We tell ourselves stories. Stories of our own achievement, of our limitations, of our potential. Stories to keep the monsters in the shadows on the walk home at night. Stories of love and devotion, stories of the winner in a particular argument, stories of our parents’ betrayal, stories of our cowardice. I’m too inexperienced. I’m too old. I’m not ready. I’m not good enough. We have myths of a garden, of spring, of a flood, of harvest and death. We have myths for the birds and horses, for snakes and spiders. We have myths for ourselves, a past of heartache and disappointment, or acclaim long forgotten.
The stir of it—of story—is everywhere. Pregnancy and physiology exams, grant awards and experimentations in the second person. It’s a time of incongruity: Percy Jackson, modern demigod, grappling with a Cyclops on an island off the coast of Florida; the crew of the spaceship Serenity, 500 years in the future, riding horses on an outpost planet.
The past, lifting you in its weary arms, and trudging forward, whispering a tale of what is to come.
