The Storyteller

By Robyn Doherty

April-May Collins is a thirty-year-old ordinary-looking librarian who often feels her life is dull and boring. To embellish it, she engages her unique and wild imagination. It often gets her into trouble.

A setback from a recent relationship breakup threatens to propel her spiraling, once again, into depression.

Encouraged by her concerned mother one mild Spring Sunday morning, April goes for a walk through her favourite forest. While there, she allows her imagination to run free. It does and takes her to an imaginary island and on a fantastic journey of self-discovery.

Along the way, April-May meets some interesting humans and numerous animals and gains a few insightful lessons. Their somewhat unconventional guidance eventually assists her to make the necessary changes so she can find her way back home. The path is a rocky but rewarding and enlightening one.

April, obsessed with dragons, feels there has to be at least one, and friendly at that, to fly home on.

And so she begins her search.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514441299

Robyn Doherty

Born in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, Robyn spent her childhood loving the idea of romance and adventure. Her love of reading didn’t set in until teenage years. A whole new world opened up along with her fascination of tales, true and imagined. After training as a nurse, Robyn went on to travel extensively before settling to raise three children. At the writing of this, she is an excited first-time grandmother. The writing of novels came as a complete surprise when taking a break from her job. Now, having discovered this new love, she is driven to write short stories and create her own world of, well, of anything really. There is no limit to the mind! Robyn, who works with several healing modalities, also continues to work in the general health industry. She lives near the small town of Barnawartha, in Victoria’s picturesque North East, on a property of ten acres with a cat, a horse, and a regular visiting flock of noisy cockatoos, galas, and currawongs.

Book preview

Downward Spiral

April-May Collins – you’d think my parents would’ve come up with a better name. No imagination.

I was due to be born, you see, on the cusp of April and May, and they couldn’t decide on a name. My father, Shane, wanted ‘Thelma’ after his grandmother, and my mother, Grace, liked ‘Helen’ after her mother, but when I was gestating, they nicknamed me April-May. An answer they gave to everyone who asked when I was due. I was born on the dot of midnight, April thirtieth and May first, thirty years ago.

To me, my name often represents where I’m at in life, that is, in between.

In between boyfriends. In between fat and thin. In between tall and short. In between blonde and brown. In between the pages of books, in between library isles, due to the fact I’m a librarian, with mousy-coloured hair, medium height and build.

I don’t stand out.

I’m ordinary. My life is ordinary, routine, and may appear to others as dull.

Though, unlike my parents, I have a wild fantastical imagination. I live mostly in a dream world, but my other passions are reading and telling stories to children.

I get so engrossed with the tale, I feel as though I become it. I imagine myself to be those characters, in those scenes doing fabulous things. I love words and how they can be woven together to form imaginary worlds. Ones that appear better and more interesting than mine.

I love the way little children’s faces light up with wonder, and I can tell that they’re letting their imagination’s run wild, with no restrictions or boundaries. They happily join in on the journey, contributing their view on where the story’s heading. Fear usually only comes in when they’ve been told or warned by an adult or an older child that nasty things are out to get them, and the unknown is scary.

Of course they may have experienced fear first hand, like I have.

My father’s an alcoholic. In my mind, I often refer to him as ‘shameful Shane’. For periods of time, he can be great and then darkness will descend upon him and he goes on a binge. We know when it’s time to get out of his way. He gets nasty and picks fights with me and my mother. Neither of us can do, nor say, anything right. He’s more the verbally abusive rather than the physically abusive type. It still leaves its mark. When I was little, I would hide in my room and imagine him to be an ogre or bear who’s been woken up out of hibernation unwillingly, grumpy and upset with his lot. I would then imagine him crawling back into his cave and waking up to become my nice daddy again. Sometimes this technique worked. But then sometimes, he turned into such a monster that I found myself imagining a brave warrior shutting my dad in his cave and rescuing me.

Part of my father’s problem is that he has a dull, unfulfilled life. He’s been doing the same monotonous job in a factory, where he drives a forklift, for thirty years. He took the job on reluctantly, as his playtime caught up with him and he was suddenly responsible for a wife and an unexpected child. Now he feels it’s too late to change. ‘What else can I do at my age?’ he grumbles in a hopeless voice whenever the subject arises.

‘Take a chance, learn something new,’ I answer encouragingly. But he’s probably right – it’s too late in the journey to change roads now. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and all that stuff. Fear has set in and he feels stuck. Too scared or entrenched to do things or see things differently. ‘To be truthful,’ he says, ‘I can’t imagine doing anything else.’ And that’s it in a nutshell. He can’t imagine. Another thing he’s left behind with his wild, single days.

