I wouldn't sail this ship if I were you
Those that grow with each telling, those that you think have ended but which always have another ending to follow, stories for cold dawns, half-forgotten ones, stories that rely on some unspoken common knowledge, those that you disregard at the time but which come back to you at midnight; stories best told in a den or treehouse, stories for the intoxicated, those that curl back to their beginnings; tales that are elegant and beautiful knots, or that are passionless clockwork; stories about ideas that grudgingly contain people; stories about people in search of some plot; those that are not what you thought they were at first; those that you thought were funny when you started telling them but you realise half-way through are not, those whose digressions are the best parts, those that mean different things to different listeners; stories against the end of the world; those that you tell whilst sheltering from wolves; stories that wear their parlour tricks on their sleeves; that mix metaphors in a bucket; stories that seem to float off, mid-thought; those that are far too cool to say anything; stories presented as evidence for something true; shaggy dog tales; sleek greyhound stories whose meaning races off when left unattended; tiny grumpy dog tales that fit in a handbag.
