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My NaNo this year is based off a story my friend Jeremy told me about a British woman he met at work who always told him she wanted to steal his voice. Jeremy is an average person who suffers from the affliction of Sexy Voice. He could be a radio announcer or something, it's very impressive.
Anyway, an excerpt, about 1,200 words. PG, I guess. Can you tell I'm having fun with this?
Prologue
The story was originally nothing but a defense mechanism dreamed up on a wing and a prayer one night while I was babysitting. Children, particularly little girls, can be shrill and demanding, as shrill and demanding as any villain I can dream up in a story. The little girls wanted something new, because I had already told them innumerable times the toe story.
I first read the toe story at a young age in one of my brother’s ghost story books. Another story in that book was about a sewer rat that a little boy mistakes as his pet dog. This scared me more than it really should have, much more than the toe story ever did, but I still persevere in telling and retelling the toe story because its potential as an oral history is very good, if in the hands and mouth of the right person. I have told the toe story many times over my life, so it’s evident that I am not the right person to tell it, to shape it and make it haunt the listener. However, I continue to try until I get an acceptable scream out of all of them, or until I find a better ghost story.
~
The toe story, for those uninitiated in its majestic graces and tragic plot twists:
A poor farmer boy is working in his field one day, hoeing and hoeing and hoeing until suddenly his hoe goes twang in his hands. He bent down to look at the object his hoe has hit. At first he thinks it some strange sort of dwarfish potato, then realizes that it is in fact a toe. A human toe. He is able to pick it up and, still looking at it ponderously, brings it into his house.
He and his family make a grand feast of the toe that night at dinner, and let me just editorialize here and point out that obviously the economy of the country in which these people live is really hurting if they consider that toe a great feast. That’s beside the point, however. The point is that later that night, after the parents had gone to sleep, the boy was lying awake.
(At this point I would attempt to infuse a bit of imagery into the story for the benefit of my young listeners.)
The boy slept next to the fireplace, but the family was so poor they could not afford to light it. There was a small rectangular window in the wall that the boy stared at at night when he could not sleep. That night it was cloudy but silvery moonlight still managed to filter into the house (though I suppose one could only consider it a shack.)
The night was perfectly still. The boy listened, even stopped breathing for a few seconds, and heard nothing.
Normally this would be enough to send the boy off into whatever escape disturbingly impoverished young people can find in their dreams. He was just on the precipice of sleep and waking when he first heard it.
Thump.
The boy’s eyes opened, calling him back into consciousness. Cat on roof, he thinks. Curious, curious.
Eyes closed again, but this time he could not go back to sleep. He heard the thump again.
Monster from below, he thought, above, knocking on my roof.
The boy had always been fearless so this thought made him grin.
The thumps kept repeating, however. The parents were asleep, and the boy knew he should have been as well because the new day would bring more fields that must be hoed, more seeds that must be planted, more chores that must be done.
Still, he could not tear his mind from the car or dog or wind
(or monster)
or whatever it was on the roof. The thumping had not decreased. In fact, it had gotten louder. And closer.
The wind had picked up as well, howling like an owl or a mourning dove. Suddenly the boy wanted to get up, rush out of the house and howl at the moon with the wolves, to coo at the stars and brush the blue night with his wings, to forget about potatoes and toes and chores and dirt for the rest of his life, to never have to hoe the field or plant in it, only feel its softness beneath his toes.
This momentary burst of energy passed. He only wanted to sleep and ignore the moaning and thumping and the rest.
But the moaning and the thumping and the rest wouldn’t let him
“Who?” the wind moaned now. “Who?
“No one,” said the boy. “No one, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Who? Who?” it kept asking. “Who took it?”
Nobody had. The boy closed his eyes and hid his face in the pillow.
“Who?” Closer now. “Who did it?”
“No one,” the boy whispered, but did not know that he whispered it.
“Who did it? Who took my toe?” Right in his ear now.
“Who took my toe?” A demand.
The silence.
(A very long silence here when telling this out loud, for the benefit of the young listeners.)
The boy’s entire body was still.
“YOU DID IT!”
~
The ending is what you really have to watch out for. All that political stuff and the feeling-the-softness-of-the-dirt shit I threw in just to pad it out. Really, the only part that matters is YOU DID IT! The rest is just filler.
People are supposed to scream after you tell the toe story only because of the YOU DID IT! not because of any merit actually from the story itself. In a way, the story is only filler for the final line, and the final line only scares because it is loud and sudden after a period of calm. The rest is tired and predictable.
The little girls who had asked me to tell the toe story said tantamount to this after I had told them the toe story once again. “It’s lame. Very lame. We want something new.”
This was a reasonable request. Children constantly demand for the new and different, for constant change and updated-ness, and why shouldn’t they? The spice of life is not in repetition, I can tell you that.
So I reached into the corners of my mind and fished out a story whose seed (seeds which farmer boys plant while finding big toes in the earth) had been planted there one day. I told them the story of a farmer boy who lost his voice to a violet-eyed witch.
The farmer boy in this case is one with a deep voice, sleepy eyes, and skin like milk.
The villain has violet eyes because eyes are windows to the soul, or so I have been told. Violet implies vitality, coquetry, and demand.
The story is called Cesse de Parler. Even if most of it is filler and tired and predictable, it is still Cesse de Parler.
“Why?” came the demand.
It is because the phrase implies a demand that the farmer boy had no choice but to obey. Compliance was inevitable. Cesse de parler, and he did so.
“Is it French?” came the question (from the little girl).
