Stories About Her

I like to think that she’d say it’s OK to tell stories about her. That she’d find the idea funny and exciting, and take it seriously for about half a second before launching into suggestions and stories of her own.

“Remember that time I fought the airship pirates?” she’d say. “The desperate sword battle across the back of their dirigible? I was disguised as a boy, all bound nice and tight where it mattered, and the pirate captain kept calling me ‘young sir.’ If not for my carple tunnel brace blocking his foil, I’d have a hook for a hand.”

Or,

“How about the time we decoded the heiroglyphs on my autograph shoes, and it led us through the forest to the forgotten tomb of the hobo king? We barely escaped with our lives, and wouldn’t have if not for distracting the hobo zombies by tossing down our scarves. The next time we ventured there, the tomb had been moved and all the trees cut down.”

Or even,

“Once upon a time, there was a turtle that, upon my saving it from the middle of a busy thoroughfare, promised to grant me three wishes, all of which came true but would come undone if ever I revealed them to anyone.”

Or possibly,
“Hippie Jesus fiddled with his eyebrow piercing all afternoon. It’s not like he’d never been pierced before — he had the marks to prove it, as Thomas pointed out. But I think it was a nervous gesture, as he was put off by my magical galoshes, which not only allowed me to walk on water, but also kept my toe-socks dry. Jesus, of course, had wet feet.”

I like to think there are such stories about her to be told, stories that are no less true for having never happened, and no less unbelievable than the true stories people tell of her even today.

Perhaps one day we’ll again tell some of them together and draw a picture.
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(c) 2010 by Tony Simmons
From the '366 Days' project

(Reprinted today in memory of Marisa Joy Williams, who inspired this tale, and who would have been 21 years old today.)