How Jonas Found Love and Life

The first time I heard this story, Giles Abbot, a completely awesome storyteller was telling it. It stuck in my mind for months so thought you’d like to hear it too.

For more waffle-free stories, short stories and flash fiction, you’re welcome to drop my site: www.tinakonstant.com.

Listen here, or pick it up and subscribe on your favourite Podcast Player including:

STAY IN TOUCH!

If you want Waffle-Free Stories dropped at your digital doorstep, AND the (tweaked and updated) transcripts to episodes 7, 8, 9 and 10, then click here, fill in the "Join the conversation" form, and I'll send them right to you.



STORY TRANSCRIPT

There was a man called Jonas who lived in a large, busy village where he worked for a local fishing crew. As a result, he had to work all hours, seven days a week to earn enough to feed himself and rent a small room.

Every day he woke up knowing there was a better way to live.

So on a wet morning, without notice, he packed his few belongings and left the village.

He hiked north and kept on going! He had no idea where he was going but he knew he wanted some peace and quiet and a small place to call his own. He wanted to be his own man. He wanted to be his own boss. He wanted to live his own life according to his own rules.

He passed through a dozen villages, but in each one, he didn’t find what he was looking for. As he travelled, he fished and hunted. Some he kept for himself, the rest he sold at markets, and in that way, he travelled further and further north.

And finally, a year after he first set out, he came to a bay. It was completely deserted. He was three days from the nearest town. The bay was surrounded by a steep cliff and on the top of the cliff was the ragged remains of what once might have been a house. Jonas stared out over the sea and like all good fisherman, he knew just by looking, that the waters were bountiful. So he stopped. This, he decided, was home.

Jonas couldn’t remember when he was ever happier. He woke early on the first day and got to work turning the ruin into a house. When that was done, he got to work building his boat. He hunted, fished and lived his own life. When he needed more than fish or meat, he packed his supplies into bags and travelled three days to the village to exchange it for bread and cheese, soap, tools and anything else he needed.

And so he lived.

But as you can imagine, life in the bay got lonely after a while. And although he kept himself busy, the loneliness grew. Fishing and hunting wasn’t as much fun as it was in the beginning. The long nights felt longer. His mornings were cold and his days grew grey.

So after some considerable thought, Jonas decided that the cure to his loneliness was a wife. He wanted a family. He wanted noise and clutter around his feet. He wanted children. He wanted a friend.

So he packed dried fish and meat and took the three-day journey to the village. He planned on selling his supplies, then finding a wife!

You can imagine how that went. Jonas was a big man, tall with long matted hair...

The first time I heard this story, Giles Abbot, a completely awesome storyteller was telling it. It stuck in my mind for months so thought you’d like to hear it too.

For more waffle-free stories, short stories and flash fiction, you’re welcome to drop my site: www.tinakonstant.com.

Listen here, or pick it up and subscribe on your favourite Podcast Player including:

STAY IN TOUCH!

If you want Waffle-Free Stories dropped at your digital doorstep, AND the (tweaked and updated) transcripts to episodes 7, 8, 9 and 10, then click here, fill in the "Join the conversation" form, and I'll send them right to you.



STORY TRANSCRIPT

There was a man called Jonas who lived in a large, busy village where he worked for a local fishing crew. As a result, he had to work all hours, seven days a week to earn enough to feed himself and rent a small room.

Every day he woke up knowing there was a better way to live.

So on a wet morning, without notice, he packed his few belongings and left the village.

He hiked north and kept on going! He had no idea where he was going but he knew he wanted some peace and quiet and a small place to call his own. He wanted to be his own man. He wanted to be his own boss. He wanted to live his own life according to his own rules.

He passed through a dozen villages, but in each one, he didn’t find what he was looking for. As he travelled, he fished and hunted. Some he kept for himself, the rest he sold at markets, and in that way, he travelled further and further north.

And finally, a year after he first set out, he came to a bay. It was completely deserted. He was three days from the nearest town. The bay was surrounded by a steep cliff and on the top of the cliff was the ragged remains of what once might have been a house. Jonas stared out over the sea and like all good fisherman, he knew just by looking, that the waters were bountiful. So he stopped. This, he decided, was home.

Jonas couldn’t remember when he was ever happier. He woke early on the first day and got to work turning the ruin into a house. When that was done, he got to work building his boat. He hunted, fished and lived his own life. When he needed more than fish or meat, he packed his supplies into bags and travelled three days to the village to exchange it for bread and cheese, soap, tools and anything else he needed.

And so he lived.

But as you can imagine, life in the bay got lonely after a while. And although he kept himself busy, the loneliness grew. Fishing and hunting wasn’t as much fun as it was in the beginning. The long nights felt longer. His mornings were cold and his days grew grey.

So after some considerable thought, Jonas decided that the cure to his loneliness was a wife. He wanted a family. He wanted noise and clutter around his feet. He wanted children. He wanted a friend.

So he packed dried fish and meat and took the three-day journey to the village. He planned on selling his supplies, then finding a wife!

You can imagine how that went. Jonas was a big man, tall with long matted hair and craggy beard who smelled of fish, meat and the sea.

He spoke to every woman and her family, but not one of the young women he propositioned was interested.

By the end of the day, he was exhausted and disheartened. So he heaved his backpack onto his shoulders and made his way back home. After some thought, he realised he couldn’t blame the women for turning him down. But he still had a problem he didn’t know how to solve.

But what else could he do? He got back to work. The joy wasn’t there anymore. Instead, there was frustration at himself for how he’d handled the situation.

