The Spider and the Fox
Once upon a time, there were gods on Earth.
Gods that knew and understood human suffering, gods that fought alongside their believers, gods that helped those in need, gods that listened to the prayers of their faithful and answered, helped.
Once upon a time there were gods of war and wrath, tricksters both kind and cruel, students and teachers and creators and crafters and much much more.
Usually, they were very horny.
Once upon a time, there was more kindness.
Then, once upon a time, they were killed. Killed by both outsiders of their religions, people who believed their one and only God was the most righteous, and by their own people, who forgot them because they were forced to or because they simply chose to.
But, even now, thousands of years later, some of their stories are still remembered. They may not have the power they once had, but they are not completely gone. Just⊠resting. Sleeping and playing among themselves, remembering what once was, all in places that mere humans could never see: islands beyond the veil of reality, places built out of stories even older than the gods themselves, reminisced with the help of a Traveler who forsook his powers over Dreams to help these righteous beings. For they deserved more, better.
Once upon a time, there was a god in Africa, and his name was Anansi. The Spider God. Trickster, rainbringer and storyteller, all stories were his for he had won the right to them. His stories made people smile and brought sunshine even at night, yet he knew the darkness that came when the moon didnât shine and the stars winked away behind the clouds. He knew evil and monsters, predators and prey. He had been both, after all.
And, because of that, when his brothers and sisters and mother and father and children slowly began to go to sleep, he remained, left behind, for he lived in every story that ever was and ever will be. Sometimes he was just a small webweaver in a corner of a room where the protagonists spoke, other times he was an old man telling the traveler the way before disappearing in the fog. Still other times, he was the protagonist. Always, in those cases, the story had a happy ending.
So it was that Anansi walked the world and wondered: âHow can I save my brethren? How can I help them not be forgotten?â
The answer, naturally, was as simple as answers come: he had to remember them all, and he had to tell all of their stories.
He did just that. He was hunted, of course, by the followers of that one and only God, whose name sometimes was God, other times Allah, or even Yahweh. A vindictive being who, in his stories, killed the whole world because he couldnât live with his mistakes and couldnât, like every other god before him, come down from his ivory tower to solve the issue himself. An idiot because, as his first act upon the creation of humanity, he chose to test them in his paradise for no real reason. A god who had given free will to all of humanity and didnât try to guide them towards a better future, uncaring of the pain men wrought upon themselves.
Anansi disliked this God. Too stuck up, too high and mighty and, truly, too distanced from his creations. In the millennia he had walked on earth, from the time when the world still had an edge, to the modern age where humans could fly among the clouds like birds, he had seen his priests rise in power and forget the meaning of what they did, craving money more than they craved to help their people.
He had watched and, all the while, told the stories of his old friends.
He had learned to disguise them among the works of that Godâs monks.
He had created new stories, changing his friendsâ appearances while keeping them as they were.
And, when the eras changed, when the churches of that God started to become just fixtures, with people no longer truly believing the words spouted by those priests, he had found people who needed guidance, and helped by making them new gods. He still remembered fondly the time when he had convinced a random crocodile around St Louis in the americas to become one of the gods for those Louisiana Voodoo worshippers.
He still remembered drinking and smoking cigars with Papa Gleba (or was it Liba? They were oh so indecisive with the names they gave).
He still remembered their Mumbas and their rites. There was true belief there. True love and community, like there had been once upon a time.
But they had changed too.
And then, seeing how little the world cared about gods now, how they were considered, at most, stories, he had decided to leave. He walked one last time the Roads Less Traveled and stepped into the Void Between.
There he had built one last web. A grand web to unite worlds and stories, that he may be the last one standing to remember them all.
There he had met the Traveler, a god who had once ruled everything that Wasnât, who had seen worlds die because of his idiocy and who, in the end, had given up so much in an attempt to not repeat the same mistake again.
But this isnât the story of the Traveler. This is Anansiâs story.
And Anansi still remembered meeting a fox. She was an old mother who had had many children. A mother who grieved, for she had outlived many of them. A mother who attempted to trick him into helping her fulfill her greatest wish.
A mother, who had succeeded.
The Mother Fox spoke to Anansi: âOâ great storyteller, immortal Anansi, heed the request of an old mother, would you?â
Anansi, who had always been a family man at heart, especially in his own stories, agreed solemnly to do so.
âAll my life I strived to help and defend my pups. I taught them how to hunt, how to attack prey and when to run and hide. I did all in my power, and still many died. So please, fulfill this dying motherâs wish, and help protect her pups and their children to come.â
Anansi thought. One doesnât become a trickster without being craftier than most. And he was the craftiest and most intelligent of them all. Once upon a time, he had managed to steal Tigerâs balls, leaving the damnable animal his small Spider balls, and then escaped with the prize by having the Monkeys sing a song about stealing Tigerâs balls.
With his craftiness and genius he had won the right to Stories from Tiger.
He was intelligent. Truly.
But we should not forget how, once upon a time, during a dark night, he saw a stranger taunting him in a tar statue built by his son to capture a thief of peas, trapping himself in an attempt to punch it.
He was neither a genius nor perfect and all knowing.
âI agree, old woman. I shall protect your kits and their children. Show them to me.â
The old fox mother sighed in gratitude, then slumped to the ground, her old heart finally beginning to give out. But, before exhaling her last breath, she said: âI am old, oâ great and crafty Anansi. My mind is fogged by age, my memories hidden under the mud of decades. I fear I do not remember the faces of my children, only their smell. I fear, great Anansi, that youâll have to check them all to be sure.â
Having outsmarted Anansi, she closed her eyes and died.
Anansi laughed.
And began looking for the old foxâs kits. He had given his word after all.
____
If it wasn't already clear, I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman and I especially love his stories and books featuring Anansi. I like spiders, and I like stories, and finding out that out there in the world there had once been a spider god of stories blew my mind at the time. In my book Anansi features as a character and I wanted to give him a good story for becoming part of it. The part about the fox and Anansi is an explanation for something that happens in the book.
Anyways, my one and only wish is to one day meet Neil Gaiman and tell him how much his work inspired me both to start writing and as a writer in general. I will never forget something he said in one of his interviews, something that actually changed my way of writing a lot: "To be a good writer one must, first and foremost, write about oneself, open up, leave everything exposed for the readers to see. Only then you'll write well, because you'll be writing a truth."
It was something along those lines.
My book is The Spider Dilemma and can be found on RoyalRoad. It is a LitRPG, or Gamelit, never understood the difference. It's also much more different from the usual Litrpg stuff you'll find on the internet nowadays.
Bye bye everyone!