Care For A Story? Sunday, October 29, 2006 / 1:53 AM
"'Did you ever hear the one about the angel of the Lord coming to earth on the night the baby Jesus was born?' he says, and we both nod. I'm a bit disappointed though. We had enough Bible stories at the workhouse.
'Well, what they don't tell you is that some of the angels who came down that night took a good look around and liked the place. So instead of clearing off with the rest of the holy host, they decided to stay. Well, the angel of the Lord didn't think much of that. He said, "You have to come back with me; there's no place for you here." He had a deep shining voice, like a bell. But still the others hung back, and already were losing that glow around them that angels have, and becoming more like men and women. Because when you look at an angel,' Travis says, 'you can't tell one from the other.'
We're listening now, hard. We can see a hill in winter, same as these hills, with a big group of shining angels hovering above it, and the blinded shepards lying on the earth, and a few darker figures, still glowing, standing on the hillside.
' "You must come back," said the angel of the Lord. "You have never been mortal, you have never known free will." But one of the figures was already becoming a woman, tall and craggy, with wild white hair and she could feel the earth through her feet. "We have chosen," she said, and the angel of the Lord didn't know what to say to that, because choosing was not something he knew. Just by choosing, these creatures - whatever they were - were no longer angels. So he beat his wings fast and hard and lifted his finger and spoke with many voices.
' "Your choice is on you, and choice will take you where it will. But you have no place here, so all you can do is follow that star. Men will despise you and turn you away, and only the star and the memory of that star will drive you on, each in his or her own way, until your story ends." And with that, he and his company of angels rose into the night, and the beating of their wings was like a fiery storm. But the others stayed on that hillside, feeling their feet grow solid and strong, like the earth, and they looked at one another without words, then turned and went their seperate ways. And they became the wanderers - gypsies in some countries, tramps in others - spurned and outcast. Yet to this day, when one true wanderer meets another, they recognize each other by a light in the eyes that comes from the original star.'
Travis pauses there, but we're still listening.
'I suppose that makes you an angel then?' I say, a bit scornfully, but Annie says, 'What did they do?'
'They told their stories,' says Travis. 'True angels have no stories because they can't choose. But if you travel any road long enough it'll tell you its stories, and they soon learned how to tell them. Every road's got stories of its own. And that's why,' he says, 'it's good fortune to feed a traveller.'"
STORY I
The Whispering Road
Livi Michael