Once
Upon a Time
All stories
begin with ‘Once upon a time.’ And that’s just what this story is about: what
happened, once upon a time. Once you were so small that, even standing on
tiptoes, you could barely reach your mother’s hand. Do you remember? Your own
history might begin like this: ‘Once upon a time there was a small boy’ –or a
small girl –‘and that small boy was me.’ But before that you were a baby in a
cradle. You won’t remember that, but you know it’s true. Your father and your
mother were also small once, and so was your grandfather, and your grandmother,
a much longer time ago, but you know that too. After all, we say: ‘They are
old.’ But they too had grandfathers and grandmothers, and they, too, could say:
‘Once upon a time.’ And so it goes on, further and further back. Behind every ‘Once
upon a time’ there is always another. Have you ever tried standing between two
mirrors? You should. You would see a great long line of shiny mirrors, each one
smaller than the one before, stretching away into the distance, getting fainter
and fainter, so that you never see the last. But even when you can’t see them
any more, the mirrors still go on. They are there, and you know it.
And that’s how it is with ‘Once upon a time.’ We can’t see where it
ends. Grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather… it makes your head
spin. But say it again, slowly, and in the end you’ll be able to imagine it.
Then add one more. That gets us quickly back into the past, and from there into
the distant past. But you will never reach the beginning, because behind every beginning
there’s always another ‘Once upon a time.’
It’s like a bottomless well. Does all this looking down make you dizzy?
It does me. So let’s light a scrap of paper, and drop it down into that well.
It will fall slowly, deeper and deeper. And as it burns it will light up the
sides of the well. Can you see it? It’s going down and down. Now it’s so far
down it’s like a tiny star in the dark depths. It’s getting smaller and smaller…
and now it’s gone.
Our memory is like that burning scrap of paper. We use it to light up
the past. First of all our own, and then we ask old people to tell us what they
remember. (E.H.G.)
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