“Traveler’s Tales”

by Mark Thompson

I live near O’Hare, and sometimes I go down to the el platform and strike up with the people who get off the trains from the airport pulling their luggage behind them.

One day a traveler got off the el and I said to him, “Where have you been?”

He said, “I have been to a far away land, where the horses are as small as our house-cats.  People get them for their children to keep as pets.  But to pull their plows and coaches they breed huge lions that are mild as doves.”

I said to him, “Such a thing could be.”  And he went on.

Another traveler came up, and I said to him, “Where have you been?”

He said, “I have been to a far away land, where people’s thumbs are on the other side of their palms.  To shake with them you would have to offer your left hand, which however they would consider the height of rudeness.  They are very deft at fine handiwork, and I have seen their women knitting gaily patterned knickerbockers for canaries out of colored silk.”

I said to him, “Such a thing could be.”  And he went on.

Yet a third traveler came up, and I said to him, “Where have you been?”

He said, “I have been to a far away land, where the women bear litters of five to seven children at a time.  The men in that land never begin to grow beards until they lose their virginity, and as a result chastity is much prized among them.  But with the women it is just the reverse, for instead of wishing their wives to be faithful the men boast of how many times they have been cuckolded, and if all a man’s children look like him he is ridiculed and shamed.”

I said to him, “Such a thing could be.”  And he went on.

Still another traveler came up, and I said to him, “Where have you been?”

He said, “I have been to a far away land, where the people consider the education of their children the most important business of the nation.  Schoolteachers are paid more than professional athletes, and all their students respect them -- as indeed they must, since every student knows that if a teacher finds aught to complain of about their work or their behavior, both the school administration and the child’s own parents will give the teacher their full support.”

And I said to him, “Sir, you lie!”

Questions, corrections, comments:  Send me e-mail at  markthom@flash.net