This is a special Monster Meditation. It’s my contribution to the ParaYourNormal Blog Party…
This is a true story—or as true as any story can be when the events took place a long, long time ago at a particularly formative stage in my life. If you know me well, you’ll probably think, “That explains her.”
If you define writer as storyteller than I was a writer before I learned how to read or write. Even in nursery school, I used to entertain other kids with my made up stories. My favorite audience was a boy named Peter and his little brother Robert. They lived exactly around the corner from my family and, with the aid of a parent, visiting Peter was as fast as a lift over the fence into their yard.
Peter’s family was in the midst of a huge upheaval and I somehow conflated various bits and pieces into the story I told myself about Peter’s mother falling in love with a circus acrobat and running away to become a trapeze artist. She actually left Peter’s dad for a man who was a psychiatrist, but Peter’s dad did have entertainer friends and there was talk about circuses in the range of my little ears.
I knew that Peter and Robert loved stories that were scientific in nature, so I made up a story about mosquitoes and told it in a grave and authoritative tone. Unfortunately, an adult overheard my chatter. He was a friend of Peter’s dad and he took me on for my fanciful version of natural science. He simply didn’t understand the difference between science fact and science fiction. My story was pure science fiction.
“Little girl, if you don’t stop telling lies the witch who raised me will come and visit you tonight and you will be sorry.”
That’s what he said, “The witch who raised me.” His mother was a witch and he threatened me with a visit from his formidable mom.
That night I had a horrible nightmare. The kind of nightmare that necessitated calling my dad for help. I tried to explain, but the witch did not understand the different between LIES and FICTION. I was caught in a scary corner of the universe where stories and storytelling were forbidden. That nightmare shook the foundations of my life and, in a funny way, cemented them too. I’m still defying the witch and, although the prospect of another visit scares the little girl inside me, I’m going to keep on telling my fanciful “lies” as long as I have ideas for stories.
-hugs- In hindsight you probably have to feel sorry for the man raised by that witch, but he definitely left an impression on you. I’m just glad you kept on making up stories.
I was less brave. In grade 7? the teacher told us to write about the alimentary canal and I got this brilliant idea to make it a humorous ‘journey’. She was not impressed. In fact she was very unimpressed even though I can’t remember writing anything even approaching ‘rude’.
I think that’s when I stopped writing ‘stories’ and decided I wasn’t funny. I was right about the funny, wrong about the stories. Just wish it hadn’t taken me a lifetime to realise it.
Wow—what a story! I think a comic version of the alimentary canal is brilliant.
I was very brave and verbal at that time. The witch didn’t shut me up, but she kind of “haunted me” for a long time. A while later I had a series of misadventures that really shut me down. All the stories went internal for years. It wasn’t the witch in the nightmare, but she was the start of the internal conflicts about my storytelling habits. I think I’m finally passed all that. It’s about time, right?
What a wonderful story! And how funny that he would threaten your fanciful telling with a myth of his own. (Unless he really hated his mother).
He may have hated his mom… a lot!
I’m thinking that man was indeed raised by a witch, one who crushed the imaginative spark out of him at an early age, and then he tried to do the same to you.
So glad you defied the witch and kept producing stories, if even inside your own head. May we all keep defying the witch!!
I like your take on this!
And yes, I will continue to defy the witch. Thank you for your encouragement.