So the next morning, he pushed his boat out on choppy seas and, distracted with thoughts of what his life had become, he set sail. He was so annoyed at himself he didn’t notice how far he’d sailed out. Getting more and more angry with himself, he tossed his line overboard hoping to catch something fast so the day wasn’t a total waste.

He didn’t have to wait long. After just a few minutes, there was a tug on his line. Jonas reeled it in. It pulled back. Perfect, he thought, he felt like a fight. Jonas pulled, the fish struggled. He struggled back. The sea was stirred to a thrashing froth, and his boat bucked and shook.

Finally, Jonas felt the fish give in. Feeling only marginally better about life, he pulled the line. But when the catch broke the surface, he realised it wasn’t a fish at all. What he saw instead was a barnacle-covered skull. The skeleton, tangled in his line, gripped the end of his boat with its teeth.

Jonas screamed. He let go of his line and fell back. His boat rocked and took on water. He didn’t care. He grabbed his oars and rowed like a demon toward shore. But no matter how fast he ploughed through the water, the skeleton kept up. Its eyes boring into him.

No matter which way he zigged his boat, it stayed clamped to it. In a final desperate leap, Jonas launched himself out of his boat and ran up the narrow path to the top of the cliff. He didn’t have to look behind him to know the bones were at his heels. His heart pounding in his chest, he sprinted across the rocky cliff, into his house and slammed the door shut.

He could hardly breathe. He waited. Gasping for air. The skeleton had stopped. After a while, Jonas peered through a crack in the door. There it was. A pile of bones not 20 yards away. It didn’t move. Jonas stood up and edged to the back of his house. The skeleton followed. He stopped. It stopped. What? He moved again. It moved.

Out of fear or relief, Jonas didn’t know, but he laughed when he looked down to see his fishing line caught on his boot.

Idiot, he muttered to himself. Ghost skeletons. Damn fool.

Jonas opened his door and, giving the line one final tug to make sure he wasn’t imagining things, he went over to study the skeleton. A woman, he thought. Hard to know for sure. It was the hair. Or what looked like hair. Maybe a type of fine white seaweed. But what a tangle: one heel over her shoulder, one knee inside her rib cage, one foot over her elbow. Fishing line twisted and knotted.

Jonas didn’t have to think long to decide what to do. No one deserved to be dumped in the sea and left to rot. He decided he would clean her up then go to the village and bring back a priest to carry out a proper burial.

So, using soft furs, Jonas carefully lifted the bones and took them into his house where he boosted the fire and put the kettle on.

Being as gentle as his big hands allowed, he untangled her from the fishing line. First, he untangled the arms from the ribs, then the legs from the arms, then he straightened the head and the hands and ankles.

He worked deep into the night until finally, the skeleton lay clean and straight. Then, and he doesn’t know why he did this, but he gathered the bones together, placed them in a chair by the fire and covered them with a warm blanket. He knew that didn’t make sense, but he figured she’d been so badly treated - tossed into the sea as she was, she needed some gentleness and respect now.

Finally, exhausted from the day, he climbed into bed, pulled the covers tight around his chin and fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep.

Now as you know, sometimes as humans sleep, a tear escapes from the dreamer’s eye. When that happens, we know the dream that’s causing the tears to flow is about sadness or longing. And this is what happened to Jonas.

What he didn’t know is that from the chair in front of the fire, the skeleton saw the tear glisten in the firelight and it became suddenly thirsty. It tossed off the furs and clanked and crawled over to the sleeping man. It leant close, put its mouth to the tear and drank. The single tear was like a river. It drank and drank and drank until years of thirst were quenched.

Finally satisfied, the skeleton put its bony head to Jonas’s chest. Boom boom… boom boom.

With Jonas sound asleep, the skeleton pulled back the covers, pulled open his shirt, rested its bony hand on his chest, then pressed its hand into his flesh, wrapped it around his heart and lifted it from his body.

The skeleton put the heart into its rib cage. Boom Boom!…..Boom Boom! It drummed in its chest. And the more it beat, the stronger it grew. First fibres and muscles grew on its bones, then the fine vessels filled with blood, then flesh, then skin and hair and eyes. And it breathed. And when all was done, a woman stood, fully formed hearing the beat of two hearts.

So she reached into her chest and removed Jonas’s heart leaving only her own behind. She leaned over Jonas, pressed his heart back into place and pulled the blankets back up to his chin.

Then she sat down by the fire, pulled her own blanket up around her and for the first time in a hundred years, she closed her eyes and slept.

The next morning, with the sun peeking through the curtains, Jonas woke after the most incredible dream. He opened his eyes, blinked, closed them again and kept them that way for a while. He shook his head. Idiot, he mumbled, then opened his eyes again and looked over to the chair. He stood up… but stood up too fast. He slipped and hit his head on the edge of the bed. He scrambled to his feet and hit his head on the fireplace.

The woman stood. Dropped the blanket. Reached down and pulled the blanket back up to her chin.

They stared at each other.

Now, Jonas was raised well. So what else could he do? He put the fire on and asked if she wanted a cup of tea.

The woman, complete and whole, well-rested and warm, smiled and said yes.

And they talked.

She told him how her father had wanted her to marry a man she didn’t love. How she refused. How she tried to run away, but he’d dragged her to the cliffs and tossed her into the sea. There she’d waited until the man she loved found her. And there he was.

Jonas and the woman talked for days. The sun came up, and the sun went down. They laughed and ate and cooked together. She helped him with the boat and they fished together. They hunted and worked and played together. And after some months, Jonas did indeed go to the village. And he did bring back a priest. But it wasn’t for a burial.

And that’s the story about how Jonas found love and life.

THE END