Scene: The kitchen table of Harriet�s house, breakfast.

AJ: Mommy, I�m going to tell you a story.
Harriet: Great! I can�t wait to hear it. But first you need to eat your breakfast.
AJ: No, I have to tell you right now!
Harriet: I guess that�s okay.
AJ: Good. Here it is. In 1994 there was a boy named Jack. He lived in a house with his mother and he loved bananas. He had a magic banana for breakfast. It was yellow with brown spots and it turned into a peel and he ate it. Then it turned back into a real banana. The end.

* * * * *

AJ loves to tell stories. Most of the stories he tells represent some kind of hybrid of his life and a fairy tale and they all feature a certain amount of detail. AJ loves the small details and he�s quite good at using them to set the scene. But sometimes, as in the above example, the details take over the story. AJ had set out to tell a story about Jack and his mother, but the banana was too tempting and he told a banana story instead.

The other interesting thing about AJ�s stories is that lately he�s given up the standard �Once upon a Time� beginning in favor of �In 1994.� I have no idea why 1994 has become a stand in for all things mystical and past. 1994 doesn�t seem like a particularly good year for this rhetorical purpose. It�s the year of NAFTA, of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, of the Menendez brothers; the year of Kurt Cobain�s suicide, genocide in Rwanda, and OJ Simpson�s bloody glove.

Yesterday, one of AJ�s stories began, �400 years ago in 1994�.�
�1994 isn�t 400 years ago,� I observed. �Yes it is,� argued AJ.

�It�s really 11 years ago.�

�11 years? That�s a long time�

400 years, 11 years, once upon a time. It�s all the same if it�s before you were born.

And, in fact, 1994 was the year I first met my husband. So in a sense, it is where AJ�s story begins.

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