Starry Teller

Photo by Aidan Roof: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-on-truck-s-roof-2449600/

All I know about the way things used to be is written down in my notebook. The pages are made of old shirts, cut up and stitched together on one side. We make ink out of different things. Crushed roots and nuts soaked in water. Poison berries. Blood.

So far my notebook only has three pages and page three is still just white, blank of ink. I’m edging on toward 20 years so there is more to be writ down and I’m saving the white page for what might come if I stay living.

Now, it’s not like it used to be when people got up to 80 years or more. 30 is pushing it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and make it to 40. But would I really be lucky?

Maybe I can sew in a new page if the world changes enough to have more to add. So far, since I’ve been alive there isn’t much to write about.

Life is hard, then you die.

I what we call a Starry Teller. Being a Starry Teller was never what I saw for myself in my Imagine Nation but I like how it feels to have something important to do. It is my nature. I’ve always knowed it, too. My father used to listen to me by the fire at night, Pree Tending I knew how things worked and talking, talking, talking. Talking until everyone but my Pa fell asleep like I was some kind of sleep potion. My Pa said,

“No need for the Kimmist, just go sit by Josic’s fire. You’ll be lucky if you ever wake up again.”

My name is Josic Heep and I’ve been a Starry Teller for two years. I know how to write so I keep the O Fish Full notebook. I like staying busy so the one to ten on my jobs is two. Three if you count fire starting.

NOTEBOOK OF JOSIC- One to ten is one. Paralgrab One.

I know around 2020 things started going off-bad. There was Pan Demic. Some sort of Dick Tater started being Press Dent, then got the Boot but then he got to be Press Dent again. After he started the SEVILLE WAR2 they called him Lil’ Adolf after the WORLD WAR 2 starter. Big Adolf was the angry Dick Tater, with the half a wooly caterpillar on his top lip. I’m not talking about him. This Lil’ Adolf was the one who dyed his skin orange and wore a long red neckpiece. Sometimes they call him Magatrum. I don’t know if that was his real name or not.

If you’re wondering about the history of Magatrum, Starry Teller Brunish holds the D Tells. I’m holding D Tells only on the year after year. About how we ended up here and now. Things here and now are Pity Full.

NOTEBOOK OF JOSIC-One to ten is one. Paralgrab Two.

I heard that Magatrum made sex with his own daughter. Yes, this is writ here, in my notebook but it brings the red to my face to write it down. I heard she had big, shiny teeth that Magatrum couldn’t resist and straight white hair.

There was once upon a time a animal call Horz with big, shiny teeth and straight white hair on the back and tail. I know a Starry Teller who has a picture of a Horz on his Scrappen Plastik. It’s an animal so big a person can ride on its back. The person riding the back of the Horz looks like he could be Master. The name of that Horz is Black Beauty. I’ve listened to that Starry Teller many times — the one to ten on that is six. He has a deep voice and his Scrappen is more than 400 words. That’s what I call Tallant.

I’d like to be Master. I’d like to ride a Horz. Some place to the South of here used to be a Stat Chew of many Horz all running together. Starry Teller Mingo holds all of those D Tells. About other places and things that are Lon Gon.

NOTEBOOK OF JOSIC- One to ten is one. This is Paralgrab Three and Four

There were three or four more Dick Taters after Magatrum and they all killed anyone with ideas until the world was so Bor Ring that it busted into flames. After the fires burned up most of the books, a Plage of the silver goldfish came and the fish ate all of the books that were left. Sure, yeah, some books were found in hidden places. Tin boxes with pictures of sweets on the top. In dry Vick Toran houses, hidden in the Hardtareech.

Since 2043 it’s been raining and the rain is hard on paper, makes it damp and then after it dries out, it crumbles. There’s also the Black Moldy that is like poison if you get too close to it. Lots of books got covered with the Black Moldy and nobody can blame people for burning those books by the Lie Barry full. The Black Moldy can give sickness. The Black Moldy can kill you.

I got my Scrappen Plastik from my town’s Old AF Starry Teller. It isn’t a full page. Maybe if I X Cell, someday, I’ll get a full page. I heard there are some Starry Tellers with whole books. Even some with the name of the book on the top with one to ten on the bottom. Mine is just a dirty scrap and since I don’t know what it means, since I can’t make sense of it and I’m pretty smart, it probably isn’t from much of a book anyway.

