The Stories of Hero and Oat

Many thousands of years ago, into a thriving community of Early People, onto the warm and fertile soil of the Eurasian continent, the first human storyteller was born. Her name was Oat.

Early People tended to wait to give children names until the community noticed something particular about them. This made names easier to remember.

Some community members, like Oat, were named for the kinds of things they did best. Oat spent most of her time in the oat patch, gathering oats and speaking. She was actually better known for her speaking. During Oat’s time, the community always had a bountiful harvest of oats that lasted through every winter, not because Oat was an especially good gatherer, but because people wanted to spend time in the oat patch when she was there, listening to her speak. But speaking wasn’t really a skill. Everyone spoke. The community did not yet have the word for “storytelling.” It didn’t really matter what Oat was called; she didn’t mind being known for her time in the oat patch rather than her special ability. Everyone knew Oat for her wonderful way with words. Everyone knew how Oat made them feel when she spoke. So Oat was Oat.

A community member named See was known for his eyes, which possessed the wonderful capability to paint pictures of outside things like trees, birds, and mammoths on the inside of dwellings. A few community members thought he was a witch and tried to kill him with their hands. Thankfully, See lived. Others were known for their great ideas, like Think and Think, who spent a lot of time together on the grassy patch, rubbing smooth stones on each other's foreheads, inducing smart thoughts.

Others were named for their physical features, like Wide Neck and Big Foot. These are translations from the Early Language, of course. The names in their original tongue are very poetic. Wide Neck and Big Foot were beautiful young people and received many kisses. Early People avoided naming each other based on unseemly qualities, to encourage good will in the community.

Not all community members had to have a special feature or skill to be named. It was customary to name people with strong passions after other creatures who shared their interests. Songbird sang while he gathered, and Fish swam in the river every morning. These kinds of names were the first metaphors. The community often turned to Oat when it was time to give someone a name. She was especially adept at metaphors.

Oat told her first story the day after Songbird died. (He cut himself on a rock). Everyone was a bit sad, and working slowly. This was impractical because winter was coming, and the community needed to store more oats. She thought that if she could speak words of a time that was not the present, and remind them of a happy time in the past, their spirits would lift and they could pick more oats. Oat told the story of the night before, when the community was dancing together to Songbird’s latest tune. This first part of the story made the other gathers even sadder, but when Oat described the way the sunlight set over the trees, and made the branches look like black arms, hugging the community, they paused for a moment to look at the trees and each other, and returned to their work with a little more vigor.

Oat’s stories did not involve protagonists. Mostly they just involved people doing things:

Fish swam. Then a bunny came. Fish stopped swimming. We ate.

They sometimes featured conflict, but when they did, the conflicts were rarely central to the story and were never the central point. She told stories of childbirth and rainy days and upset stomachs, overcome. She discussed the moments and feelings around the conflict in detail.

Some of her stories didn’t deal with feelings or events at all. She told the story of her mother, White Hair, who used a big leaf to carry more oats back to the community, and inspired other oat gatherers to do the same. This increased the amount of oats they were able to eat.

Her stories did not involve the imagination. Oat’s stories had no characters besides Oat herself and the other community members. Most of the time, her stories were set in the present or the very recent past. The world’s first stories did not begin with “Once upon a time,” they began with “remember…”

What differentiated Oat from the other community members who spoke, was that Oat tried her best to speak from a place of precise observation. She was like See in this way. She was able to experience and notice the feelings and conflicts and experiences around her, and communicate them in words that others could understand and relate to. It was inexplicable; when she spoke, other community members felt seen. Some people did suspect her of using magic, but no one tried to kill her.

Sometimes her stories were very long, involving many days and lots of people, and the community members would listen long into the night. But sometimes they were very short, just a few words. One of her most popular stories went like this:

The rain came. We drank.

Oat and the other community members who spent their time gathering enjoyed their work. They only worked about fifteen hours a week because this was before the invention of farming and farm owners and the value of productivity. In fact, the community strived to work as little as possible. This left a lot of time for thinking, singing, speaking, kissing and naming.

The community was not a utopia. The Early People had all sorts of problems, most of them fatal. Old, the eldest member of the community, was forty six. Most babies just died because they were babies and therefore weak; this was another reason children were not named until later in life. The community had not yet invented shoes, so they often stepped on sharp things and killed themselves with diseases. Sometimes, especially in the time before Oat, it was difficult to plan ahead to store enough food for winter, so they often killed themselves with hunger. They had unhealthy mouths and bodies, so when they kissed they gave each other diseases and killed each other with love. There was human conflict, and no rules, so they also killed each other with hate. Contrary to popular histories, love was a more common cause of death than hate.

But the Early People know little of the comforts and technologies we enjoy today, and so did not miss them. Just as people before air conditioning did not miss its fake cold air, and people before the printing press did not miss free speech for the common man.

It went on like this.

The second storyteller was a young man, not yet named, who lived during the same time as Oat. He had no notable physical features, and few skills or passions. His hands were clumsy and prone to dropping, so he was not an able craftsman or painter. He was impatient and a poor listener, so he didn’t spend time gathering. His thoughts were simple and redundant, so he was not invited to the grassy patch to think. He could not carry a tune and had two left feet, so he didn’t express himself with his body. He was insecure, so no one wanted to kiss him, so he had no babies to spend his time raising. He grew bored and therefore angry. Eventually, he did what other bored or angry community members did, which was slink into the woods for the thrill of killing.

