A Blast from the Past...

Storytelling Game, circa 2008

If you are not exactly sure how the Storytelling Game, which produced the following literary gems one decade-distant evening, is played, ask the Ancients.

Genre: Mystery

Situations: Stealing your Best Friend’s Cow, “He nailed right through a cable and out went all the lights.”

Characters: Jimmy Jones, a hot tempered redhead, Dell Fent, the first man to walk around the world, Ivan Skavinsky Skavar, a one-legged man

The Greenwoods Rang

 by Kate (Barry) Mokuenza

It was a dangerous wood, dark, dense, green and very spooky. It had been said that even a person running through it very fast might not come out alive. They might not come out at all.

One day, Jimmy Jones, a hot tempered red haired boy from up in the hills somewhere decided to try to pass through the woods. He wanted some comrades to go with him, so first he went to his friend Ivan Skavinski Skavar. Ivan had been injured in a war and only had one leg, but his personality and skill as a hunter made up for it. Jimmy went to him with no hesitation. Iban was putting up picture frames in his house when Jimmy came. “Say Ivan, would you go with me through those green woods?” Jimmy asked. Ivan was so startled he forgot to stop hammering. He nailed right through a cable and out went all the lights. He said he would go but only if Jimmy would steal the next door neighbor’s cow to get a family feud started, since things were too dull. Jimmy didn’t want to since the next door neighbor happened to be his best friend, Dell Fent. Dell was a great walker and he would have been the perfect one to complete the wood running trio. He was such a good walker in fact, he had been the first to walk around the world. But, Jimmy stole the cow anyway, and hid it in a nearby barn. Soon the three men, Jimmy, Ivan and Dell, started out. Fortunately Dell had no idea it was Jimmy who had stolen the cow and he didn’t mind leaving and letting his wife look for it.

It was late afternoon when the men started out and as they approached the wood a faint ringing sound became apparent to the ears of Ivan. He thought not much of it and said nothing.

An hour later the men were well into the woods and it was quite dark in there. Dell’s lantern went out suddenly. Now it would be very difficult to find their way. As they stubled along, the rigning sound was heard again, this time by all three. They became very nervous, and each one found a hiding place. Ivan under a log, Jimmy in a tree and Dell behind a rock. The ringing grew louder and it was like the sound of a bell. The wood was filled with the sound.

People living nearby wondered at it as it went on for days. The families of the men gave them up for dead.

Meanwhile the ringing went on and the men never returned. So the mystery remained unsolved and only you and I will ever know that the greenwoods rang with the bell of a stolen cow.

Genre: Mystery

Situations: A Shipwreck, Being Stranded on a Desert Island, Reading Tintin and Drinking Coffee on the Roof, Iran Nukes Israel

Characters: Vladimir McBurny, an assassin, Patrick, a one eyed Irish barkeep, Angus, a bagpipe wielding Scottish lad

The Words that Killed Me

 by Anna (Barry) Pinkerton

I, Vladimir McBurny, was born on March 5, 1970 and my life went downhill from there. However, I do not wish to relate all my troubles and trials—how I was kidnapped and raised to be an assassin, how I almost froze in to winter of my 27^th year, how I was shipwrecked in the South Seas and stranded on a desert island with two crackpots—Angus, a bagpipe wielding Scottish lad (unfortunately his pipes were no worse for the salt water) who claimed he could play the pipes like a MacCrimmon, and Patrick, a one eyed Irish barkeep. When the weren’t brawling over which country produced the best warriors and whose saints were cooler, Angus was playing his infernal pipes and Patrick was telling boring stories of his bartending days.If I’d had my way, we’d have spent our time reading Tintin and drinking coffee on our makeshift thatch roof. After six months we hadn’t killed each other. Instead, we became fast friends. We swore eternal friendship, exchanged armor and spears (actually our ragged shirts and pocket knives, and even went so far as becoming blood brothers and signing a compact that we would always stick together. We realized that the island was too small for the likes of us and started swimming. Eventually, we were rescued. But all this matters little. I really want to recount the story of the “killing words.” As I mentioned I was an assassin in training when I got sidetracked on the island. Once I made it back to Russia I was sent on a secret mission to Iran. Trouble was brewing because Iranian scientist kept dying mysteriously and the Israelis were saying “It’s all the Russians’ fault.” My job was to discover the cause of the deaths and keep Russia and Iran on good terms. Of course I brought my two friend Angus and Patrick along to help. My mission led me to the homes of 9 different leading scientist and technicians who had mysteriously died. There had been no sign of external wounds, poison, visible bruises or any other reasonable cause of death. Each body however had been found in a crumpled heap as if every bone had been instantaneously broken. Also in each case the death had come after receiving the morning mail. When the mail had been searched similar papers with a repeated word had been found in each case. The word, repeated six times, was in a language no one recognized or had any guess of its pronunciation. It took months, but eventually we figured out that these letters had been sent from Israel (thanks mostly to Patrick who loved hanging out in bars.) The next step was to actually exame the letters wich too a lot of persuasion and beer from Patrick. Angus said he had a funny feeling about the letters and that he thought he’d read somewhere (he was very well read) about a word with uncanny power. So, despite living in enlightened times, I thought we’d better act on it, since the Russian government was breathing down my neck, wanting results. So while Patrick was handing out free beer, Angus and I snuck into the high security safe and got our hands on the papers. It looked gibberish to me, but he said he wanted more time so I went to keep a look out for him. It wasn’t but three minutes later I heard him scream and I ran back. He seemed to be crumbling before my eyes but I heard him mutter “The words…it was the words that killed me.”