I’d give anything to have one of the pages of the Constatuton. Starry Teller Stum Pik has the front page of that book. I’ve heard that Constatuton was the longest book with the one to ten at 4 or 5 hundred. Lucky for Stum Pik she had just the top part of the one to ten at one. Do you think anyone, even the best Starry Teller could memorize all 5 hundred of the one to ten and then recite them? She would be sitting on Trux Roof for days.

My Scrappen Plastik is only just words. The one to ten on my memorized words is 100. That is how Old AF Starry Teller taught me the one to ten.

The sides of the Paralgrab of my Scrappen are missing. All I got is the words in the middle. You can look at the Scrappen and see how it is just the middle of a Paralgrab if you can compare it to the way the words look on a whole Paralgrab. The way the page rotted to near nothing is standard. First. the covers were destroyed somehow, then the silver goldfish and the wet did their thing and left what I got. We are all just trying to put together a map of how the world used to be. Otherwise, what would be the meaning of any of this? Why bother to recite Scrappen? Why memorize it? Why keep a notebook?

Every time I get on a Trux Roof to recite my Scrappen Plastik I make up a new story to go with what is still left on the page.

Back to what I write in my notebook.

NOTEBOOK OF JOSIC-One to ten is two. Paralgrab One.

There was the time of the Gunz when everyone went around killing each other with Pissed Tolls and Big Bor Ring Hand Gunz with Holler Point Bullets or Explo Shun Round until all that was left were the Or Fens. The Or Fens finally took over everything. They had to. It was up to them but they hardly knew anything. At the end of that time there wasn’t any Bullets because all the people who made Bullets already got killed.

It was kids raising kids.

Kids raising kids.

I get paid to recite my Scrappen Plastik. People like what I add onto the sides, different every time. I got asked to join the Starry Tellers because I was adored and now I am Sot After.

I like sitting up high with the Stars behind me. Every One sitting on the ground, making sure they catch every word. When I am done they clap hands. Up Plauz. Loud Up Plauz.

It has been said that Magatrum loved Up Plauz. I understand that. It has been said that Magatrum was adored and that started the downfall. I’m worried about my love of Up Plauz. I don’t want to be another Magatrum. Another Adolf, Big or Lil’.

NOTEBOOK OF JOSIC- The one to ten is two, Paralgrab Two.

2055 was the year I came into this. The one to ten on my father was 15. The one to ten on my mother was 13. When I came in, there was a big house still standing, a big house with Elet Trick and water inside that came out of a pipe and ran into a big bowl. Plum Ming. It is said that the Master lived there. It was Hev In. Hev In is real. My Pa took me to see the remains of the big house. A Fire Place made of bricks is still there with vines eating away at what is left. The Fireplace came before Elet Trick, that is how old the big house is. I wish I knew more about that way back time but it’s Lon Gon, like so much of what we used to know.

So, now you know my notebook. My Scrappen Plastik, without my made up Starry from guessing about the sides is this:

ain’t so. You get babies from each other. But there’s this

all these babies just waitin’ to wake up

Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy

read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own invention

could add and subtract faster than lightening but he preferred his own

a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning

slowly talking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in

his foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house

do you reckon Boo Radley’s

doors.

“Dill?”

“Mm.”

Nobody knows I lost my Scrappen Plastik a few years back. I’d lose my place if they knew. I’d lose my good job, my favorite part of the one to ten of two jobs. No, that’s not truth, I’d rather write in my notebook. I’d like to write something different though.

Instead of writing down the things I know, I guess I’m like the person on my Scrappen Plastik. I think I prefer the magic of my own invention. That is what got me noticed to begin with. All of my talking.

The last time I recited my memorized Scrappen was when I lost it. I kept it out in case I didn’t really have it in my memory and I forgot to put it back in the Plastik. A wind caught it and blew it away. I was lucky nobody saw. Just taking it out of the Plastik was wrong. By the time I got down from Trux Roof, it was gone. I’m going to be removed if anyone found it, if anyone brings it to one of the Old AF Starry Tellers, wanting to recite it themselves.

I hope it’s gone, maybe ground into the mud, destroyed forever like everything else in this world. This world, like the one on my Scrappen, where babies sleep.

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