Down in the town the shriekers tried to tighten their grip. Desperate to silence the street story pedlars, they spread wild misinformation. It didn't matter that the pedlars told the truth, it was not the truth the shriekers wanted their owners to hear.
They began shutting down storystores and replacing them with shiny state sanctioned jukeboxes. Some pedlars were able to remain open by calling their stores glorygrabs and telling the sort of truth acceptable to the shriekers and their owners. Most refused to tell lies.
The streets themselves did not like to be lied about and avoided the glorygrabs, instead choosing to form biblio-unions and tale-guilds: an underground network, roots sublime and incorruptible.
© Curtis Ackie 2022
The Ligaroot Tree, Brianna McCarthy, Seedlings 2022
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