flickr photo credits: (1) bionicteaching (2) Serenae (3) bionicteaching (4) keepps (5) bionicteaching
Five Card Story: the birds in the forest
a Five Card Flickr story by storytelling threads created Nov 09 2014, 07:51:44 pm. Create a new one!
about this story
Once upon a time, a woman lived in a very poor place where there were no shops and no farms, just forests and lakes and so if she got hungry she needed to catch a fish, or dig for tasty roots of trees and eat the fruit from trees that were safe to eat. She loved being in the forest. ( here I realise I need to get in, hands on and specific ) She built her own house out of logs and branches and she was safe and warm during the soft starry summer nights and the wild wet winter nights ( language sounds are wonderful for children…. She tamed birds so that they would come when she sang their particular song. She could call a hawk, a kingfisher and a thrush. ( here I thought I could make her able to call whole species……the hawks, the kingfishers… then it becomes more mythic.. so I stayed single)The thrush was the tamest. She called him Speckle the thrush. ( option here of describing the other birds and maybe naming them with the help of the children/ listeners).
Then one day into the peaceful forest a large blue noisy thing on wheels drove into her life. It was a van and in the van was a man who was running away from the police. He had committed a terrible crime and he was looking for a place to hide. He was loud and rude and the woman knew that her life would change forever if she let him stay.
But the birds did not seem to mind him being there and they came when she called and perched on his shoulders as well. He was amazed as much as she was because he was usually rough and birds usually fled from him. One hawk in particular came to the man. ( my problem now is that my problem is already solved……..not easy…creating problems…………
Ok, change the story….. he arrived in the van . he was on the run. He raped the woman and he took her food. Every night she wept and the birds heard her and cried their bird cries in response. The months passed and the woman gave birth to a small child. The hawk stayed and watched the child, when the woman was searching for food and the thrush played games with the chlld and made her laugh, while the king fisher watched like a hawk…..ha ha…….. maybe change the birds so that they have separate skills………..ah yes, the kingfished would help the woman catch fish,the hawk helped catch rabbits and keep guard and the thrush cuddled between her breasts and sand gentle songs to her when she was sad.
And then the soldiers came. ( the man is not painted well enough………well maybe he is gone from the story, maybe that is all he came to do…………). When the soldiers came the man had to escape but he had grown fond of his child and his strange birdloving woman and he wanted to take them with him. He invited them to escape but the birds knew she would be miserable in a city and they became vicious when the man tried to take the child. The hawks claws and the kingfisher’s beak won the day and the man left, alone., and on foot because the van had long since used up all the petrol
The child grew up to be a fine young woman and she wanted to know who her father was, and what the story was behind the rusting wreck of the van. Her mother told her all that she knew and the young woman set off to find her father. The birds went with her. She went to cities and followed clues and traces from city to city, and eventually she found herself crossing a huge lake to a city in the snowy mountains, where she heard he might be living. He would be quite old now and she knew she must hurry if she were to meet him. ( why would she want to? Who would help her mother?
She found him. Lonely, heartbroken and remorseful, he gazed on his beautiful daughter with admiration and regret, and knew that he had been blessed to have a child who cared enough to find him. He came home wither and built them all a beautiful simple home and they lived together happily till the end of their days.
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flickr photo credits: (1) bionicteaching (2) Serenae (3) bionicteaching (4) keepps (5) bionicteaching