Emma Keith

I began life as a boulder.  A rather large boulder, but a simple boulder, nonetheless. My humble beginnings are all in my past now.  But a boulder in the great Yosemite Valley, where I watched the children of the tribe and the wild creatures pass me by season by season. I am certain, is the most beautiful place on earth, but I grew tired of my insignificance in that valley.  One day, as I was bemoaning my place in the world, two tiny boys from the nearby tribe sat down on my smooth, shiny surface. I was warmed by the sun that day and they were clearly tired from their day in the Merced, so I happily hosted their nap.  I cannot explain what happened next; it must be the magic of that valley. All I know is that I began to feel a change, and the next I knew, I was growing. So slowly I barely noticed at first; so slowly that I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. I grew until I was too tall for these two small boys to safely escap...

This week, I dug into some Blackfoot folk tales. I found that many of them were convoluted and a little confusing — some left some loose ends and included confusing details. But here are a few of my favorites and my plans for retelling them:       A grey wolf. Courtesy of Retron. Source: Wikipedia Commons . The Wolf Man In my retelling, the man and his wives' story would be relocated to space. They would  all live in a giant space station (in a scientist/researcher community with other astronauts), and when the husband gets tired of living with unproductive wives, he would jet the three of them off in a separate ship. Instead of setting a trap for him to kill him, the wives would shut him out of the ship "accidentally" one day while he does maintenance in his suit outside the ship.  The man could be found by some extraterrestrials and assimilated into their ways when his wives leave him for dead. And in my ending, I'm not certain I want...