Collaborative Fiction

Introduction:

We ask that you read the introduction of the following story and send us stories that more or less relate to the overall theme. Dont pay any attention to our arrogant statements elsewhere in this website about proper language, spelling and literary style. This is a site FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, so spell it any way you want, like in the days of William Shakespeare himself.

I hope it will reach the far corners of the world and receive contributions. Write it in your own language if you want. It does not matter if not everyone can read it. I am sure that somehow we will all understand it.

Here is what I propose as the general theme. You complete it by sending various stories that our two characters tell each other by the campfire or tales they tell other people or that other people tell them. One story at a time, please.

Together we will recreate the stories of A Thousand and One Night, as once Sheherazade had done.

THE STORY OF CREEP AND HEAVE
(a childrens story)

Intros in italics are excerpts
taken (with some poetic license) from:
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
by Bob Dylan.
(Columbia Records)

This is the story of two highwaymen. These men, who had once been honest merchants, became quite famous and part of local folklore and songs. People only knew them only as Creep and Heave. That was also what they called each other, but nobody knew what those names meant. This is their story.

CHAPTER I

My Masters Voice
is calling me,
said Tweedle Dum
to Tweedle Dee.

Heave was born in the summer. A lion killed his father when he was very young. Other children in the village had many brothers and sisters (in the village it was considered impolite to refer to children as kids, as after all, they were not goats). Heave was the firstborn and his father was killed soon after, so Heave had no siblings. It was custom in his village that widows never re-marry. So that was that.

Creep was the son of a successful white hunter. Killing a lot of people or animals made you a respected and accomplished man in those days. The white hunter would often travel far and when Creep was 12 years old, his father brought him along. Creep learned how to handle weapons and one of his tasks was to clean his fathers rifle and pistols every night. One day, Creep forgot to put the bullets back in and that was how his father was killed, also by a lion. Creep escaped.

After many hard days and nights in the jungle, Creep came upon a village at the foot of a high mountain called Always Covered in Mist. In Western languages aboriginal names sound strange. That is probably because aboriginal peoples take the time to describe things properly and accurately, which takes time and many words. Western people are always in a hurry and much gets lost in their words and names. They even developed the habit of abbreviating names to save more time, as if they wish to get to the end of their lives as soon as they can.

Through the palisade Creep saw children playing in a large open space surrounded by huts. After a while he spotted a lonely figure sitting under a tree and looking very sad. Creep walked through the gate. The children paid no attention to him. When he had reached the tree where the sat, he asked if he could perhaps bother him for some food and water. Creep was always very polite. The boy looked up and nodded. He took Creep into the communal kitchen and set the table for him. Being polite showed a quality of character that was also appreciated in the boys village.

After Creep was fed, the boy asked if he was tired and Creep answered that indeed he was quite exhausted. The village kept extra huts for meetings with chiefs of other villages and the boy took him to one of these guest huts where Creep slept until the next morning. All the children were already outside playing, but the boy was sitting at Creeps bedside to make sure he was all right. He made him a hearty breakfast of yams and green bananas and they started to talk. They soon found out how similar their stories were. I am called Heave, said the boy and bowed slightly. "Are you called that, or is that your real name? Creep asked. The boy shrugged. It is a loose English translation of my Swahili name. More the boy was evidently not prepared to offer. In truth, Heaves name sounded quite melodious in his native tongue and if ever translated literally into English would have taken a long time to say, almost like poetry. Creep told the boy his name and added apologetically that he did not know what the Swahili translation would be. In fact, that was the first and last time their names were ever discussed. They did not find names important.

Heave was quite glad with his newly found friend, but even though the tribe was very supportive of Heave and his mother, Heave was bothered by the fact they did not truly fit the tribes profile of a perfect family, that is to say one with a father, a mother and many children. Heave had taken to drinking fermented goats milk, chewing cola nuts and smoking magic grass. He daydreamed a lot and was prone to fantasies and delusions of grandeur. One day, a miracle would happen and life would be perfect.

Creeps father had been a demanding and forceful man, but one of weak moral fibre. Creep always believed that it was his duty to make his father happy and to care for him, so when the lion had killed his father, Heap had felt a brief sense of failure. With time, he also felt relief, for pleasing his father had been an endless and impossible task. Creep had no memory of his mother.

CHAPTER II

Whats good for you
is good for me,
said Tweedle Dum
to Tweedle Dee.

After that unfortunate mishap with the lion, Creep had no money or other means to get back home. As if sensing his misfortune, the boy offered to let him stay with him and his mother. At first, his mother had been quite reluctant to have a little white boy stay with her. After all, what would the neighbours think? But after consulting the village chief, it was decided that it would be good for Heaves mother to have another son to care for and for her own son to have a brother. Maybe it would take his mind off goats milk.

