Story Hunter

Story Hunter

by Malky Gestetner

Do you want my story? Turn away. I have nothing to offer you. Nothing spurious. Nothing enchanting. I know stories can corrupt me, so I have surrendered them. I have become an ascetic. I have chosen an austere, circumspect life. I am no legend. I am no parable. I refuse to be a lesson. My greatest accomplishment is my anonymity. It is required for my line of work. 

I am a hunter. I collect what I fear. I collect what I detest. I collect what I admire. 

I collect stories. I savor them. 

They all taste sour or bittersweet. If you hone your intuition, you will become skilled at tracking them. Do you want me to teach you? There is an art to visiting people’s minds. You want stories to emerge naturally, but none emerge without some prying, some coaxing. Do you have the ability to be gentle? 

Here are some signs that you need to be delicate. As delicate as if you were extracting a brain tumor. 

It was fated. I was forced. I was not in control. I chose this. I am fine. I am not to blame. I am guilty. 

These are all stories. 

You may not notice their depth immediately, but you will notice that they have a resonant, jagged quality. You will become aware of a startling, uneasy sensation that slinks into your brain like a slimy tentacle. Stories are dangerous. They are parasitic, and you may become ensnared without realizing. You may become the victim of a justification, an explanation, an excuse, a narrative. It will sink into your consciousness. It will settle. I wish I could tell you how to protect yourself, but I am not immune to stories.  I am armored, but stories evolve to be sly. They evolve to win. They evolve to trap you. 

For this reason, I am vigilant. 

When Lilian asserted, vigorously, I don’t care what they think of me, I watched her carefully. My discoveries rarely shock me, so I was not afraid to monitor her. I was not afraid to speculate on the strident, jutting way she walked. I was not afraid to listen to the rattling in her breath when she thought nobody was paying attention. These are all signs, and I know how to read them. Of course, I also studiously observed what Lilian showed me. She showed me her pride when she walked past muttering crowds. She showed me her resilience. She showed me her fanged smile. What do their opinions matter? I don’t care if they all fight me, I’m not going to let them win. Lilian scowled, and my natural skepticism rustled, shifted by a surreptitious wind. I reached out to touch the spiny resolve that covered Lilian like bark. It felt soft. I’m the one who’s going to be laughing at the end. I’m the one who’s going to succeed. Lilian was so adamant, she managed to make her scandalized family believe her indifference, her stoicism. I am certain Lilian believed it as well, grasping at it like a lifeline. I am certain Lilian never felt it was prudent to modify her story simply because, in the immobilizing, dim nights when sleep ghosted her, she found herself shivering in the heat, her neck prickling with sweat that smelled like fungi, her mind ringing with a thudding, thudding, thudding siren that only she could hear. 

Can you feel it? Stories exude an eerie, decomposing whiff. When they reach you, they make you recoil. They make you experience a tension that you cannot explain. I am trained to notice these symptoms. I am trained to pounce on the stories, trace them to their roots. This requires precision. You will find that, if you dare probe aggressively, you will encounter a frigid paralysis. You will encounter resistance that will obviate your attempts at discovering the truth. Stories have spiteful defensive mechanisms. They lash out at you when you provoke them.  I know, because I have felt their sting. I have felt their attacks. 

When I interviewed Mallory, I was exceedingly tender, because her story was inextricable from her identity. Her story was vibrant, vindictive. I was the victim. She was rigid against any accusations. They sabotaged me. They made my children hate me. I watched the flush in her cheeks. I watched her gaze lunge, hungrily searching for support, searching for approval and then seething because nobody gave her what she wanted. Nobody gave her credence. Nobody accepted her rebuttals, her denials. I silently wandered away, perturbed. I was looking for the answer to a puzzle whose pieces had dispersed. I needed the full picture. Did you know that stories breed? They are mutable. Mallory’s children were all derivatives of an extravagant, proliferating narrative. I hunted them. I tried to count them, but they always reshuffled, like a pack of cards, hiding amongst their shared pain, their shared reticence. They lurked and lurked for a long while before trusting me. Can I really call them children? They were stolen from their childhood when they were rescued from abuse. I am honored to have received their stories. We forgive her. Deep down, she really loves us. She really cares about us. Some of them still have scars in the places where Mallory burnt them. Some of them still have nightmares. 

In my line of work, I am always deeply troubled by one dilemma. Should I preserve the stories, or should I challenge them? It was Mallory’s children who made me realize that sometimes, stories are a kindness. They are stitches. They stop you from bleeding out. They keep you from despair. 

I used to think it was my duty to uproot them, to replace them with the naked truth. Did I imagine that truth would bring salvation? Did I imagine that, by dismantling and discrediting the dedicated stories people wove out of their lives, by rescuing them from their illusions, I would redeem them? It is painful to admit it, but I had a savior complex. I took aim at people’s stories. I was combative. You’re lying to yourself. You are a hypocrite. You are not special. You are not a good person. You are not a bad person. You are human. You are flawed. Why do you think stories will bring you dignity? Why are you evading the truth? 

I was shocked at my own failures. I couldn’t understand why people clung to the stories. I tried performing surgery. I grasped at their roots, gingerly. The stories pulsated. Their fibers inflamed, clinging desperately to nervous tissue. I was alarmed. Why are you struggling? I’m trying to free you. But they were aggravated. They didn’t want to be cured. They didn’t want to be liberated. 

