K. Ford K.
I became a storyteller by accident. It all began in Mexico where I attended university and where I learned to accept the supernatural as a normal part of life. From the revered opinions of the local witch, to the preparation of meals for dead grandmothers, I learned to see the world through different eyes and I came to understand that things are not always what they seem.
Later, on my way to attend a university in France, I traveled to Morocco. I stopped at a marketplace in Marrakesh and while eating my lunch of dates and oranges, I watched a tattered beggar transform himself into a storyteller. He moved with the practiced gestures and fantastic expressions of his trade, surrounded by a growing circle of people who listened to him with eyes wide open, their own lives forgotten. In another culture, at another time he might have been a rich man, but here he was selling beautiful tales for coins in the dusty marketplace. I longed to be like him, this mendicant from Marrakesh.
Years later, I moved to Tokyo to teach and write articles for The Tokyo Weekender Magazine. Every day I traveled the crowded trains, sharing space and breath with millions of strangers.
There amid the crushing humanity, I watched the surreal combinations of east and west in language and life, the painful and beautiful growth that occurs when two cultures collide. I witnessed two public suicides, and felt firsthand not only the temporality of life but also the beauty of a single moment.
The time spent crushed between strangers, doors and windows of the train became a quiet meditative place where I learned to accept life and death. There on that Tokyo train, I began to write novels in my head, while that tattered beggar from Marrakesh, who had captivated me years before, whispered in my ear like a nagging dead man, “Tell me a story.”
“All the mysteries of the universe are solved within the Imagination.”
“Thinking about what other people do in bed will age you faster than anything. It makes your heart beat too fast.”
“Creativity is a delicious dream from which I never want to awake.”
“Polly ended her lesson with the words she lived by: man is tender by nature, the rest is invented. Everyone applauded, even Bernice who was relieved that it was finally over.”
“It’s just as well,” she thought. “If I told them what I really think, they’d shit roses.”
“She [Bernice] didn’t like anything that had an adult theme, with only one exception, her collection of erotic female memorabilia. They were all antiques, fragments of other women’s sexuality that was somehow easier to deal with than her own.”
“Bernice was fascinated by Trinket because she wore her sexuality as openly as a fragrant perfume. She was also amazed by the fact that Trinket found life so easy and satisfying.”
“The erotic arts have the same goal as religion; to prevent men from acting like beasts.”
“Think about this: in all the stories I've ever heard, genies always want to get out of the bottle. And they do get out, sooner or later.”