ITTHOBAAL’S INVENTIONS 13 – MOVING TAPESTRY

(MUSIC)

ITTHOBAAL'S STUDY.

(SOUND OF QUILL)

ITTHOBAAL

(AMAZED BY WHAT HE HAS SEEN)

Dear manual of mechanics and magic,

Not long ago, Arthur and I went to see The Bayeaux Tapestry. 230 feet long! It is the longest tapestry I have ever seen.

We had to measure it to check just how long it really was. For me it was only 200 feet, but Arthur has more regular length feet and he measured 230.

The tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England, culminating in the Battle of Hastings. It is such a vivid depiction, I felt like I was there!

Of course I was indeed there, for parts of it at least. We faked many deaths during the Norman Conquests, and the tapestry sent me right back.

But I imagine even people who were not present at these battles would be taken by the beauty of this tapestry, held captive by its relentless action and thrust forward into emotion by its detail! It was like it came to life before my eyes!

(PONDEROUS)

Hm... I used to think that every house has a bard. In every family there will be at least one person, sometimes several, who revel in telling stories. It might be the old aunty telling tall tales from a long life, entertaining everyone around the dinner table, or the uncle who gathers the children around him by the flickering fireplace to tell fairy tales. Or even the child who will invent mad scenarios and share them with anyone who will listen.

(WITH CONCERNED SURPRISE)

But yesterday, Arthur and I went to see a potential client, and found ourselves in a house where no one told stories. Including the would-be client.

We are seasoned story-gatherers. Arthur has a knack for extracting stories from the most unwilling subject. But in the end we had to give up. We could not get the client to explain their problem with more than the shortest bursts of one-syllable words, never mind tell us their life story.

We were there under false pretenses, of course, posing as traveling merchants, so we got to meet the potential client's family. The house was very remote, and we had to stay the night, and round the dinner table, we noticed how no one told stories. Even the story of what they had done that day was communicated in as few words as possible, or not at all. They were not an unhappy family, as such, they were just... Well, Arthur put it succinctly:

(IMITATING ARTHUR) "They were so booooring!"

They were uninspired. Untalented when it came to storytelling. They just did not know what to say.

And I thought back to the Bayeaux tapestry that we had seen only a few days before and I could not help but be struck by the contrast.

(BAFFLED)

How a tapestry could tell such a vivid story - even without words! And how this family, with all the words in their language at their disposal, could not string two sentences together, or find any creative way in which to use them.

(AN IDEA FORMS)

Could every home have a tapestry? To brighten people's days, and give them moments of magic and respite?

Or what if - and this is a ludicrous idea, I know - but what if the tapestry could move? If it could tell a story with moving pictures? What if it could change and tell new stories every day, just in the way a storyteller would!

What magic that would be… What an improvement to the lives of people who cannot come up with their own stories! What a wonder!

It is a flight of fancy, for sure. But imagine the delight…

Till next time, dear catalogue of creations... Till next time.

END.