Eventually, I surrendered. I rarely intervene now. I have been humbled, and now I bring you my warning: you will find no success if you strive to eliminate stories. They are sensitive to touch, and they will become impulsive, ferocious, as they feel your intentions, feel your eagerness to expose them. They want to be hidden. They want to survive. In fact, some stories are so deeply ingrained in their host’s mind, that it would be fatal to remove them. Some stories are essential. 

Suffering makes me stronger. There is always hope. There is always a chance. 

It’s okay. I’m not broken. I’m tough. I’m successful. I’m satisfied. I regret nothing. I never doubted you. I never blamed you.

I am fascinated by the delectable scents that stories excrete. I find them intriguing because they are endlessly twisted, endlessly complicated. If you share this intuition, you will find that there is nothing more satisfying than being entrusted with a story, nothing more beautiful. If you want to reach stories, reach their intricate, spiraling threads, then you must have this sympathy, this receptivity. You must welcome stories, because they are the most marvelous and the most stunning product that humanity has ever invented. They are sublime. 

Stories are my life now. It is my mission to collect them and to understand them. This is my penance. I used to be disrespectful toward stories. I stigmatized them and harassed them in the hopes that they would falter. But now, I let stories teach me tolerance. I let them teach me wisdom. This is my atonement. This is how I have grown to love them. 

Do you know what I have learnt? If I am accepting, the stories will seek me. They will invite me to insinuate myself between their filaments, because every story needs an audience. Every story, in its own frantic way, is searching for validation. 

I’ve made peace with it, believe me. I can handle it. I deserve it. I don’t need your help. I can be fixed. I can be saved. I really care. You believe me, right? 

I allow the stories to confide in me. I allow them to spring into the air, effluent, like fumes emanating from a geyser. They prickle at my skin, wanting to consume me, and I pity them for their tenacity, for their sincerity. They make me ache. I want to fling them away so they stop struggling, but I know that my interference will inflame them; I know that I will agitate the stories if I try to wave them away. So, I endure the fumes. I let them saturate the air. I let them sting. I disarm myself. I disable my fight. I play dead. 

I once watched an argument play out in a restaurant. A coiffed, strained girl was picking at her food. I never meant to hurt you. How was I supposed to know you cared? Another girl was sitting opposite from her, grimacing. She was very still, suppressing any movement, any trembling. You were supposed to know. It’s obvious what you did was wrong. They were both somber, stranded in their splintering, divided worlds. You really messed it up for me. I’m sorry. You really made things sticky for me. I’m sorry. For God’s sake, why didn’t you realize it was private? I’m sorry. You’re not really sorry. They were aware of a rift growing between them, but did not know how to overcome it. 

I considered approaching them to share my wisdom, knowledge that I had harvested with great sacrifice. All relationships are stories. All friendships are stories. 

We’re going to stay together, no matter what. The estranged girls trod away from the restaurant, glowering at one another. They were walking on a minefield, asserting their invincibility. My incredulity was anguishing. I wanted to flee, but I felt it was my obligation to stay and watch the explosion, the ripping of all the strands. Snap. Snap. Snap. 

I am always haunted by an uncanny regret when a story dies. Are there stories worth saving? Are there stories that should be repaired, in order to mend a rip in an elaborately knitted fabric? Stories never end peacefully. There is always mourning. There is a sense of betrayal. How can you ever truly recover from a story? The loss is like an amputation. I know the pain of feeling lost. I know the pain of feeling bereaved.

I am a story survivor. A survivor turned hunter. Do you think it is ironic? 

Everyone needs a way to deal with grief.

Stories have hurt me. They have bewitched me, cheated on me. I was a story addict. I fed my body to them, and it felt wonderful. I was a pliant host. I sacrificed myself in order to let their tendrils live within me, infiltrating my cranium. Do you want to know the story of my salvation from this grim subjugation? Trick question. There is no story. No triumph. No delivery. No epic quest, no climax, no resolution. No tragedy. No comedy. No fairytale. 

The truth is never as fanciful, as transcendent, as the stories. It is the blunt puncture of a balloon. The truth sets you free, into a freefall. 

I am in recovery now. 

I have nurtured this natural ability, this subliminal alertness toward stories. I know all their aromas. I know their pungent, putrid, cloying flavors, their diversity and their subtlety. I can teach you to detect the reek of stories. I can teach you to enhance your skills. I can teach you to stop lying to yourself. I can teach you to stop rationalizing, blaming, justifying, and dreaming. I can teach you to stop dulling and denying your own insight. 

But I can’t teach you the truth. 

It is futile; the truth is something you already know. It is in your core, embedded deep within you, beleaguered, sickened by your swirling stories, but not dead. If you want to be a story hunter, you will need to excavate the truth. No matter how overpowering and intoxicating the odors that perforate you, excite you, fascinate you, you must not be satiated. You must find, between the artificial fragrances, a trembling, fragile scent, filtering into your breath. The scent of truth. 

Here is the truth. You are alone. You are human. You are selfish. You are broken. You are whole. The truth is a contradiction. The truth is numinous. You are scared. You are fragile. You are hurt. You are struggling. You are strong. You are alive. You want love. You want acceptance. You want to have a purpose. 

You want to believe in something.

When I feel the truth wafting toward me, purifying and excruciating, I collect it. It is usually trembling, humming with a soft, whiskery pain. It is hunting, just like me. Hunting for someone brave. Hunting for someone who will accept it, stop hiding it, stop shunning it. I welcome Truth, cradling it like a prize, and we sit together for a while, because we are both lonely. Then, when Truth shows me its wounds, the cuts people have made in it, I suck in my breath and whisper I’m sorry.