Although apparently he’d had quite a gift for storytelling when he was younger, in between when bouts of depression and alcohol didn’t envelop him. For a long time, I believed the stories to be true tales of his adventures, until I realised they were his unrealised dreams. He would tell me about wonderful adventures of his travels around Australia. How he’d wrestled wild northern cattle and ridden into the sunset in outback Queensland, or water-skied on the Murray or fished for barramundi in the Daly River, in the Territory. All in his imagination, so at least at one point, he’d had one.

These stories, I came to understand, were how he’d wished his life had been. But he was too absorbed in his own reality to see he could change, or do whatever he wanted, or imagined.

Now my mother, Grace, or ‘my saving grace’ as I call her, has a different coping mechanism. She doesn’t tell stories to enhance her life; instead, she retreats within herself. She hides in comfort food or soppy movies or a book. Her life as mother and wife hasn’t lived up to her expectations either. She never would have imagined life being so hard; instead, she had imagined my father changing and ceasing his drinking. Them having more money, and more children other than just me. My mother, when she was younger, imagined her life would be filled with adventures like in my father’s stories, but when it wasn’t, she also stopped imagining.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents and see them as people in their own right. We are all vulnerable, make mistakes, and sometimes our choices leave a lot to be desired. But I don’t want to end up like them, filled with sadness and unfulfilled dreams. Just living in a fog, waiting for something else to happen, although I’ve had an inkling lately that that’s exactly where my life is heading.

I’m a librarian, and as I’ve said, I love stories. Books give me a chance to escape from the dullness of life into a world of make-believe. I love autobiographies, too, but I tend to make the mistake of comparing my boring life with those of the authors. Their lives always seem so much more interesting.

I haven’t travelled nor lived on my own for a long time, but I am dating. I met Peter eight months ago at the library where I work. One day, we got chatting and he asked me out for a coffee. I took the plunge (excuse the pun) and said yes.

I’ve had various boyfriends over the time but none of them, and here I’m sad to admit, including Peter, have made me feel excited, or desired. Like women are portrayed to feel in books or movies. I’ve never been ‘in love’. I want more than anything to be swept off my feet and kissed passionately and rescued from … what? I have no idea really, from my life perhaps.

My mind dips into fantasy, and I start to imagine what I’m looking for. Unconditional love, someone to care for and be there for me. Someone to send my heart and body buzzing.

After work today I’m meeting with Peter to have dinner. We get along well, but no sirens, as I said, are going off for me. I don’t feel swept off my feet, yet. Maybe I just need to give it more time. Certainly no ‘love at first sight’ so to speak. I slowly began to realise I’ve been talking myself into being in love, without feeling it.

Peter’s thirty-five, solidly built, bordering on tubby, with light brown hair that he keeps closely cropped, as if he’s in the army. He isn’t. He’s an accountant. Facts and figures are meaningful to him. They make little sense to me.

Whenever we catch up for coffee or a drink after work and tell each other about our day, mine is usually about the wonderful stories I’ve read out to the children and how I’m always spellbound by their curiosity and questions. Whereas Peter’s day is filled with stories of people who can’t balance their books, need tax advice or a good business plan. Sound, solid information, like him, with no embellishment or flair. I sit quietly and listen. I watch and wonder how he finds his work interesting or inspiring. No room for imagination. Peter and his work get on just fine; both are straight down the line.

‘Where do I fit into this picture?’ I’ve asked myself loads of times, more so lately. We are so different. Although I can see my mother’s point of view, he’s a stabiliser for me, keeps me grounded. Do I want to be grounded?

I try to allow his condescending comments or opinions about me glide past and not take hold. Like when he says, ‘This is the only real world you know, spirits and ghosts don’t exist,’ as if what I believe is ridiculous or wrong. Or when he thinks I’ve become too fanciful about something, he brings me back to ‘reality’ by reminding me that my imagination is over the top. But I’m often left wondering if he likes some of me, or all of me. The parts of me that Peter doesn’t always ‘approve’ of are the parts that perhaps become too involved in a book or movie or in the dreams I have, of how I want my life to be. Possibly he’s right, but he makes judgements on my thoughts, and somehow, I’m left feeling uncomfortable about being me.

When I feel he is correcting me or subtlety fashioning me into someone more appropriate or sensible, I rebel – not openly, too confronting, but in my mind. I imagine him to be more sensitive and kinder, better looking, heroic, and adventurous. The poor fellow has no hope of competing with my imagination. In my dreams, I visit other places and times where he’s fallen madly and passionately in love with me and rescues me from some terrible danger. A place where romance and spontaneity are rife. I confess I’m a bit nutty, but I secretly like that about myself.

*

At the library, it’s three-o’clock story time. A group of four-year-olds are spread out cross-legged on the floor in front of me. They are my favourite age group, not yet changed by school, but old enough to have fabulous imaginations. They sit, some staring up with big innocent eyes, quietly engaged and patiently waiting for me to start, while others are fidgeting and restless, not accustomed to being still. These are my most challenging. These are the ones I have to impress from the get go. So I draw their attention with a few words about my story and then I’m off.

