Ashets the Story Teller

Once, a long time ago, there existed a Kingdom where the people were so poor and so hungry from having no food that they were forced to eat their own words. They never spoke. Never. Not even in whispers. In fact, it could not be called a kingdom at all because there was no King. He was dead. Nevertheless, this former kingdom (for it had once been kingdom), still contained a small, but dwindling population of people with a mix of personalities.

There were nasty people who hoarded and refused to share their words – but this didn’t upset anyone since their words tasted horrible and left a foul after taste in the palette. (You could tell this by the sour expressions on their faces.)

There were people with nothing to say. They were frail and skinny and usually withered slowly away having little or no words to eat.

And as unlikely as it seems, there were even obese people who ballooned up into various sizes for having too much say but never saying it.

There were people who were prone to stretching the truth. They were tall and lanky – and stretched high into the clouds like giant exclamation points and eventually suffocated for lack of air.

Occasionally, someone would choke on their own words and die – (in fact, this is how the King died - although some think he took the easy way out by swallowing his pride) - but no one took much notice when it happened as they were pre-occupied with their own conditions.

Over time, as things grew worse, and as a way of rationing, people began nibbling on their words – one letter at a time – one consonant at a time – saving the more delectable vowels for last.
Young Ashets, the son of Thesaurus, went to bed hungry every night, but woke up in the morning full and refreshed but could never figure out why.

The reason was simple. Ashets dreamed in his sleep – and no one else did. But because he went to sleep so famished, he devoured every word of his dreams with no recollection that he had ever dreamt. (Today, some of the descendants of Ashets experience the same phenomenon.)

And what did Ashets dream of? - Books - books full of plump and delicious words – shelf after shelf –row upon row – pages and pages of words. And what made this dream special was the fact that books had not been invented yet – they existed only in his dreams.

As time passed, Ashets dreams nourished him and made him stronger. Soon he was waking up and remembering small pieces of his dreams. Eventually, Ashets’ mind was filled with dream pieces and these dream pieces began turning into thoughts and these thoughts began growing into ideas. And as these ideas grew bigger, there was simply not enough room to store all of these idea’s in Ashets’ mind.

So, Ashets did the only thing he could do – he spoke out loud. And the effect was as if a rich man had thrown gold coins into the air. The crowd was stunned and then scrambled to eat his words. (Thus was formed the expression – “the crowd ate up his words” or something to that effect.). Ashets spoke again and the result on the crowd was the same.

All of this speaking made Ashets fatigued, so he retired to his home and took a nap and during his nap he was blessed with more beautiful dreams. He woke several hours later and upon arising found that a crowd had gathered in front of his house: A silent, hungry crowd.

At first, Ashets was at a loss for words (figuratively speaking) but then he knew what to do. He grabbed a chair and walked out into his front yard. The eyes of the crowd followed him intently. Ashets extended his arms out in front of him and motioned for the crowd to be seated.

The most amazing thing occurred next.

The crowd sat in unison.

Ashets said,”Thank you.”

The eyes of the seated crowd opened wider. Many in the crowd had never heard a spoken word before; Others who had, had long ago forgotten them.

“Thank you,” Ashets repeated, “Thank you for visiting me.” This time the words soothed the crowd who devoured them as quickly as they were spoken.

“I know we have all suffered these past many years,” Ashets continued –“But if you come every day at the same time I will tell you the stories of my dreams. I will share my words with you.”

And every day, at the same time, the crowd returned and Ashets told them the stories of his dreams and as the crowd consumed his stories the famine slowly disappeared and the people grew stronger and one by one they began to speak…to each other.

And then one day, the villagers unanimously declared, “We need a King. Ashets must be our King.” But Ashets humbly declined and jokingly said, “You don’t want a dreamer for your King.”
Disappointedly, they let out a collective sigh of disappointment and then in the next moment said, "OK, I guess we don't need a king. That's settled!"

Ashets continued to tell his stories long into the future, well into his later years. And at the same time, every day, the crowd, and then their children, and then their children’s children sat at Ashets’ feet and listened to his wonderful dream words.

When Ashets was very old and spoke in a voice just above a whisper, he took notice of a young man seated a few yards to his right: “May I ask what you are doing?”

“I am writing down your stories so they can be published into books and then placed on special shelves in libraries.”

Ashets reflected momentarily, “But these things you speak of have not been invented yet.”

“But they will,” replied the young man, “I dream about them every night.”

Ashets just smiled and continued his story telling.