Yes, it is. The phrase, I believe, implies the demand and urgency that compelled the farmer boy to do as he did.
“Cesse de parler! ” she demanded and condemned him into silence.
Anyway, an excerpt, about 1,200 words. PG, I guess. Can you tell I'm having fun with this?
The story was originally nothing but a defense mechanism dreamed up on a wing and a prayer one night while I was babysitting. Children, particularly little girls, can be shrill and demanding, as shrill and demanding as any villain I can dream up in a story. The little girls wanted something new, because I had already told them innumerable times the toe story.
I first read the toe story at a young age in one of my brother’s ghost story books. Another story in that book was about a sewer rat that a little boy mistakes as his pet dog. This scared me more than it really should have, much more than the toe story ever did, but I still persevere in telling and retelling the toe story because its potential as an oral history is very good, if in the hands and mouth of the right person. I have told the toe story many times over my life, so it’s evident that I am not the right person to tell it, to shape it and make it haunt the listener. However, I continue to try until I get an acceptable scream out of all of them, or until I find a better ghost story.
The toe story, for those uninitiated in its majestic graces and tragic plot twists:
A poor farmer boy is working in his field one day, hoeing and hoeing and hoeing until suddenly his hoe goes twang in his hands. He bent down to look at the object his hoe has hit. At first he thinks it some strange sort of dwarfish potato, then realizes that it is in fact a toe. A human toe. He is able to pick it up and, still looking at it ponderously, brings it into his house.
He and his family make a grand feast of the toe that night at dinner, and let me just editorialize here and point out that obviously the economy of the country in which these people live is really hurting if they consider that toe a great feast. That’s beside the point, however. The point is that later that night, after the parents had gone to sleep, the boy was lying awake.
(At this point I would attempt to infuse a bit of imagery into the story for the benefit of my young listeners.)
The boy slept next to the fireplace, but the family was so poor they could not afford to light it. There was a small rectangular window in the wall that the boy stared at at night when he could not sleep. That night it was cloudy but silvery moonlight still managed to filter into the house (though I suppose one could only consider it a shack.)
The night was perfectly still. The boy listened, even stopped breathing for a few seconds, and heard nothing.
Normally this would be enough to send the boy off into whatever escape disturbingly impoverished young people can find in their dreams. He was just on the precipice of sleep and waking when he first heard it.
Thump.
The boy’s eyes opened, calling him back into consciousness. Cat on roof, he thinks. Curious, curious.
Eyes closed again, but this time he could not go back to sleep. He heard the thump again.
Monster from below, he thought, above, knocking on my roof.
The boy had always been fearless so this thought made him grin.
The thumps kept repeating, however. The parents were asleep, and the boy knew he should have been as well because the new day would bring more fields that must be hoed, more seeds that must be planted, more chores that must be done.
Still, he could not tear his mind from the car or dog or wind
(or monster)
or whatever it was on the roof. The thumping had not decreased. In fact, it had gotten louder. And closer.
The wind had picked up as well, howling like an owl or a mourning dove. Suddenly the boy wanted to get up, rush out of the house and howl at the moon with the wolves, to coo at the stars and brush the blue night with his wings, to forget about potatoes and toes and chores and dirt for the rest of his life, to never have to hoe the field or plant in it, only feel its softness beneath his toes.
This momentary burst of energy passed. He only wanted to sleep and ignore the moaning and thumping and the rest.
But the moaning and the thumping and the rest wouldn’t let him
“Who?” the wind moaned now. “Who?
“No one,” said the boy. “No one, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Who? Who?” it kept asking. “Who took it?”
Nobody had. The boy closed his eyes and hid his face in the pillow.
“Who?” Closer now. “Who did it?”
“No one,” the boy whispered, but did not know that he whispered it.
“Who did it? Who took my toe?” Right in his ear now.
“Who took my toe?” A demand.
The silence.
(A very long silence here when telling this out loud, for the benefit of the young listeners.)
The boy’s entire body was still.
“YOU DID IT!”
The ending is what you really have to watch out for. All that political stuff and the feeling-the-softness-of-the-dirt shit I threw in just to pad it out. Really, the only part that matters is YOU DID IT! The rest is just filler.
People are supposed to scream after you tell the toe story only because of the YOU DID IT! not because of any merit actually from the story itself. In a way, the story is only filler for the final line, and the final line only scares because it is loud and sudden after a period of calm. The rest is tired and predictable.
The little girls who had asked me to tell the toe story said tantamount to this after I had told them the toe story once again. “It’s lame. Very lame. We want something new.”
This was a reasonable request. Children constantly demand for the new and different, for constant change and updated-ness, and why shouldn’t they? The spice of life is not in repetition, I can tell you that.
So I reached into the corners of my mind and fished out a story whose seed (seeds which farmer boys plant while finding big toes in the earth) had been planted there one day. I told them the story of a farmer boy who lost his voice to a violet-eyed witch.
The farmer boy in this case is one with a deep voice, sleepy eyes, and skin like milk.
The villain has violet eyes because eyes are windows to the soul, or so I have been told. Violet implies vitality, coquetry, and demand.
The story is called Cesse de Parler. Even if most of it is filler and tired and predictable, it is still Cesse de Parler.
“Why?” came the demand.
It is because the phrase implies a demand that the farmer boy had no choice but to obey. Compliance was inevitable. Cesse de parler, and he did so.
“Is it French?” came the question (from the little girl).
Yes, it is. The phrase, I believe, implies the demand and urgency that compelled the farmer boy to do as he did.
“Cesse de parler! ” she demanded and condemned him into silence.