THE SONG
Thing was never
going to sing at the Paris Opera but that wasn’t the point; he sang because he
liked it. It made him happy. Thing’s father was always whistling a tune and he
did it so often that most times he didn’t seem to notice.
“What’s that
tune?” Thing would ask.
“Heck, if I
know,” said his dad.
Thing's
mother would also ‘tut’ at that point because she didn’t think that folks
should say ‘heck’.
Thing’s
father had told him that the Great Thing in the sky probably put a tune in
everyone’s heart when they were born and that was the tune they worked by all
their lives. It was the one they sang when they were scared, or happy, or in
love, or sad or just because they felt like it.
Thing had a
song about jumping as high as the clouds and on those days when he was blue or
later on when he missed his parents, he would shout it out as loud as he could
all around the cave and do you know what? He felt a whole lot better.
Sometimes in
town he would sing the song real quite like so the he didn’t feel so alone.
Some sunny
days in spring, folks would bring their geetars down to the town square and
they’d sing about this and that and the other. Big one and small ones would
stand and listen and join in -, if the feeling took them. It left everyone
humming tunes as they walked home.
Thing wished
he could sing just one song that would make folks happy and have them all whistling
tunes and perhaps they would stand around and join in.
One day at
school his teacher asked each person in the class to stand and do something
special, tell a joke, perform a card trick, tell about their grandma – anything
that was a little unique to them.
Thing
listened in awe at the folks in his class, he laughed, he cried, he applauded
and he hollered when the person deserved it - although as Mrs Hills said, ‘hollering was for
outside’.
Then it was
Thing’s turn and he stood and he sang his jumping song. I think it was Casey
Briggs who shouted ‘What cha call that? A thong?
He ain’t singing he’s thinging’ and
most of the folks in the class began to laugh. Mrs Hills clapped her hands,
thanked Thing and asked him to sit again.
For a long
time after and a long time after that, folks would shout across the street at
him about ‘Thing the thinger who sings
thongs’. Now I ain’t telling you this
story about Thing so you’ll feel sorry and all – Thing wasn’t like that - Thing had a song in his heart which had been
placed there by the Great Thing in the sky the day he was born and it was his
duty to sing the song if it made him happy.
Thing once
asked his Dad, when he’d had a bad day with the folks in school, if maybe the
problem was that we all had different songs in our hearts and that some folks
didn’t want to listen or couldn’t hear the other folks’ tunes.
“Heck, you
just might be right there, little ‘un’,” said his dad.
His mother
gave out another ‘tut’ because of that word being used again.
Thing
realised that the way he heard his song was probably not the way the other
folks heard it. It didn’t mean anyone was wrong or right. It was just that a
tune is a tune and only really exists to make you happy. If the others don’t
like your tune then you should just sing it to yourself.
So you’re
already packing up this story and thinking we’ve arrived at the end of it - but
you’d be wrong.
One day when
Thing was sitting at the door of his cave, some horses were grazing nearby and
just at that point Thing felt the need to sing the tune he’d been given.
One by one
the horses came over and stood and listened and shook their heads, they way
horses do, and then they rubbed their heads against Thing as a way of thanking
him.
You see, you
couldn’t make everyone like your song - that wasn’t why you had been given it -
but sometimes when you least expected it your song might seep into someone else’s
heart and make them feel a whole lot better .
Thing
decided you should never let anyone stop you singing your song and never ever change
it or you just might miss a friend who likes your tune.
THE WISE MAN
There were two occasions when Thing could recall being really unhappy. The first time was when his
mother left to go to hospital and didn’t return (although he still knew she
would one day) and the second was when the Wise Man came to town.
Thing still spent most of
his days standing on the ledge above his cave and watching the Horizon for his
mother. Some days he thought he could see her but it would only be a shadow
caused by the sun.
Sometimes he would treat
these shadows as being just part of life but on other days, and he wasn’t sure
why, he would take himself to the back of the cave and cry his heart away. None
of it ever made any sense to him. She
had gone to hospital and had promised to return.
On the days when Thing went
to school, he would slide down the mountain side, cross the road and walk as
silently as possible. Keeping to the sides so as not to attract too much
attention to himself. And for most parts the plan worked. If he was unlucky
enough to attract the attention of a larger boy, he would keep his head down
and walk fast. Sometimes they caught up with him and called him names. He was
called names that came - not from the children’s lips - but from the parents who had taught their children well in the
art of intolerance. Thing had realised that people weren’t born bullies, they
were made in homes.
But Thing still had inner
strength, all he had to do was remember that he was loved by his mother and he
found something deep inside which gave him courage.
Then one bright Friday, a
man who walked from town to town and told stories, came to where Thing called
home. He was staying at the house of one of the teachers and, as such, had been
invited to talk to the whole school, the parents and Thing (who was still waiting
on his mother).
