Days Of Yore – Stream of Consciousness Saturday #SoCS

August 27, 2016 by jowensauthor 2 Comments

 

 

“Long ago in days of yore,” said the old man sitting in the chair at the front of the room, “there was a beautiful princess.”

He held up a knobbly  finger to the crowd of children sitting in front of him on the library room floor. Atop the finger was a finger puppet dressed up like a princess.

“One day, the princess went out for a walk in the woods,” the old man continued, moving the finger puppet to simulate walking. “Everything was fine until suddenly, a dragon appeared!”

He held up another finger, this one with a finger puppet of a green dragon on it.

The library door opened and a couple of men in business suits came in, followed by a camera man.

“What is going on in here?” tersely asked the older of the two men in business suits. “When you said you’d tell your story to the kids, this isn’t the story I thought you meant!”

The old man looked at him. “I agreed to tell my story to the children, yes. But your letter asking me to do this didn’t specify which story you wanted.”

“But my audience doesn’t want to see someone like you telling such a childish story! They expect a better story from you!”

“Well, I’m afraid you’re just out of luck, then. If I’m telling stories to five-year-old children like this, they’re getting childish stories. That’s how things were done in days of yore, after all. Besides which, my stories aren’t fit for children their age!”

“But…”

“Sorry. That’s all I have to say. I’m not reading a horror book to five-year-olds. If you want to do it, why don’t you publish a book and read it to them yourself.”

The old man went back to telling his finger puppet story to the children. The other man in the business suit told his partner, “You know, filming him telling a story like this to children might actually be better for us. I bet more people would watch it. It’d probably go viral.”

The man with the camera voiced his agreement.

The first man considered it for a moment, then nodded. “You have a point. Ok. Start filming.”

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This story is part of the Stream of Consciousness prompt, “your/you’re/yore”:

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS August 27/16