Torkle

Tell me a Story please.

Have you one in your pocket?

Check your shoe.

Under your hat perhaps?

Open your mouth, I'm sure to find one in there.

Torkle cleared his throat. He was filled to the brim with words. There were words that were descriptive and words that were ambiguous. There were constructive words and destructive words. There were powerful words, disturbing words, words of consequence and too, trivial words.

There were raw stark dark and sad words along with words that were beautiful happy. There were windy words that flew around his brain like kites on a blowy day.

Each and everything that one sees and feels in any given day elicits a word. In the beginning and all.

Torkle cleared his throat for a second time. Torkle was different than most people in that, he didn't go around all day spilling his words here there and everywhere, leaving a wake of lettered jumbles that had no point and in the end were just noise with no shape.

Torkle had been taught and understood that there was a skill, a sacred skill, an art both practical and holy to the utilization of the human voice taking word. In the practical sense, for one thing, it takes energy to speak, time and energy, and wasting either of these with a spurious word was never in Torkle's agenda. In the sacred sense, one thing Torkle knew for certain was that, unlike the childhood saying, he knew first hand that words can do harm.

He knew that there were words that could break the spirit and that there were words that could heal the break.

Growing up, there was a sign in Torkle's home, a wooden sign that now hangs in his own home. The words of the simple sign are, UNTANGLE YOUR THOUGHTS BEFORE YOU PUT THEM INTO WORDS.

Untangle your thoughts before you put them into words. Makes perfect sense, after all, tangled thoughts equal tangled words. And tangled words do not make for legitimate communication.

Torkle, when he looked at the outside world, to him, the whole wide round world was tangled up in mistreated words. People everywhere were projectile spewing their tangled thoughts, regurgitating them through their ill-equipped lexicon.

The product of this common practice made for a lot of inchoate noise in Torkle's ears. And a lot of inchoate noise makes for an inchoate society.

Gratefully for Torkle, his community had always been more made up of Nature, which is further developed than modern civilization. Torkle would chuckle at the thought of that word being used to describe his fellow man. 'Civilization' connotes ones behaving in a civil manner. What's to become of us, he often wondered.

Torkle cleared his throat for a third time.

A Story?

Torkle did not have to look in his pocket, between his toes, or even under his hat for a Story. Don't misunderstand, Torkle had Stories in all of those places. The thing is, he didn't ever have to go find a Story, the Stories would find him.

Sometimes they would be jumping up and down they were so excited in the telling. Sometimes they would whisper to him at dusk as they tucked in, awaiting the turning that would find them again in the light.

Stories trusted Torkle with their words.

You see, Torkle knew enough not to take any thoughts. To him, taking a thought regarding another was like unto stealing from them.

Torkle was brought up to understand that there are as many worlds as there are people. And not just people, too the worlds of animals plants and minerals.

Even the Wind has its own world.

Just as a foundational teaching in Torkle's upbringing had been the technique of clearing his throat, a signal to his mind to empty, allowing for listening, so too a cornerstone in his being was this understanding of the many worlds.

It was explained to him thus, if you take a thought about someone, and then filter that thought through your own assumptive opinion, why, this is as if you believe that the whole world is only yours and that everyone else is just in it.

No, each life has its own world.

Torkle did not want to invade distort and take away from anyone's world anymore than he wanted his world invaded distorted and taken from him.

Each life belongs to itself.

Torkle knew this fact, this is why Stories trusted him with their voices. They trusted Torkle because he knew that hearing and listening are two different things.

Torkle would not decide for and then tell someone who they are.

Taking no thought he would be still, listen, and then simply know.

And it is simple.

It is an impossibility to be taking thought and to be listening at the same time.

Attempting to do so can cause a lifetime of a tangled existence. And a lonely life at that, for in a tangled knot there are no free hands to offer in joining.

Torkle was not lonely. Stories would tell themselves to him all day long. Everything and everyone is a Story. And life is an exhilarating adventure for one who understands that articulation can lead to the wonder of amazement.

Articulation brings along with it Understanding and its cousin Wisdom. Articulation can bring resolution, which brings healing. And Communion.

There is no evolution without articulation. And there is no articulation without words. Articulation births clarity. And clarity is kin to illumination among other things.

Why, it doesn't get better than that.

Above all, Torkle loved words. He loved wandering among them. He loved spoken words and unspoken words, which for Torkle were the vast majority. He had learned the syllabary that make up the alphabet when he was but one year old. He cherishes the memories of being nestled on and among his elders, they all of them sitting cross-legged in the hay.

Torkle was taught that letters are symbols.

He learned that letters joined make words and that words joined become language. He learned that language is man's vehicle for thought. And that the words chosen are revealing of one's content.

Along with Torkles immense skill of knowing how to listen to what he hears, came an ability to understand languages other than his own, particularly the languages of the Animal Kingdom. Torkle had always revered Animals because he knew that they had inhabited his land long before he or any of his ancestors had come along.

During the breaks from his lessons when the adults were inside drinking coffee with cream from the cow, Torkle would communicate with the other creatures about him, terribly curious as he was to learn about their worlds and to share with them his.

One darling day, curious and intelligent, Torkle asked his friend the Barn Owl what his family name had been before there were any barns.

From high above the hay where Torkle attended school, the Barn Owl with the heart-shaped face shared with Torkle what he had learned from his elders, that at one time they were known as Manger Owls.

Oh, yes, I see, this made perfect sense to Torkle.

Yet then, being smart in that way, Torkle questioned. What had been the Barn Owl's name before there were any mangers, before there were any words for that matter? Because everyone knows that animals came before the spoken word.

Torkle and the Barn Owl looked each to the other.

Then they both became perfectly still, for neither of them had the answer in their brain.

Yet, each of them wise, they knew full well that they were capable of knowing an answer. And that they would have a Story to tell, if only they listened.

Torkle cleared his throat.