StoryWinds: Authenticity

A story from before people could write, about a man who finally listens to his heart, and risks everything to be who he believes he truly is. This is the seventh StoryWinds tale, and can be heard independently.

Transcript

Long ago,

Before we knew how to write,

Our stories swirled in the winds.

Every blue moon and,

Sometimes sooner,

The winds would collide.

Stories long forgotten slid to the earth and slipped into the dreams of the sleepers below.

And for a moment,

They remembered once more.

The islanders believed that they were alone in the oceans.

They knew that their sand,

Mountains,

And trees were all that there was in the everything.

But one year,

A child was born,

Who looked out over the ocean and saw something different.

Ubuko never played with the other children,

But instead stood for hours at the exact spot where the water rolled up on the sand and looked out past the island.

His mother worried that he wasn't well and tried to get the other children to play with him.

But Ubuko would say things like,

I can hear them over the water.

The other people.

Can't you hear them?

And the other children would run away.

Ubuko learned that he would be alone his whole life if he didn't stop gazing over the ocean.

He learned how to make buildings out of rocks and island trees,

And by the time he became an adult,

He was the best on the island.

But one afternoon,

He walked away from his work,

Went down to the ocean,

And stood on the exact spot where the water rolled up on the sand.

Ubuko saw the same vastness,

The same lack of land that he had witnessed as a child,

But as he turned to walk away,

He saw something new,

Not on the water or across the water.

What he saw was in the sky.

In the far distance were bluffs of clouds,

Stacked and sprawling in the blue.

Underneath one of the clouds was a softly shimmering,

Bright blue sky.

He whirled around and started gathering tools.

By nightfall,

He had everything he needed,

And with torches set up all around him,

He went to work.

Villagers had gathered to witness this moment of madness.

His mother was the first to approach him and gently ask what he was doing.

I'm building a boat.

I'm building a boat.

I'm building a boat.

I'm building a boat.

What are you doing?

I'm building a boat,

Said Ubuko.

I'm finally going to find the other people.

Ubuko's mother shushed him and pulled him away from the villagers.

You aren't good at what you do,

Ubuko.

You are brilliant,

She whispered.

Why are you risking it now?

You're going to die or just have to turn back.

You will be humiliated.

Ubuko was silent,

Except for the voice in his head telling him that what his mother meant to say is that she would be humiliated.

The villagers slowly drifted back to their homes as they grew tired,

But Ubuko worked on with few breaks.

When the sun was high overhead,

He was finally ready to find supplies to take with him.

Even the village elder told him that he would fail,

Die,

And at the very least,

Throw all the good in his life away.

Ubuko's mother didn't see him off,

Nor did the other villagers.

A few excited children who still believed in dreaming stuck their heads out of doorways to watch him go.

His heart sank to his feet when he realized for the first time that he could no longer see his island,

And a bluff-sized part of him wanted to go back.

The part that remained told him that for the first time in his life,

He was trying to find the people,

Not trying to convince the villagers they exist,

But truly trying.

Against his wishes,

He fell asleep in open waters.

He woke in the darkness when he promptly pitched forward and landed hard on his head and chest at the front of the ship.

Before he felt any pain,

He understood what he wasn't feeling.

The ship wasn't moving,

And the water wasn't rocking.

He believed at first that he had beached himself on a sea monster.

There were greater chances of that than of finding land.

But when he lifted his throbbing head up over the prow of the ship,

He saw sand,

Trees,

And hills,

Almost identical to his island.

That was the answer,

Then.

He had fallen asleep and come back to his home,

Landing somewhere on the island that he didn't recognize in the dark.

But then,

In front of the ship,

Walked with a lazy-like slowness,

An odd creature that looked like half of a coconut,

With four legs and a head sticking out from the bottom.

Everything soared within him.

This was not his island.

He had found the shimmer in the clouds.

He jumped out,

Grabbed his supplies,

And started running around the shoreline.

Ubuko found signs of people everywhere.

He found houses and art and boats similar to his.

There were nets for fishing,

Drums and torches,

And the same fruits he had on his island.

But the longer Ubuko explored and marveled at what he saw,

The worse he felt.

He had not seen a single person.

He returned to his boat,

Sat on the sand,

And with his back to this other version of the everything,

He knew he had failed.

He was right.

There were people,

But he hadn't seen or met them.

He put his supplies back in the boat and pushed out to sea.

He quickly jumped out after a brief moment and pulled the boat back and ran to the sand.

He grabbed a branch from a nearby palm tree and walked onto the empty beach.

He drew a picture of himself and the boat.

In front of that he drew his island and the people.

He spent the longest time in the center of the beach,

Making sure his drawing was perfect,

Including the bluffs of clouds and the shimmer.

It was the best invitation to come to his everything.

He could think to draw a map when he sailed off and was once again in open water.

He briefly considered not going back to the island,

Not going back anywhere,

Just floating until he stopped being an embarrassment or a failure.

He was not going to the island.

He was going to the beach.

He was going to the beach.

He was going to the beach.

He was going to the beach.

He was going to the beach.

He had found proof of another people,

But had not met them and had nothing to show for what he found.

His mother,

The villagers,

And the elder were right.

Then he felt a sharp tug on his back,

And when he whirled around he found a woman standing in his ship with him.

She did not look pleased.

I am Varuma,

The Spirit of Truth.

You have lost yours.

Yes,

Said Ubuko,

I have.

I am a builder.

This is not my truth.

You were born knowing there are people out here.

You lost your truth when you became a builder.

Yes,

You are gifted,

But a talent is not the same as a truth.

Ubuko was at a loss for words and did not know what Varuma was trying to say.

You have done what few ever attempt.

You walked away from a comfortable life in order to be who you really are.

You were,

For a day,

The essence of truth.

By the time he saw his island,

He could feel that Varuma was right.

His heart felt like it had,

For a short while,

Then the heart it was supposed to be.

Now it was filled with dread and apprehension.

It was still dark when he made landfall,

But his hopes of finding no one around were not met.

The villagers noted that he was back,

And slammed their doors in his face.

He did not go home,

Since his mother might not even let him in,

But instead curled under a bunch of palm trees and waited for daylight.

He didn't wake until much of the commotion had quieted down.

After hiding in the caves from the strange man in the boat,

The other islanders had seen what Ubuko had done.

He hadn't destroyed their homes or stolen their things.

He hadn't damaged their ships or plants or food.

He had drawn a silly picture of himself and his island,

He had wanted to meet them,

Not hurt them,

And he made himself and his whole people vulnerable by showing an entire island of strangers how to find his home.

Ubuko missed the shocked looks on the islanders' faces when the other people he had talked about had left.

He missed the first greeting of the elder puffing up his chest and gesticulating at the wonders of the island.

He missed the look on the arrivals' faces,

As they felt what his island sand felt like under their feet.

Ubuko was still in shock,

But he was still able to see the islanders' faces.

As they felt what his island sand felt like under their feet,

Ubuko was busy dreaming about Varuma telling him that he had been,

For a moment,

The essence of truth.

And before he woke up to see the commotion that his truth had caused,

He believed.

Reviews

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Another amazing story!! I love all your stories! Are you putting them in a book?? They are so unique and meaningful.
I especially loved Hope (There was a glitch or something and I wasn’t able to post my review for it, That one was particularly heartbreakingly beautiful!)💖🙏

I loved this story. Love the uniqueness of what you do.

Beautiful story, thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻The one about hope I am not able to access. I get a message: "error, reload".