It was a course on therapeutic storytelling that I had asked to go on. I seen a poster for it in the college holidays and had time to vet it all, look it over on the writer’s blog to check for some semblence of sanity. The college had the same day decided to pick up the bill. Perhaps I would have to review my hatred of certain key people in the organisation who judge people by their spiritual credentials, ensuring that they fulfil certain criteria before extending to them some kind of empathy, or indeed, even greeting them.

I stood around once I had signed in, drinking my green tea and looking out of the open window as others formed into chatting couples and groups around me. I was determined to be standoffish, a writer, as much out of defensiveness, anticipating the social mess I can make out of talking to strangers, something that doesn’t come easily to me, as anything else.

I had been writing for years, but with my inability to concentrate and the tendancy of my mind to flit from one thing to another so quickly that I don’t notice, and so utterly that even if if I do, I cannot force myself back without becoming depressed, I had got little accomplished. Indeed, nothing. And yet my view of myself as a writer was very important to me. This would be the first time I came upon these other people who consider themselves writers or creative people. I had seen them. In fcat I knew a few. A couple of colleagues believe they have books in them. One has recently finished a novel. A playwrite once toured around the site at our college, and I took great satisfaction in ripping him apart in my mind, all socks and sandals, and with a scarf tied around his waist!

We had a morning lecture on these types of therapeutic stories. Essentially those that have a moral for children and others with emotional problems to understand. Each one is formed of a simple [] involving a metaphor, a journey, and a resolution.

And then we were to form into groups and come up with a story of our own. I faced a dilemma of whether to work in groups - something that doesn’t come easily to me - or work on my own. I chose the group. Perhaps I was worried that I would not come up with a story on my own, but more likely, I didn’t want to appear more standoffish than I already had.

We had come up with a few situations that seem to be in need of a therapeutic story. One mother related how her son had been conceived in a relationship that didn’t last long at all. He was now 25 and struggled to find an identity. He was very in touch with his feminine side but perhaps lacked a strong male role model. Another talked about a lad in her class who was always putting on a fake voice, and always clowning around. He was always disturbing her in the middle of a story, say. This was one that grabbed me. It seemed to me that the pupil was putting his guard up. If he spoke in another voice and pretended to be something he wasn’t then others couldn’t hurt him.

Almost immediately, I started braintorming a story. It started off with a car. I was perhaps thinking of my uncle, a textbook aspergic, who lives on his own and has a powerful car he keeps wheel clamped in a locked garage. I moved on from this. A few years ago in England a guy was jailed for shooting an intruder. He lived on his own out in the country in an area highy in crime and burglary. He was a recluse and had booby trapped his own house up and down.

I thought of a guy who did the same. He lived alone and had bolts and locks all over the house. It took him twenty minutes to get of the place or back in. He had retreated into the place and was becoming more and more of a loner.

One day a hudini-like escape artist comes into town and, needing a place to stay, breezily breaks in and says “I hope you don’t mind. I needed a place to stay.” Of course, the owner does mind, but up against the intruder’s buoyant temperament, he only works himself more and more into a state without persuading him to leave. The artist goes out the next day for his show and while he is out, the owner fits more locks and chains, certain nobody could ever get in.

Again, the artist returns, breezily breaking in despite al the security. The owner is exasperated, but again, only works himself into a state, again, having to retire defeated. This whole cycle goes on a couple more times before one night, our Hudini character doesn’t return. The owner waits and waits before setting out into the town he has barely seen for so long, curious. It turns out the artist has …

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