The Last Story Died
At exactly 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time the last story died. It was a story that was embedded in the brain of Bernard Bigcanoe, D.D.S. (dental surgeon) who had claimed to have discovered it at the age of fifty-five. It had caused quite a sensation at the time, and he had been offered various incentives by various agencies (both private and network) to tell his story. He refused. Now, at the age of 104, a large man with yellow fingernails and a face criss-crossed with sun wrinkles, Bernard lay dying in a small bed in a small town in northern Ontario.
The mainstream media shifted uncomfortably around the room hoping Bigcanoe would divulge the story in the last moments of his life. If he did decide to tell them, then that in itself might be a kind of story, they surmised, but not like the story that Bernard Bigcanoe, D.D.S. claimed to have. His story was the kind that hadn’t been heard of or spoken of or written down in a long, long time.
Why the stories had disappeared was unclear. Scholars researching the topic came up with various contradictory theories. Some believed in a single big bang, some believed in a long, slow pattern, evolving over time. Some smaller, independent theorists argued that the government was hiding stories in a large warehouse in Arizona and still others thought that any stories that might have existed were just facts cleverly disguised to look like stories.
While the media waited for Bigcanoe to either die or talk, they drifted about town. At Norm’s Tavern they sat sipping vodka, crunching ice cubes, and interviewing people. The townsfolk were unanimous: “Don’t believe it” they said as the hot summer wind churned through the overhead fans.
The same dry heat pushed against the fan over Bigcanoe’s bed, where one journalist, in a room full of journalists, cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, Mr. Bigcanoe, are you ready to go on record as to the details of this alleged story or tale, if you will?”
Bernard, who had been dozing off, only heard the last part of the question. “Tail?” he asked, his voice a low, hoarse whisper.
“Okay,” the reporter assented, “Tale. Are you ready to give the details of your tale, sir?”
“The sun is going down,” Bigcanoe said.
“Fact!” someone shouted and 14 pencils marked it down. Then they waited, hoping for something more.
“I’m dying,” Bigcanoe finally said. The pencils flopped down in defeat—they had already noted that fact.
“Has this alleged story ever been written down, sir?”
“Yes,” he replied, and the pencils all regained their upright positions. The more daring photographers snapped off a few pictures while Bernard still had his mouth open.
“And where are they written down?” a young woman dared to call from the back of the room.
“It’s dark. I’m dying.”
A few caught off guard wrote that down. But it was just another fact.
The truth was that Bernard Bigcanoe had always thought he had a story. It had come to him half a century before in a daydream just after he had pulled a dozen different teeth and performed a root canal. At the time he was sure it wasn’t a Jungian or a Freudian dream; it had a beginning and it had an end. It seemed to mean something and nothing at the same time, and what it meant changed when he felt it the next day and the day after that, and almost every day since.
For fifty years, reporters and researchers from around the world had periodically arrived; government agents had occasionally appeared in his office and had attempted to make small talk. Bernard always admitted the story was vague in details, but he was sure it would become clear someday.
It hadn’t.
It kept changing.
He had continued to read recent story theory work thinking that might help, but he found the concepts confusing. Perhaps it was a story of a child and maybe there was a sack of some kind, but he couldn’t be certain. Finally, here on his deathbed with 14 yawning foreign and local journalists surrounding him, Bernard Bigcanoe had to admit to himself that maybe he didn’t really have a story. It had all probably been just a dream—a big dream with a beginning and an ending, but, still, just a dream.
He thought briefly that he might tell the world this fact before he died but then he didn’t see the point. And just as he thought that, there it was: a child with a sack and a boat in a river and a coyote and a goose and a father who carried an axe and an apple that shouldn’t have been eaten because sewing is dangerous when you don’t know the correct names of things and there was a large lizard and a woman with a pinched face and a stick that could talk. But sticks couldn’t talk. Only cars and elevators can talk. But there it was. There was a beginning and an ending and then another beginning and another ending, and another.
He realized that it wasn’t a single story that had been caught up inside him all this time. There were dozens of stories. There was a book inside of him that was him and not him at the same time, that meant something and nothing; and the details weren’t really important.
Bigcanoe opened his mouth. The pencils paused in mid-air. The cameras trembled slightly in front of the faces of the cameramen.
“I have stories to tell,” he smiled behind closed eyes, behind the faint upturn of his lips. And the cameras flashed at exactly 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and the pencils wrote “Fact. Last words: none.”