The Wise Man talked of love
and of tolerance and of consideration and everyone smiled and nodded their
heads. But then he said that he had bad news and that it came from the Book Of
Records. You didn’t need to take his word for it, for it was written by the
Wise Ones before time and therefore it was the solid truth.
“Those who do not look like
us are an abomination. For this is an outward sign that they do not think like
us,” said the Wise Man while holding both his arms aloft. “And if they do not
think like us then they are an evil, and if they are evil then they must be
destroyed.”
Thing wasn’t sure what the
Wise Man meant but as he looked around he saw some of the bullies looking in
his direction. Thing wondered why anyone would write such things, or more
importantly repeat them.
The first rock hit Thing’s
head as he was crossing the road to go back up the mountain. It caused a little
bleeding but he knew if got home quickly he could wash it off. How he wished
his mother was here. The second rock hit him on the back of the head. He was
about to turn and see where it came from when he heard chanting of
‘evil…evil…evil..’ and somehow he knew they were talking about him.
He didn’t go to school after
the weekend instead he decided it was safer to stay in his cave. Except that
the Wise Man came up the mountainside on the Wednesday evening followed by a
crowd of people, adults as well as children. They had torches and signs that
said ‘Destroy those who do not look like us for they are evil’.
“We must rid the town of
this pestilence,’ said the Wise Man and everyone agreed. Thing moved to the
back of the cave and waited on the rocks.
“Help me, mother,” he
whispered under his breath.
Maybe she heard from where
ever she was or maybe she didn’t, but a group of people from the town, who
Thing had never seen before, came up and blocked the mouth of the cave telling
the Wise Man to go home as they were not leaving.
The Wise Man said they would
burn as well – it was then that one of the those guarding the cave mentioned
that Wise Man was wanted in the next State for causing destruction and that he
had deserted his own family.
People looked at the Wise
Man in a new light and wondered if they had been wrong about him.
“What about the Book Of
Records?” Shouted the Wise Man.
But by the then the
townsfolk had started to walk down the hill and go home.
Thing
learned two things that night. Unhappy people spread unhappiness and there are still
good people in the world.
HIS PAL
Thing had never known a time
like it, at least not since he had been on his own. The Spring had slipped into
Summer and now the leaves were falling all around the front of the cave. Some
of the folks from the town had stopped by on their way to the top of the
mountain, some stayed for just a few minutes, some for a several hours, talking
about this and that and smoking pipes and stuff. Some folks just hurried by
with a ‘howdee’ on their way through.
So he really wasn’t alone
and when his mother returned life would go back to the good times. And yet this
was the second winter coming that Things was without her and he couldn’t stop
hoping she’d be back.
It was on Sunday in early
December that one of the walkers mentioned to Thing that there was another like
Thing in town. Perhaps his mother was returning just in time for Christmas?
He’d have to get the cave real sharp, ‘cause his mother always believed in
cleaning and keeping things straight. “There’s a place for everything,” she
would tell him.
He quickly cleaned and
polished until there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen. He knew his mother
would approve and so he felt safe enough to go down the mountain into town and
make sure it was she.
Just beyond the Library was
a crowd of people, all standing in the way they used to gather around Thing;
back in the days when they were scared of him, that is. But times had changed
and people just let him go about his business. So maybe they were welcoming his
mother, Thing did something he didn’t usually do, he broke into a run. He could
see her head and her arms – people must be welcoming her home.
But it wasn’t his mother,
sure it was another like him, but it wasn’t his mother. This was one of his own
kind who was being welcomed into town, mainly due to all the hard work and
kindness that Thing had shown to the town’s folk.
Maybe this one knew where
his mother was - maybe this one had met her on the way here. But the one who
looked like Thing didn’t know anything about his mother. Thing just turned away
for a spell and sighed and then spun around, smiled and welcomed his new friend
into the town.
Thing said there was always
a warm corner in his cave for a friend, at least until his family got back. But
his new friend said he felt right at home in town and was probably going to
stay there.
Sure enough one of the
farmers took the other Thing in and let him stay in his barn. Thing was
confused, ‘cause surely Things should stick together, since they both knew how
the other thought about people and life.
This got Thing down and he
went to the back of the cave to sit and talk to his mother, hoping wherever she
was, that she could hear him. He said that life had been good for a while but
he would have liked to be friends with the one who looked like Thing.
Suddenly a little wind blew
in the cave and there was the one who looked like Thing standing at the
entrance.
His friend could see that
something was bothering Thing and so he asked him what was wrong. Thing told
him that he had hoped they would be pals and that he’d stay in the cave, at least until his mother came
back.
“You have to live out there,”
he said pointing to the world. “That is why we are all here,” said his friend.
