A Story of My Own

Once, when I was frightened and alone, I wrote a story. It was not a good story, it would win no prizes, but it was my story and for that reason I liked it a lot. Nobody had written these words before; nobody would write them again. They were my words and it was my story.

My story had a bear in it. The bear's name was Bruin. The bear was my sadness.

My story had a monkey in it. The monkey's name was Pangram. The monkey was my hope.

I gave my story to the world and the world replied:
It is not wide enough.
It has too many trees.
What can we learn from a child's sadness and hope?
We must burn this story.
We must hurt the person who wrote it.

I resolved to enter the forest and not to return until I was old enough to know better. The forest was my forest and the trees represented my trees. My bear was by now just a bear; a literary critic had told me so. My monkey had ceased to exist.

Twelve times twelve I roamed the forest until my story was all but forgotten and my bear swollen to the size of a spring torrent.

When I emerged from the forest, people noticed one small change. My hope was now a lion. My lion had a taste for human flesh. The world decided that my story hadn't been half as bad as they first thought, but my lion ate them anyway.

I thought that this would make a good story in its own right, but I have learned my lesson. I will never write it down.