Save me a Story – Zeitgeist

This is the continuing story of my adventures in the tale: Save me a Story. If you wish to read the introduction to understand what is happening, click this link: 

https://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=3431 

Otherwise, I’ve tried to summarize what happened at the beginning of most of the sections of this story.  

Zeitgeist 

Necroma was gone. Where to is still unknown, but what is known is that her powers are gone, at least for now.

Getting the characters back to their own homes was easy. Reviving all their memories was not. It was a slow process. It required a lot of storytelling on my part. First of all, I didn’t know all of their stories. It helped that some of the characters from those stories hadn’t been under Necroma’s spell and could help me. Once those characters were back in familiar settings and they started hearing parts of their own stories, their memories returned. There just were a lot of stories to tell. 

The caretaker was kind enough to allow me to go between our worlds to do more research into the stories I didn’t know. And because of my services, I could ask as many questions as I needed without paying for them.

And then, there was the problem of differences in perception as to how the revived stories should play out. This created a lot of debate. This time, both groups held the meetings together rather than apart. In some instances, the ones that Ronald had found enjoyed the notoriety of being the villains and chose to let their stories remain pretty much intact. Others didn’t like the idea of being killed off or having a bad reputation and decided to have their stories start the same way but to have their characters grow and change in perception based on learning a lesson that occurred by the end of the tale. Since no one in Selat ceased to exist as long as their stories were told, it didn’t matter to its inhabitants how they were viewed outside their own world. However, within Selat, there was a greater acceptance of each other. 

As for Ronald…dropping all the villainous characters on me to deal with and leaving me alone to solve the problem was, well, Ronald as usual. His involvement in uniting the characters, defeating Necroma, and recovering the stories wasn’t part of his plan. He liked coming up with ideas but never followed through on them. I am usually the one stuck with picking up the pieces. When the caretaker allowed Ronald to return to our world, he also wiped him of any memory of Selat and his adventure. When I returned, Ronald was just Ronald again, probably coming up with some new ideas for trouble we, or should I say, I, would get into.

Eventually, time continued on at its regular pace. The stories that had been rewritten became part of the norm where we lived. More people were reading and sharing them. They loved the action, the detail, and the lessons that were taught through them. Some tellers and writers even wrote their own updated versions of them. I was the lucky one, for I could remember them all. 

———-

Zeitgeist is defined as the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history, as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time. Stories capture the zeitgeist of our lives.

So long as the stories are remembered and shared, Selat will continue to exist, as will we. 

———–

“If you don’t know where you’re going, it will take longer to get there, but oh, the stories you will have to tell.” –

Thanks for listening to my story – Harvey Heilbrun