And Thing told him of the
hurt that he faced when he was out there.
“Sure there are those, the
unhappy ones, who are jealous of other’s happiness and maybe from time to time
they can hurt you more than you would like. But that is the price of living.
That is what makes life worth living. There are good people out there too; I have
chosen to live in town even though there may be enemies there, where there are
enemies, there are also friends. If you stay in the cave you will never find
out.”
And so his friend told him
that there were probably souls out there who felt touched by Thing, who wanted
to talk to him, to get to know Thing.
“But if you stay up here,
you will only know loneliness,” his friend told him. “You can not say who you
have inspired or helped just by being you, by persevering. But if you lock
yourself away and say you have helped no one, then you are just a sad as those
who try to hurt. The universe made you, Thing to live, not to exist in
darkness. No one can protect you from all the hurt but that is the price, for
in all that madness you will find love in the most unlikely places. And if your
mother does not come back then that was her destiny, just as yours is to be
happy.”
The two of them sat and
talked for the rest of the night and then Thing fell asleep much happier than
he had been for the longest time.
When he awoke in the morning
he found that his friend had gone and so he looked for him but he was nowhere
to be seen. The farmer told Thing that his friend had departed at first light.
Then the farmer said that he had left Thing a present.
“I was to tell you it was it
was a likeness of the one person who could make you happy,” said the farmer.
When
Thing opened the present he looked into the mirror and saw himself.
BILLY
Sometimes Thing had so much
fun on his own that he forgot that he was alone. He’d race the spiders to the
front of the cave or he’d dance around the fire just because he wanted to. Some
days while dancing he would shout out, ‘what do you think of this?’ to his
family and then he’d remember they were gone.
One day a new kid came to
school, a kid by the name of Billy McGuire and he was everything that a popular
kid should be. He was good at everything, and the girls swarmed around him and
the boys all wanted to be his friend. You see Billy was a good-looking kid and
at school that meant everything.
He soon became the Captain
of just about every sport except the girls’ netball. People came to him for
advice, even the teachers would let him off with work, usually with the cry:
“Sure Billy, you take as
much time as you want.”
Thing, on the other hand was
considered the complete opposite of Billy. It was assumed that he was no good
at sports, but then again no one would let him try.
“I ain’t showering with that
freak,” they would say.
But Thing knew that he could
throw things farther and that he could jump higher than anyone else in his
school. Yet because of the way he looked, folks tended to think that he was
simple, and stupid, and lame.
One day Billy McGuire passed Thing and
said 'hello' and everyone thought that Billy was a great guy for
spending some of his day saying 'hello' to a thing like Thing.
But Thing read and he read
real good. Billy McGuire didn’t have to try too hard so reading wasn’t a
requirement in his life. Now I’m not saying that Billy was wrong, if life comes
at you on a plate, well you just got to eat it.
But Thing watched people and
Thing could see that some folks were good and some folks were bad and most
folks were always going between one or the other.
Thing always made it a plan,
that no matter how bad he felt on any day, he would do something good for
someone and never let any one know about it.
Then one afternoon while
Thing was walking down by the stream that led back home, he saw Billy McGuire
put a little animal in a bag and throw it into the stream. Billy walked off
whistling to himself and as soon as he had disappeared, Thing rescued the
little critter and after making sure it was all right, he set it free.
And right there and then,
Thing realised that sometimes good looking people are considered to be
something they’re not, just because of their looks and that people who look different
are considered bad at doing stuff just because folks don’t like the way they
are.
Thing
knew that even though he looked different that he was kind and would always
help people without telling anyone.
THE LESSON
Ever since Thing had been
left to fend for himself, he had grown a little harder to life. I suppose that
life is a matter of holding on to your innocence until gravity eventually
catches up with you and then, it’s all a matter of how you deal with that.
From the outside, Thing was
still the same beautiful soul that he had always been. The change was in the
little things - like in his singing. Once, he would burst forth with a song to
make himself happy and without him realising it, he also made those within
earshot smile, too. But there had been too many times when there was laughter
and sniggering at this signing by those at school, and so he became a little
more self-conscious about his tunefulness.
Gravity hits us all in the
end and hopefully most of us have someone there to help us through it all. The
problem with Thing was that since his mother had gone off to a place that Thing
was sure she would return from, he had to deal with all the harder problems of
life himself. And that can be a
dangerous way to live.
Rules that are made to keep
you safe, can inevitably keep people out.
He remembered what
Grandfather Thing had told him “A heart builds walls to protect a heart, but in
the end you build a jail for yourself, and in building that jail all the bad
stuff is trapped inside with you”.
One day Thing went to
school, as he always did, but lately he had started to stop singing when he got
to the bottom of the mountain, so as not to attract attention. He would walk
very quietly to the school doors and sit at the side of the classroom – in
order that he would neither upset nor disturb anyone.