I reported everything but the political relations got really hot. Russia tried to step in, but Iran nuked Israel in retaliation. When the UN got involved everything was muddled up and no one was ever able to found the exact origin or author of the letters and no one believed it was just words anyway. That sort of thing never happened in the modern world. Time passed and people forgot the whole ordeal—other trouble came and no one remembered it seemed except me and Patrick. We never forgot Angus. I never doubted Angus’s last words. Strangely, just the other day I heard someone joking about “the deplorable word” I wouldn’t have noticed, but that’s just what Angus had called his unnatural word—perhaps that was the word that killed him.

Genre: Gothic Horror

Situations: A Wedding, a Murder

Characters: Janet, a hot tempered redhead, Jethro, Matilda, a farmer’s wife who hates marigolds

Diary of a Madman

by Sarah (Barry) Kolster

Janet and I had been sweethearts when we were young. Now I was attending her wedding. It made my blood run cold to think of the hot tempered, redheaded beauty walking out of my life forever. In fact, it made me go mad.

It’s been months now. I live alone in the woods. Matilda, the wife of a nearby farmer, comes by with a shrewish expression on her bald face every couple days to make sure I haven’t planted marigolds by the roadside. She hates them, as do I. They were Janet’s favorite. One day, I swear, I will set my heart at rest and have revenge. Jethro. That’s the name of the devil who married my love. Any man with such a name ought not to be trusted. I was unaware of the true evil of that family until last week when I met, quite unexpectedly, the devil’s younger sister.

“Oh, sir, pray sir,” a gangly figure bleated out of the shrubbery. “Do assist—pray help me. I cannot find my way.”

“Get you now your head out, and find your bearings so.” I directed to the bush. A platinum mane appeared, a pair of coy gray eyes, and then the whole body of a young woman. I grasped my hatchet tighter. This person appeared innocent, but I trusted no one. “I come to visit my brother and his wife,” said the person. “Know you him?” I laughed. “I once did. He is dead by my hatchet and lies beneath my feet.” The lady of exquisite hair looked baffled. “’Tis a drought. You could not have dug so far to bury my brother, for he is no small man. Think you so strong of arm?”

“Strong enough to slay you here with this hatchet.” And there I murdered the kin of my enemy. Now Jethro takes his life in grief, Janet weeps each night, and Matilda has left me in a panic to plant marigolds if I so choose. I am at peace. A murderer and a madman, happy, happy am I!”

Genre: Science Fiction

Situations: A funeral, an explosion, living on a farm

Characters: Ivan McGee, hot tempered, Callihan O’Brady, Monseiur Love

When Love Takes Wing

by Emily (Barry) Lightner

His mother was born east of the Blue Don—his father was born in the Scottish highlands. There for his incongruous and unfortunate name was Ivan McGee. To complicate his situation still further, his parents had immigrated while he was still a baby, so must of his childhood and young adult life was spent on a farm somewhere in the table flat plains of South Dakota. He preferred actions to words and violent action to any other kind.

The last two members of the tragic trio who are to play their brief part on this truncated stage were his childhood friends—the Irish Callihan O’Brady, a boy of his own age, and an elderly French scientist known to his closest associates as “Monsieur Love” for a reason that was never apparent to Ivan.

And now—on to the event without which there would have been no story…Picture the scene. It was close to midnight. The moon was full, bathing the plains in gray light. The two boys, Ivan and Cal, were asleep in their tree house, (which, their land being treeless, was on the ground,) snuggled in their sleeping bags. The night was peaceful and quiet, save for the faint murmur of the stars. The heavy barn doors are closed—but look—from the generous cracks trickles and eerie blue light.

Ivan stirred restlessly. Was it the noise, or lack of it that woke him? Was it the light? With infinite care, he eased himself out of his sleeping back and fell heavily onto Cal’s stomach. Cal howled. Ivan clapped a shaking hand over his friend’s mouth. With a few well chosen words Ivan appraised him of the situation—well chosen words hissed from between teeth clenched in fury—“Love—he’s at it again—the stardust!”

With Ivan, it was the work of a moment to crash his way through the rotting panels of the ancient door. It was only another moment and he was face to face with the terrified scientist who fumbled weakly with the vials and packets of powders on the plank table before him—pink powder, purple powder, and the precious pearly white powder that he had been working for years to perfect.

“You vile fiend! You creature of the Pit! Heresy! Atheist! Iconoclast!” Ivan seized the old man’s thin wrist and flung him backwards against the wall. He sent the table of powders crashing on top of him. “Keep your filthy hands off the stars!” For the spookily flickering blue lamp that had been on the table it was the work of a moment to ignite upon some of the raw materials used in the preparation of the precious pearly white powder, the world’s most powerful and long lasting rocket ship fuel. The barn disintegrated in one blinding flash, tinged with lightening blue.

That was in 1969. However, a recent space probe’s photographs have confirmed that some of the rubble is still in orbit, as are the lifeless bodies of Ivan McGee, Callihan O’Brady, and Monsieur Love.