The Storyteller

12I-2 Creative Writing

14^th Wave Hee Gu Kang

2010. 03. 08

The Storyteller

Astelpine is a place where only girls live. There are no men, and no old women. Nobody knows what made the city so, but legend tells that a strange light shone from the sky, and all the people suddenly turned into girls. There are several variations of the story, too: one that tells that a paranoid serial killer killed all the men in one night; another that tells that there are actually no men in the entire world, not only in Astelpine. Astelpine is surrounded half by an infinitely large ocean and half by impossibly alpine mountains. None of the girls know what is beyond those natural barriers. Then, one day, a girl named Jenny decided to go on a journey.

             Jenny was the crazy bitch of the island. She was the only girl who refused to wear her hair long; she preferred it at a much shorter length. She also refused to wear any bright colors. To her, they were just weird. She gained quite a name for herself beating up the other girls. After a few years of this, she was the first person ever to be banished from the island. She built a raft and set sail in the large ocean.

             The sea surrounding Astelpine was fierce. The waves relentlessly attacked the raft, seeking to split it into pieces. The sun was burning over the salty waters, blazing as if to burn the whole world. However, Jenny was tough. She rowed through the watery desert with ease, and her black eyes penetrated the shimmering lights across the horizon, searching for dry land. After what felt like weeks, she finally succeeded.

             Shouting with pride, she stepped down from her raft. Then she realized she was as hungry as she could be. She walked until she found a hog. A trained hunter of Astelpine, Jenny killed the hog in a flash. As Jenny triumphantly cut through the hog’s belly, someone shouted behind her back.

             “Hey, you killed Jacob!”

             Jenny looked back, and saw a bunch of strange people: short-haired but hairy on cheeks, no bosoms, crude clothes. They were the ugliest girls she had ever seen. They didn’t even seem to be girls at all.

             Jenny abhorred them from at first sight. They were ugly, and did not deserve to live. With the knife in her right hand, she slashed open a girl’s throat. Everyone screamed and chaos broke loose. The natives did not seem to know how to fight. With ease, Jenny slaughtered the rest. Jenny sat on a rock and looked quietly at the messy remains of the hideous girls. She was satisfied, and went to sleep.

             “What a piece of rubbish.”

             “I like the name Astelpine, though. It invokes a feeling of secrecy and dignity.”

             “I still don’t know what she was thinking, Mr. Skyside. Killing them all suddenly in the last paragraph? She could’ve drawn many interesting episodes out of this quite interesting setting. But she didn’t.”

             “Yes, that is a little disappointing, sir, but for a twelve-year old—”

             “Exactly. For a twelve-year old, the ending’s too violent and bizarre! Disgusting.”

             “Perhaps, headmaster, but that doesn’t provide any conclusive evidence that this girl has any kind of mental disorder. She has no symptoms for a start!”

             “Symptoms? This piece of crap is itself a symptom! A mentality marred by deceptive illusions and false dreams! Her own glass menagerie! A world without men? Imagine that!”

             “But sir, she prides herself as the school’s storyteller. Many other students do accept that she—”

             “I don’t care what a bunch of weirdoes accept or do not accept!”

             “Discrimination is in your nature, headmaster.”

             “Watch your mouth, Nicholas. You being an old friend of mine doesn’t mean I can’t chuck you out of this place any old day I like.”

             “Really, sir? Can you really? After all you’ve done to this school?”

             “Of course! You conspired, too, didn’t you, Mr. Skyside?”

             “Yes I did, sir, but you’re the boss. You forced us to cooperate with you.”

             “Yes, because I think these boys and girls are useless to the society!”

             CLANG.

             The door opened, and “the storyteller” came in. The two teachers turned. The girl pointed silently at the headmaster, and a swarm of adolescent boys and girls rushed at the two teachers.

             “We’re not useless. We’re not useless. You’re useless. Useless grownups.”