But there are two things
wrong with that thinking (as his mother would have told him had she been
there). The first is that there are some people in this world who are so
unhappy within themselves, that they hurt people who are making a noise, just
as easily as they hurt those who are quiet.
It is as if they were
saying: ‘I am unhappy then I want you to be unhappy too’. The other point was that
if Thing had bothered to talk to the children in the classroom, he would have
found that there were people who wanted to talk to him too. One girl thought
Thing was the coolest kid in class but as he’d never got around to speaking to her, he hadn’t
found that out. Another kid at the front of the class wanted to know what kind
of stuff he did for hobbies but was too shy to talk to Thing.
You see Thing keeping
quiet - (and instead of him thinking that it meant 'I don’t want to
upset any of you') - ended up being seen as ‘Thing didn’t want
to mix with any of us because he thinks he’s too good for us’.
In this life, you can’t
second-guess anyone’s thoughts, and you can’t walk about protecting yourself
from Gravity – because as sure as there is a sun in the sky, one day Gravity is
gonna hunt you down and get you. And that’s when you want as many hearts on
your side as possible. So Thing was making his life a little harder than it
needed to be, by keeping himself to himself.
Yet sooner rather than
later, Thing would find out that by breaking down the walls and being
yourself would upset some people (because some people are walking
different paths, that’s all) but the rest, the ones who saw the beauty in who
you were, well, these were the ones worth holding on to.
And on that sunny day when Thing
worked all this out in his heart and his head, was the day he started to sing
again and not worry who could hear: because being yourself catches the hearts that matter.
He knew that when his mother returned, she would
be proud of all these thoughts and the lessons he had learned.
Thing was
growing up and he liked the feeling.
When Thing and his parents
lived in the cave, it was their custom to paint pictures on the walls about
what they had done that day. The cave was covered with stories; some new, some
from many years before, and Thing would spend hours looking at them.
When Thing’s father left and
then his mother, Thing continued to paint the pictures on the wall, knowing
that someday they would return and see how he had spent his time.
Then one day - and Thing was
sure if it was because of the sadness that came to visit him from time to time
- he didn’t feel like painting on the wall anymore and so put away the brushes
for good.
Instead he found a little
animal that lived at the back of the cave and he told it all the stories of the
day he had just spent.
“And the teacher said that I
was the best in the class for listening,” and if the little animal was
interested or if it wasn’t, it was hard to tell as it scurried about the dark
parts of the cave looking for food.
Then one night, when the sun
was setting, and the little animal was nowhere to be found, Thing found a pen
and paper and started to write his stories down. Because he knew that when his
family returned he would be able to read those stories to them.
One day when Thing got home
he realised that nothing much had happened to him that particular day and he
wondered what he could write about. That was when thing decided to make a story
up in his head about a pretend day.
The story started ‘One
day…’, because Thing felt that was how all stories should start. It told of the
day that Thing came home from school and he found that his mother and father
were waiting on him. They hugged and held him and promised him that they would
never leave. Thing loved that story and decided to take it to school with him
so that he could read it when he was feeling sad.
At break, he sat in a quiet
corner where he would disturb no one and he took out his story that started
‘One day….’ and he read it all the way through. It was just as he was putting
the story away that it was snatched from his hands.
“Lookie here what weird kid
has written. Aw, he misses him Mom and Dad. Well ain’t that a shame,” and the
kid ran off with the story, laughing and joking.
Thing went to class and said
nothing. At the back of the room, two kids who had now got hold of Thing’s
story, were laughing and repeating some of the words that Thing had written.
The teacher went to find out
what was the source of all the noise and took the story from them. She returned
to her desk and read it.
“Does anyone know whose this
is?” Holding the paper up.
The boys pointed to Thing.
“This is really very good,
Thing, very good indeed. Come and see me at the end of the class. “
At the end of the lesson the
kids all left except for Thing, who assumed that he was to be punished for
writing a story.
“I think this is brilliant,
“ said the teacher. “And in future I should like to read any stories that you
have.”
Thing thanked the teacher. She asked if she could take it home to read again and then she held his hand
and said:
“I know those boys were
laughing at your story but it is only fear. They are scared of activities that
they can’t do themselves. There is bound to be some stuff that they can do,
that you can’t. That is life. However, just because people laugh or criticise
what you do, doesn’t mean that they are right and you are wrong; if everyone
did the same things, thought the same way - what a boring world it would be. As
long as there is one person who attempts or believes something different, then
that immediately means that there are at least two truths - they are not right
and you are not wrong. “
And with that, Thing walked
away happy and was already thinking of another story he would write that
evening.
bobby stevenson 2014