They grew up together and attended the village school. Creep had shed his Western clothes, but everyone in the village knew he was different. Despite the fact that the villagers made every effort to make Creep feel at home and treated him as one of their own, Heave convinced him that they would never truly accept him. Heave never told Creep that he himself had always felt an outsider in own village. As the years passed, Creep had grown quite fond of Heave and trusted his advice and opinions. And so it was that one day they decided to leave this village of short-sighted and small-minded people and find a place where those prejudices would not exist.

CHAPTER III

Living in the land of Nod;
trusting their lives
in the hands of God.

They travelled through wild and exciting lands and took odd jobs. Creep taught Heave the different kinds of money current in these countries. Money, Creep explained, was a means to get almost anything you want in the world. In Heaves village people always were given what they needed or they would trade things. Heave thought that money was a very useful thing. It somehow gave you power. People who had something to sell always treated you nicely and with respect. They lived a frugal life style for many years and during their travels had seen a great variety of things that people produced and used. They thought that trading goods among the various tribes could be a lucrative enterprise and they were not wrong. They settled in a little village and started a small business, importing and exporting goods.

Heave had to get used to new concepts, such as rich and poor. He discovered that what kept most people poor, was something called taxes. They were collected in person by taxmen, who were really nothing more than people who took your money or livestock, without giving anything in return. When he lay awake at night, Heave would worry about their money running out one day. He thought about poverty and loneliness and about being old. When people in these lands grew old, they were left to look after themselves, unlike in his village where they would be cared for. He was determined not to let that happen to Creep and him and an idea began to ferment in his imaginative brain, like goats milk.

CHAPTER IV

Tweedle Dum
and Tweedle Dee,
were throwing knives
into a tree

While they were still young and strong, they would do as the lions (and the taxmen). The male lions never worked a day in their lives (much like the taxmen). All they did was lay in the shade all day and let the lionesses and hyenas do all the work. Then, they would simply amble up to the killed prey, chase away the females and hyenas and eat to their hearts content. Creep had kept his fathers hunting rifle and pistols and they would lay in ambush and jump out of the bushes on the highways that were still travelled by people, mostly on foot or by oxen carts and take their money.

In the early days, they were both still very polite and actually asked people to hand over their money and valuables. Seeing those dangerous weapons pointed at them, people always obliged. Creep and Heave also cleverly changed their methods of holding up people by taking turns. Heave would rob people at broad daylight with the pistols and speaking his native tongue, while Creep, who for this purpose had stayed away from direct sunlight for a long time, would hold up people using the rifle, speaking a mixture of English and Swahili (with a terrible accent). He would usually do this at night. That way, descriptions of the suspects and the weapons used, were always conflicting. If they were ever caught, their defence lawyers could use that.

Soon, the Tax Office found that people had no money to pay them and launched an investigation. When they discovered someone else was copying their work, the Tax Office offered a large reward for the capture of these two outlaws. Although Heave and Creep had become heroes of sorts (everyone fighting the government always is a hero in the eyes of the people), hunger was too acute for the population not to seriously consider earning the large reward and the hunt was on.

CHAPTER V

They pass by so silently,
Tweedle Dum
and Tweedle Dee

In time Creep and Heave grew tired of running and hiding. Someone would be too tempted by the reward money and lay a trap for them. Although stealing from people had actually been quite easy, they had never really enjoyed robbing their fellow humans. Why dont we use our adventures in a better way? Heave had asked one day. Heave was usually the one with the ideas. We have so many stories to tell. Lets leave our money in the bank and travel the land telling stories in return for food and shelter. The money we earned with our import and export business and the money we stole are safely in the bank. When are too old to wander around and tell stories, we will return live off the interest? We will stay in villages and towns and sell our stories in the local taverns, or will by the road and build a fire. Travellers will stop by and we will sell them our stories.

And so Creep and Heave went from village to village and from town to town, telling their stories. Some were true and some entirely made up. People would pay them with food, clothing and sometimes the odd personal favour. Other times people would tell their own stories and Creep and Heave would make certain to memorise them all and pass them on to others. They figured that not writing anything down makes you remember things better. And so the various legends were told, including the one that would years later do the rounds about two mythical wanderers who would show up out of nowhere, telling wondrous tales from current times and from days long gone. Today, almost two hundred years later, new stories are still being told and if you happen to camp out somewhere, you might meet them, if you are lucky and when you do, tell them your story.

They were living
in quiet harmony,
Tweedle Dum
and Tweedlee Dee