It may be surprising to learn that Early People had a diet of mostly vegetables. There was plenty around to gather, and they had a colorful variety of seeds, nuts, berries, grains and sprouts which gave them many nutrients. When they did hunt, it was for insects or small mammals, rarely large creatures who could fight back, like mammoths. To hunt a mammoth was to risk the life of community members. It was not just dangerous, but unnecessary and therefore stupid. In Oat’s community in particular, no one had ever hunted a mammoth.

As the unnamed boy walked through the woods, lifting up logs with his big toe in search of bugs to crunch, he heard a loud moaning sound through the trees in front of him. Feeling fear, he balled up his fists and stood his ground to prepare for danger. The moaning continued without producing an event. His fear was overwhelmed by curiosity. Instead of running back to the community, he approached the strange sound. He longed for an event. Through a thicket of trees, he saw a large brown mass. A mammoth, lying on its side. It would take about twelve community members, piled up, to match the creature’s size. Its leg was badly injured; the boy could see a white bone sticking out. He approached slowly, reaching what he thought was the backside of the creature until a glassy black eye opened. It was the size of his fist. He thought about killing the creature with a sharp rock. He wondered if it would be better to kill it with a big rock. Before he could decide, the creature died on its own.

The boy returned to the community. He had the urge to tell the others what had happened in the woods. Usually, people did not speak of past events which did not involve other members of the community. To tell one single person’s story was as engaging to Early People as a long recount of someone else’s dream. But the boy wanted the others to listen to him and believe him so that they would help him drag the dead mammoth back to the community to eat. He changed the story. He told a story that did not actually happen.

He approached the Thinks on the grassy clearing, and asked them to call the other members of the community to hear him speak. They agreed, and soon the community was listening, skeptical of this young, unnamed boy, but curious and ready for his story.

I kill. Sharp rock. Walk close. Loud sound. Fear. No event. I kill. I kill. Mammoth.

It was a bad story. They boy started with the climactic moment, and the rest of the moments were all out of order. But one word in the story, which Oat never used in hers, caught the attention and imaginations of the listeners, so it didn’t really matter whether or not the story was told well. Kill. Kill. Kill. The community buzzed with excitement.

The mammoth was brought in from the woods, and the community had a great feast. Over their meal, everyone was speaking about the boy. It was obvious that this was the event for which he would be named. There was conflict, though, because the boy’s story demonstrated that he had a new kind of quality that the community had no word for. The boy had shown great strength and capability for success, in bringing down a mammoth, but also great stupidity in facing a large beast alone. The combination of these qualities, strength and stupidity in the face of danger, seemed essential. They were unsure whether it was good or bad. Think and Think spent four whole sun cycles on the grassy patch, trying to pick the right name. They could not decide. On the fifth day, they consulted Oat, because she was the best at metaphors, and it seemed that this boy required one if he was to have a name.

But Oat’s observation abilities were as acute as ever. She could see that the boy was exhibiting a quality that was new, unlike any other creature, and uniquely human. She gave the boy a name, which was very wise and meant something very meaningful and special.

Hero.

For a while, for the rest of Oat’s lifetime, she was still the best storyteller in the community. Hero, who was still clumsy, impatient, and a bad thinker, never got the hang of placing the climactic moments or energy, or stringing moments onto storylines, which his kind of story, a hero’s story, demanded. Also, he told the same story, over and over again. He disliked all other stories. Any story that did not involve him was a bad story. Some of the community members even realized, after a while, that Hero was probably lying about what happened in the woods that day, because he changed the details all the time. Sometimes it went,

I kill. Sharp rock.

And other times it was,

I kill. Big rock.

But after Hero and Oat’s time, when a new generation of children received their names, it was Hero’s story that was told over and over again. Not Oat’s. Not their own.

These new Early People did not know Hero. They did not know that the real Hero was clumsy and insecure, and had no notable features. It made for a better story if Hero was brave and strong and confident. A painter named Imagine, a direct descendant of See, created an art work that depicted Hero on a large dwelling wall. He wanted people to consider him a good painter, and to like him and his paintings, so he painted Hero, a person he had never seen, as a very tall person with large muscles. The painted Hero wore clothes of mammoth skin as he killed the community’s first mammoth. He carried a strong, sharp weapon called a “spear” that had not even been invented yet in Hero’s time. The community loved the painting, and complimented Imagine on his skills. The community members looked up at this painting of Hero and tried to be like him. They were disappointed when they failed. Their own stories seemed unimportant and uninteresting in comparison. They spent more time hunting and less time kissing. Deaths caused by hate were on the up. It went on like this.

There were no paintings of Oat on dwelling walls. The community did not remember her. But stories like hers lived on. They will always live on. For Oat’s stories are life stories, and do not require any lies, only observation and listening. The best storytellers are the best listeners. Sometimes, a very good listener would come up to Oat and ask her a question. They would ask her what Hero meant. She would smile and tell them. Hero was a word she made. A combination of two sounds. It did not exist, and had no meaning. Hero was nothing but a breath on the wind.