Wisps of Memory

Five children came rushing tumultuously out the front door and down the brick steps. Each held in their hands the much coveted special summer treat; an ice cream cone.

"Race you to the Story Rock." Paul yelled and took off. John was on his heels, and four year old Peter toddled gamely behind. Such a boy.

Always up for a challenge, Katie and I followed also, but more slowly. I knew what would happen to the precious Ice Cream if one went too quickly.

Naturally, we reached the rock last. John and Paul had already clambered up, careless of small scrapes. Katie and I were next, searching carefully for good handholds. Then, we reached down and hauled Peter up the tall face.

Eventually, we had all settled down cross-legged on the cool, but sun-warmed surface of the huge, flat-topped rock. After a few licks, most of the boys chomped down on the ice cream, but John and the girls licked slowly, savoringly.

The silence was short-lived. I could not contain myself.

"Come on, Katie! Tell us a story! Pleeeease?"

"YEAH!!!!!" Enthusiasm galor from the male contingent.

Stalling for time, since she never told one before she had finished her ice cream, Katie answered slowly. We waited in anticipation for the loved, expected, predictable response.

"All right, what do you want in it?"

That was the game. Each of us were allowed to think of one thing that would be included in the story. Some were quicker than others to think of something. Others thought of something and then changed their minds. Everything originated from the wildest corners of our imaginations, and yet, each was characteristic.

Paul's choice was always militaristic.

"I want a huge tank, bigger than anything else in the entire story!"

John's was always mechanical; a logical and cool new invention, but also ranging alongside with a typical boys response.

"I want a clock that blows up the huge tank when it strikes 4:30."

My choice had two extremes depending on mood. It might be wildly impossible and magical, or it might be something a little more realistic and simple.

"A butterfly that saves the world."

Peter could always be expected to follow Paul's lead.

"I want a tank that's bigger than Paul's!" It was put forward that that would be impossible, so he changed it.

"Fine then, how about a big tree that the tank crashes into?"

From these objects, Katie would tell a story that would leave us sitting up on our knees and leaning forward, drinking in the tale eagerly. Sometimes, if she wasn't in the mood to tell a story, she would stall and be provokingly literal. But usually, she give in on our protesting demands to "tell a REAL story, Katie!"

"Once upon a time," she might begin, "there was a huge tank of water, so big that it acted as a roof over the world."

("KATIE! I said a TANK!"
"Of course you did, you didn't say what kind."
"I want to change it!"
"Sorry, you made you choice. Who's telling the story?"
Paul sat back a little disgruntled, but soon became interested again.)

Katie repeated her sentence.

"...so big it was like roof on top of the world. And it sat there and weighed the whole earth down, and down, and down, and everybody wondered why they were sinking. And then, one day, a little, tiny butterfly discovered the reason. She had been blown in a storm way up high and had seen the giant tank.

"When the storm was over, she flew back down and searched for a man she had once seen. After many days of looking, she finally found him.

"The man was an very old inventor who often came up with ingenious ideas, but no one ever paid any attention. He had discovered how to speak to four thousand different species, and that was how the butterfly was able to tell him.

"'Ah, small one,' said the old man, 'you have saved us all!'

"The old man set to work to make an itsy-bitsy bomb and a great long string, which he attached to a clock. Then, he called the butterfly and gave her careful instructions. She was to drop the bomb into the tank of water at it's steam hole. He would give her one whole day to get there, and one whole day to get back, and then he would set the clock and the bomb would go off and destroy the tank.

"When the butterfly got back, the man carefully set the alarm to 4:30 p.m.

"He told no one of his experiment, because he wasn't sure if it would work. But, it did. At 4:30, the bomb went off and the tank came crashing down in many little pieces and one giant piece. And the giant piece landed on a huge tree in the middle of the forest, and there it sits today.

"And one more thing, it flooded for forty days and forty nights, and some of the water got stuck in the clouds and that is why it rains sometimes.

"The End"