‘Once upon a time … A young girl named Lily sat quietly swinging on her swing in her back yard. She is an only child and whenever she feels lonely she loves to make up imaginary friends. Her parents tell her that her imagination is too vivid and, one day, will run away with her. Lily considers what this means. Can her imagination run away with her? Could it take her anywhere? She swings and ponders. She squints her eyes and looks around at the trees and flowers. She loves fairies and make-believe creatures. But Lily is wary of elves, they seem to be too mischievous and get her into trouble. A shimmer of air in the sunlight catches her eyes, and she walks over to it. Ah, the fairies have come out to play, she says smiling.

‘As she twirls in the shimmering light, Lily becomes smaller and smaller.’

The children are mesmerised. One little girl asks, ‘Are the fairies real?’

I ask her, ‘What do you think?’

‘They are real, I’ve seen them. But my sister says they’re in my imagination. If they are then I must be like Lily,’ she beams, nodding with satisfaction.

A freckled-faced little boy pipes up and states matter-of-factly, ‘I like elves better, they’re more fun.’

All sorts of comments come forth from the excited children, but I refocus them back to the task at hand.

‘Okay, back to the story:

‘Lily makes friends with the fairies and they take her on an adventure around the garden. Firstly, they meet a frog named Harold, who prefers to sing and not croak. He has a lovely sweet voice that echoes across the cat’s water dish. Lily and the fairies tap their feet to the rhythm. Larrimus, the lizard, comes up to listen and offers Lily a ride on his back, but they get chased by Felix the cat, and swooped by Robyn the Robin. (Her parents showed poor imagination when choosing her name.) Lily has a wonderful day of fun and adventure exploring her back garden with the fairies but unfortunately has to return to normal size by dinner time.

The fairies sprinkle fairy dust and instantly Lily grows to her normal size. Thanking them, she waves to the tiny magical creatures. She’s allowed her imagination to run away with her again. But Lily doesn’t care; she loves where her imagination takes her.

‘THE END,’ I tell the kids.

As usual, hands shoot up to ask all manner of questions, none of which relates to whether the story’s real or not. The children have been with Lily in her garden and can imagine all the events.

At the end of the day, I’m still in the throes of admiring the minds of children as I walk through the botanical gardens on my way to meet Peter, when I see a tiny door-like cutting at the base of a tree. I’m reminded of Lily and her magical garden. I stop momentarily, astounded, as a rainbow materialises between two large spruce. The light seems to be shimmering, just like in the story, as I make my way towards it. I’m amazed that I can get within its reach. Rainbows usually keep shifting as you get closer. But not this one, it just becomes more vivid. My imagination kicks in and I begin to ponder the existence of other exciting worlds outside our own, and what it would be like to shift into such a place.

I’m in the process of extending my hand forward to touch the shimmering colours when something else catches my eye. A cat-like shadow passes behind the trees and disappears, sending a shiver down my spine. A coldness spreads over me and I pull my hand back quickly. In that same instant, the rainbow evaporates.

Feeling unsettled and confused, I retreat a few steps. What was all that about? It’s on dusk and fear sets in. I’m in the gardens on my own with no one in sight. ‘Not the safest position to be in,’ I muse. Time to hustle and meet Peter.

My imagination goes into hyperdrive on the short walk through the rest of the park to the restaurant. Shadows pop out and scare me. I hear footsteps following me and leaves rustle for no apparent reason. Hurriedly, I finally make it to Peter, peering repeatedly over my shoulder, feeling rattled. Peter kisses my cheek and asks me what the matter is.

I hesitate, knowing Peter’s not the most open-minded about strange phenomena, so I only intended to relate part of my experience. ‘I felt as though someone was following me,’ I begin by saying, my eyes shifting from his to hover back my shoulder into the dim lamp-lit shrubbery, ‘and a shadow kept appearing in the most unusual places. I was beginning to think a ghost was stalking me!’ I exclaim. Oops! I’ve said too much.

Holding me at arm’s length, he gives me that raised eyebrow, ‘here-we-go-again’ look. ‘Hmm,’ Peter says, ‘is your wild imagination getting the better of you again? The park’s lit well enough, I couldn’t see anyone behind you. But perhaps walking that way on your own isn’t one of your brightest ideas. Especially at this time of night and when you’ve been reading fanciful stories all day.’ He can be so condescending at times.

‘Who says I’ve been reading fanciful stories,’ I retort a bit abruptly, feeling chastised and somewhat defensive.

‘It’s Wednesday, and you had a children’s reading group this afternoon, didn’t you?’ Peter half smirks, seemingly amused