Neil, the Story (Re)Teller

NOTE: All of the following is part of my imagination; please take it only as a humble tribute to one of my favorite writers of all times, because little of this is based on his actual life.

In the cold winter of 1960 in Portchester, his mother began reading him fairy tales even before he could raise his little head. It felt magical for the baby despite the fact he didn’t understand the words. Newborn Neil would struggle to keep his little brown eyes open because he knew the lovely voice would fade if he fell asleep. Yet, the fairy tales continued in his slumbers. A kingdom of colors, sounds, caresses, voices, flavors, everything as shapeless as a drop of paint mixing in a palette.

As he turned into a little boy and grew up in his home of Sussex, where his family had relocated when he was still an infant, Neil, like many children his age, would ask again and again for the same stories: “And then, what happened?” he asked his parents or his uncle, and every single time the wolf dressed up as the Grandmother, Snow White bit the poisonous apple, the Prince defeated the dragon and woke Sleeping Beauty with a kiss… “Don’t you get tired of it, Neil, my dear?” grown-ups said.

They couldn’t have been more mistaken. Neil feasted on fairy tales like other children were craving for sugar. Every single time, he felt transported into a whole different world, a world where trees could grow up overnight, where cats wore boots and tricked kings, where witches flew in broomsticks, where Good defeated Evil every single time.

He turned six and began attending school. He learned how to read and write. It was amazing how, from twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks, a writer, using his imagination, could create a world. And he discovered that there were so many other stories to dig in! During the rest of his childhood and his adolescence, his visits to the local library became a routine: he discovered Charles Dickens, Chesterton, Shakespeare, Tolkien, and so many others… then, he got into mythology: other people from distant parts of the globe and from different periods in time had found other ways to explain the marvels of the world surrounding them. He also enjoyed reading comic books about superheroes because, he thought, “Aren’t they the fairy tales of the 20th century after all?”

He kept reading before bedtime. And his dreams became more and more elaborated. Sometimes, he felt possessed by the King of Dreams himself, Morpheus, who would populate Neil’s mind with the right fuel for his daytime fantasies. “The world we live in”, Dream would say, “is only one of the many, many possible worlds. If you don’t like it the way it is, you can always create a new one”.

And so, Neil began to write. Images, stories, characters, would flow out from his mind into the paper as he was channelizing an ancient power that was beyond his understanding at that time. So many ideas, so many different stories to tell!

Growing up, he met David, who had an amazing gift with the colors, and together they brought some of those incredible characters to life. Neil had found a voice of his own, and David provided him with the images. Now, people all over the world would get to know Dream and his dark, deep voice, the way Neil intended.

And it was only the beginning: Neil still had so many stories flowing inside, so many fairy tales that needed to be told again and again, always for the first time, always different, always unique. “Fairy tales are more than true”, he read once, “not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten”. He adopted Chesterton’s quote as his personal motto and inspiration. He created a new Snow White, one that was beautiful, yes, but deadly, soulless, and a danger to her people. He imagined Santa Claus as a victim of the cruelest punishments. He gave a new life to the old gods, and as he moved to the USA, he took his gods with him.

He became a father, and his children would become his ideal audience. He gave them a scary story of a girl who was tired of her parents and found a new mother who would try to sew buttons to her face, another story of an orphan baby raised by ghosts in a graveyard (the ghost were the least frightening part of the book) because he knew the best of this kind of stories wasn't to scare children but to help them overcome their deeper fears.

And he noticed adults in the world were still wishing to be told fairy tales, so he created many, many more, just for them. He knew by now that Good and Evil are not necessary antagonists, and that an angel and a demon can join forces to stop the Apocalypse and keep on listening to Queen’s hit songs. He knew that even the darkest character can hide a speckle of light that will shine on a page and in the hearts of the readers... and the purest of souls can still hide a dark secret. He was aware of the fact that he wouldn’t live forever, but also that no one really dies if they write and leave an imprint. And anyway, that he wouldn't mind walking one day side by side with Death if she looked as cool as he had visualized her.

But between that day and today, there's life. And probably, much, much work to do! He is a 21st-century wizard who can create and recreate an infinite number of stories with the same old classic elements. He writes as he was creating a language of his own, his words directly touching the souls of people who read them. And besides being one of the best writers alive, he is also a wonderful teacher and a passionate speaker who can inspire lost souls, one who can even turn a boring housewife in his late thirties into a fervent aspiring novelist.

I would like to thank him for making me believe in magic, for teaching me how to defeat my own inner dragons (although they, as old fairy tales, also keep coming back again and again). I would be forever grateful for making so many readers rediscover the magic of Norse mythology, the talents of Shakespeare, and the beauty of cats late at night, when we hear them meowing on dark alleys and we know for sure they are plotting against humanity. 

If I ever got to meet him I’m pretty sure I’d be speechless, but if possible, I would only ask him one question:

“And then, what happened?”