ABAO, Trisha May EnLit12 (NN) Literary Paper 1 October 05, 2019

The Story of Our Lives: An Analysis on the Short Story “Tell the Sky”

All stories have happy endings. Especially the last ones we tell.

This is how the late contemporary writer and columnist, Luis Joaquin Katigbak, opens his

work ―Tell the Sky‖ which features the interesting life story of a narrating character who uses eight

stories in highlighting significant events in his life, but still somehow ends up telling us that the

greatest story we ever get to tell is how we live our lives. In the literary piece, the narrator begins

his story by giving a glimpse of his present reality which, we will learn as his story progresses, is

actually a foreshadowing of the tragic ending. As we investigate more on the structure of how the

story was presented, we will notice symmetry in the ideas from beginning to the end, resembling an

hourglass-like structure where, as the story progresses towards the end, the situation parallels a

corresponding situation until it eventually ends with the beginning.

First, he describes the strangeness of the sky and recalls how he was told of the reality of his

fate regarding eight stories through an encounter with the fortuneteller who he describes is a ―dark

vagueness, an indentation in existence.‖ Next, he shares a visual representation of the stories inside

each one of us like ―caged birds of varying hues‖, ―ripe, slimy pods ready to burst at a touch‖, or ―a

December-sky firework.‖

He then tells of how he used his first story to lie and get himself out of trouble, and the

second one to cheer himself up. In the middle, he tells us how he wasted a story on a love he knew

would end soon and wasted two more in his college years where we could not even remember why

he did. He then again used a story to tell another lie but this time placing a consequence on other

people, and finally, used his seventh to cheer up a friend.

Before the telling of his last story, he goes back to describing again another visualization of

the stories within the people as he starts seeing them more vividly through strange images, but soon
realizes that he was not hallucinating but was ―seeing hidden things, secret and unsettling truths.‖

In the end, he goes back to the first scene in the story and has another confrontation with the

fortuneteller, describing him the same way he did in the first part. The story ends with the narrator

finally closing his last story as he feels his heartbeat eventually stop.

The literary piece presents a reality with striking similarity to the reality presented by ―All

the World’s A Stage,‖ a monologue from William Shakespeare’s play ―As You Like It,‖ which

describes the seven ages of man that comprises his entire lifetime. It begins with man as an infant,

to a schoolboy, then a soldier, and becomes a justice – a modern man, then goes back to

childishness in his old age. It follows the same structure as the literary piece where the progress

unfolds in a way that is symmetrical to the beginning of the story like that of an hourglass.

However, the difference is that in Katigbak’s ―Tell the Sky,‖ it can be noted that the character died

young, only three years after getting his first job (par. 10), therefore he was not able to experience

old age.

The narrator, as the protagonist of the story, had the goal of telling eight stories in his

lifetime and to use these stories well. Meanwhile, the fortuneteller in the story could be the face of

death as the character repetitively describes him as a ―dark vagueness, an indentation in existence‖

creating the image of a dark hollow. But what do the stories represent? Why will the narrator

―never be able to use it again‖? Why does he only have eight stories?

The act of storytelling requires artistic effort. This connects well with one of the themes in

Global Voices and Encounters where literature is considered an ―artistic window that allows us to

explore the dynamics of conflict, cultural cooperation, and their consequences.‖ It reminds us with

the power of our words: they are windows to our soul. Whether or not these words represent the

truth, they are very telling of our characters as people. They are a representation of our ideals. The

number of stories that the character was given could indicate the sum of the time we are alive or the

whole time we have the chance to ―tell our story.‖ Eight stories allowed the character to tell a story
not too short, but not too long as well. It reminds us that we are here on earth for only a brief and

passing moment; we need to use our time well.

In a tribute to the author’s life and works, Ian Casocot, Katigbak’s fellow writer and friend,

writes about the common theme of the author’s stories in his article "Luis Katigbak's literary legacy

is best exemplified in his stories of love and disconnect" in CNN Philippines (2016). He writes:

In the stories of Luis Joaquin Katigbak, people yearn for connection in the disconnection… It
makes us realize that Luis’s stories come off as ruminations, of the deep philosophical sort —
these stories in search of big answers, using the guise of fiction to get a glimpse of what life is
all about.

There are a lot of truths that we can learn from the tragedy of the character. It teaches us about the

significance of the stories we tell: we might be gone from this world, but our stories will continue

to linger with those whose lives we have touched by our words. We might sometimes forget their

importance, but there will always be one to witness and remember, even up to our last breath, even

a witness as abstract and wide as the sky. The strange visions of the narrator and his vivid

imagination also tells us that how we see the world, how we make sense of everything around us,

and how we choose to see more than just the superficial and the shallow, will determine our values

and actions which in turn shapes how we tell our stories. The stories we tell often serve for our

comfort, if not, for the comfort of others.

It also teaches us about mortality. Death is not just mere disappearance, a process of fading

into nothingness, an abrupt moment where we cease to exist. On the contrary, it is a rather peaceful

transition to the still unknown. After this, only two things can happen to us: either we are

immortalized by being remembered or we fall into the oblivion of being forgotten. How we end up

being will depend on the impact of the story we tell. In the last paragraph, the narrator says ―and as

I mouth the ending,‖ signifying a voluntary submission to the call of death. The narrator

acknowledges that, as every storyteller would know, there is an end to every beginning.

We have limitless stories to tell; what makes one more significant than the other to be

included in the ―count‖ of the tales we have? Or what if we only have one story? We just like to
think we have a lot but actually, they all just contribute to the one whole noble story of the narrator

that tells about his entire life. Ultimately, how we live our lives is an enduring story we get to tell

while we are alive and will serve as a memorial of our existence that is remembered (or forgotten)

after we are gone. (1,252 words)

Works Cited

Casocot, Ian Rosales. "Luis Katigbak's literary legacy is best exemplified in his stories of love and
disconnect." 12 May 2016. CNN Philippines. Nine Media Corporation and Cable News
Network, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. 04 October 2019
<nine.cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/literature/2016/05/12/luis-katigbak.html>.

Shakespeare, William. "As You Like It."