Paper Jam Continuous Story
Every year the Paper Discovery Center holds a book & paper festival - Paper Jam - celebrating the many faces of paper… books, origami, storytelling, scrap booking, poetry and more… At the first annual Paper Jam 2005, a Continuous Story was begun be the attendees. Read the story below and come to help add on to it next year!
It was a dark and stormy night. Somewhere in the distance a screen door slammed, but the figure slumped beneath the street light did not move. The figure watched like a shadow, the only motion was a curl of smoke, rising like a cobra, past the cone of light the street lamp cast. Alone and waiting, he felt as useless as Jar Jar Binks in the Phantom Menace.
And the dragon blew a big stream of hot fire breath at the big lizard by his lair. Then he had to fight knights. He fought bravely, so hard he fought.
Then he almost fainted because the dragon blew fire at him. He ducked and he fainted. Then the dragon took him to his cave high in the mountains, where they chatted, and drank lattes.
And as the dragon launched into another caffeine-induced story, he, unnoticed by the dragon, slipped a Mickey Finn into his latte. Before the dragon fell asleep he said, “What’s up, Sven? Why did you do this to me?” And then the dragon fell asleep.
Sven said, “What good is this going to do me? How can we rescue the dwarf if my transportation dragon is sleeping?!?!?” “I’ll tell you how to wake him,” whispered an eerie yet musical voice in my ear. “He’s a contrary dragon, so if you sing him a lullaby, he’ll wake up.” I sang! Oh, how I sang! And the dwarf rescue began.
The dragon woke up and surprised all the dwarves. They jumped and they hopped and they squealed with glee! Oh, what an exciting dwarf rescue it will be! Yeah. We are rescued. Now we can go back to the castle. And when we get back let’s have a big pot of soup.
So we looked for some ingredients to put in the soup. So we found chicken and broth. And then we went back to our balloon next to the ocean. And climbed aboard the balloon to go up in the sky to find out where the seashores go. And she saw hope & peace & love floating as paper cranes above the paper museum and the Fox River.
Three young cats enjoyed watching the cranes. Uh-oh! One of the cats licked his lips. He was starting to get hungry! He daydreamed what his options were. Looks like rain, dark, and warm.
Never forget you are loved and cherished. Going off to college can be scary, but exciting! Enjoy your four-year or plus adventure and make the best of your education. Learn art! And paper creations!
The last sentence from this year’s story will continue as the first sentence of next year’s tale. Join us next year for Paper Jam.
