{"id":4223,"date":"2020-12-23T09:45:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T16:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=4223"},"modified":"2020-12-23T09:45:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T16:45:12","slug":"without-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/4223","title":{"rendered":"Without A Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There once was a man who made his living writing funny short stories. The man\u2019s name was Azben Hummingbird and the stories he wrote came to him unceasingly for fifty years until one day they stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow strange,\u201d said Azben to his cat\nHernando who often curled up on Azben\u2019s lap when Azben sat by the fire writing\nin his notebook. \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azben sipped his nettle tea and\nthought back over his life and remembered a few other days when nothing came to\nhim to write, and these memories reassured him the stories would<\/em> come again, probably the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no story came the next day or\nthe next or the next, and Azben could not remember ever<\/em> going so many days without a story coming to him, and he began\nto worry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, Azben could not make up\nstories. He had tried on a few occasions, but after making up just a few\nsentences he would start to feel terrible, as if he was committing a crime.\nThen he would read the sentences he\u2019d written and find the writing poor, so he\nwould burn the page and feel immensely relieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus he knew it was not<\/em> a good idea to try to make up a\nstory, yet after a week of no story coming to him he did<\/em> try to make one up and only got a far as The day dawned chilly<\/em> before his head began to ache. So he stopped\nwriting and decided to go for a walk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azben and his wife Zenevia lived in\na lovely little house on the edge of a forest about a mile from the ocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going for a walk,\u201d said Azben,\nfinding Zenevia in the kitchen making bread to go with minestrone soup for\nsupper. \u201cWould you like to come with me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan\u2019t right now,\u201d said Zenevia,\nshaping her loaves. \u201cBread, soup, etcetera. Would you mind picking up a quart\nof milk on your way back from the beach?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did you know I was going to the\nbeach?\u201d asked Azben, getting a basket for bringing home what he knew would be\nmore than a quart of milk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause you always walk to the\nbeach when you\u2019re pensive,\u201d said Zenevia, smiling at her husband. \u201cAnd I know\nyou\u2019re pensive because you\u2019re frowning and you only frown when you\u2019re pensive.\nOh and some cheese and wine and\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azben sat on a driftwood log and\nwatched the waves rolling in, and he thought Stories came to me as unceasingly as these waves. I wonder why they\nstopped?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he thought about the last story\nhe wrote, a story about a boy who runs away from home and intends to never<\/em> go back, but a few hours into\nrunning away the boy remembers his mother is making a pumpkin pie, his\nfavorite, for dessert after supper, and supper is probably going to be\nspaghetti, also his favorite, and then he encounters a ferocious dog who gives\nhim quite a scare, after which an ominous man offers him a ride, so he goes\nhome and no one ever knows he ran away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor which the fiction editor at Neon Bloom<\/em> paid me two hundred dollars,\u201d\nsaid Azben, speaking to a passing cloud, \u201cand said it made her cry the best\nkind of tears.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After supper, Azben and Zenevia\nplayed Gin Rummy on the rug by the fire and Zenevia won for the fourth night in\na row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo story has come to me in seven\ndays now,\u201d said Azben, putting the cards away. \u201cNot a line. Not a word. Not\neven a syllable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs that a long time?\u201d asked\nZenevia, going into the kitchen to put a kettle on for tea. \u201cSeven days?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s forever!\u201d said Azben, irate. \u201cIn\nfifty years I\u2019ve never gone more than a day or two without a story coming to\nme.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe your muse needed a vacation,\u201d\nsaid Zenevia, who recently retired from teaching school for fifty years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy entire life my muse never took a\nvacation,\u201d said Azben, his voice growing shrill, \u201cand now, without warning, it\nleaves for Hawaii?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt?\u201d said Zenevia, perusing the tea\nbags. \u201cI\u2019ve always imagined your muse was a she.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never imagined my muse was any<\/em>thing,\u201d said Azben, exasperated.\n\u201cStories came to me. I wrote them down. Now they\u2019ve stopped coming. I don\u2019t\nknow who I am or what I\u2019m here for if not to write the stories that come to\nme.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re Azben Hummingbird,\u201d said\nZenevia, gazing at her husband. \u201cYou\u2019re married to me, Zenevia Chickadee. We\nlive in our house together, grow vegetables in big tubs, and have two cats.\nEvery afternoon you build a fire to warm the living room for the evening.\nYou\u2019re seventy-three, I\u2019m seventy-two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Azben, putting another\nlog on the fire, \u201cand until a week ago I wrote stories every day and sent them\nto magazine editors who sometimes published them. And every ten years or so I\u2019d\npublish a collection of stories. Now what do I do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll find out,\u201d said Zenevia,\nbringing him a cup of chamomile tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow<\/em>\nwill I find out,\u201d he asked despondently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTime will tell, dear. Time will\ntell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another week went by without a story\ncoming to Azben so he bought a ukulele and taught himself to play \u2018There\u2019s No\nBusiness Like Show Business.