever medium possible. We’re hoping to have stories that are written, spoken, played, described, enacted, whispered, projected, orchestrated, performed, printed – whatever form stories come in, we hope to have them here.”

It’s taken me until yesterday to settle on the story that I’d like to tell. It seemed a shame to just ditch all the others so here is a list of some of the stories that I thought about telling but won’t be….

A story about how the world began. About how we are all made of stars.

A story in which the magic words are
boom boom shackalackalacka boom!
boom boom shackalacka boom boom!

A story about a young boy who flew too close to the sun
– which is really a story about an old man who will only ever look up and see an empty sky

A story about how the human body contains the sam number of atoms the moment after death as it does the moment before

A story about a kid who for as far back as he can remember always wanted to be a gangster

A story about a poet imprisoned for telling stories and made to stand in a drum of water for six months so he could never stand again

A story about a bruised, broken, beautiful stranger washed up on a beach who can’t speak because someone filled his mouth with barbed wire

A story about a woman who stood up, by sitting down

A story that explains that no-one’s perfect. That I love you and I’ll always be on your side. But I’m just another human being who’s trying really hard not to but might one day let you down.

A story explaining why no, my children can’t choose to support a different football team

A story about what happens if you stick your finger too far into your ear, or swallow too much string, or are cruel to animals

A story about a man who falls in love with the moon

A story about a girl who, when she’s sad, pushes her face up against something yellow, like a yellow door, so that all she can see is her favourite colour and is happy again.

A story about two little goldfish in a tank. One turns to the other and says “You drive, I’ll man the guns”

A story about all the things in the world that aren’t guns or tanks or landmines

A story about hearts and minds and bombs

A story in which someone dies but that’s OK because we’ll always remember them, keep a little bit of them alive inside us that we carry everywhere

A story about how the first person who will live forever is already alive.

Maybe see some of you on Thursday…

jx

2 Comments

VB Leghorn

My day is better for reading these story ideas and imagining each one in its different realm. Thank you for sharing your imagination with the rest of the world.

Brown

Totally agree with VB Leghorn. Are not the most interesting stories the ones that don’t get told? But that’s probably the point…

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