\u2019 Inspired by his success with the old show tune,\nhe learned several other songs and then composed an original ditty called \u2018Cats\nAre Lots of Fun.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then another week went by without a\nstory coming and Azben deep cleaned his office that hadn\u2019t been deep cleaned in\nten years and got rid of so much stuff the room seemed twice as big and rather\nelegant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when another week went by\nwithout a story coming, Azben began to feel desperate and crazy, so he went to\nthe only psychiatrist in town, Morvuli Grebe, and told her what was going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morvuli pondered Azben\u2019s situation\nand said, \u201cThese things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI despair,\u201d said Azben,\ndespairingly. \u201cI\u2019m at a loss. I\u2019m a rudderless boat on a turbulent sea, and now\nI\u2019m using tired clich\u00e9s, which I never used to use. I feel I\u2019m disappearing,\nand painfully so. Is there some sort of medication that could help me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can prescribe something that will\nmake your despair more tolerable,\u201d said Morvuli, \u201cbut it won\u2019t make the stories\ncome again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat will?\u201d he asked with the\ninnocence of a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d said Morvuli, who\nwas remarkably humble for a psychiatrist, \u201cbut I know someone who might know.\nDo you know Taligaba Nighthawk?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard of her,\u201d said Azben,\nfrowning. \u201cLives at the top of Hermit Thrush Mountain. Something of a cuckoo,\nno?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnique,\u201d said Morvuli, writing\nTaligaba\u2019s phone number on a piece of paper. \u201cGive her a call. And if your\ndespair becomes unbearable, we\u2019ll get you started on some despair-blocking\nmeds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo they have any unpleasant side\neffects?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPossibly,\u201d said Morvuli, nodding.\n\u201cThat\u2019s the trade-off. Less despair, possible other things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, Azben drove his\nold pickup truck to the top of Hermit Thrush Mountain to consult with Taligaba\nNighthawk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taligaba emerged from her brown\nadobe house wearing a black robe, her long white hair in a three-strand braid, and\nAzben thought if I did have a muse she\nwould look like Taligaba Nighthawk and live in an adobe house at the top of a\nmountain.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWelcome Azben Hummingbird,\u201d said\nTaligaba, bowing theatrically to Azben. \u201cCome in and get warm by the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they were settled in Taligaba\u2019s\nliving room, Azben told Taligaba everything he could think to tell her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd,\u201d said Azben, his voice full of\nexcitement, \u201cMorvuli Grebe thought you might be able to help me restore the\nflow of stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taligaba gazed out the window and said,\n\u201cThere is only one way I know of to restore the flow of stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd that is?\u201d asked Azben, holding\nhis breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou will have to completely, and I\nmean completely<\/em>, let go of wanting\nstories to come to you again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I do<\/em> want them to come again. More than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTherein lies the problem. Let go of\nthe wanting and maybe they\u2019ll come again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe<\/em>?\u201d\nsaid Azben, horrified. \u201cMaybe isn\u2019t good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cMaybe is not only good enough,\u201d said\nTaligaba, laughing. \u201cMaybe is the best we can ever hope for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut why would they suddenly stop\ncoming after fifty years of never<\/em>\nstopping?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. Perhaps stories come\nto people like you for fifty years and then stop for a year and then come again\nfor two years and then stop for one. Who knows?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m at a loss,\u201d said Azben,\ndespondently. \u201cA terrible loss.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be,\u201d said Taligaba,\nencouragingly. \u201cThere\u2019s no end of things to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Azben returned to his house and\nlived in despair for several more months. Sometimes the despair verged on\nunbearable, other days not quite so terrible. Some days he almost called Morvuli\nGrebe to get started on despair-blocking meds, other days he felt he could overcome\nhis suffering au naturel<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One evening, as he was chopping an\nonion for the soup he and Zenevia were making, he realized he\u2019d gone the entire\nday without despairing about stories no longer coming to him, and he thought Maybe I\u2019ve turned a corner.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then he remembered Taligaba\nNighthawk saying, \u201cMaybe is the best we can ever hope for,\u201d and he cried the\nbest kind of tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Entrada<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There once was a man who made his living writing funny short stories. The man\u2019s name was Azben Hummingbird and the stories he wrote came to him unceasingly for fifty years until one day they stopped. \u201cHow strange,\u201d said Azben to his cat Hernando who often curled up on Azben\u2019s lap when Azben sat by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6352,6356,6350,6351,6355,6358,6359,6357,6354,9,33,6349,6353],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4225,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4223\/revisions\/4225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}