Week 9 Storytelling: Heads Will Roll

On tonight’s newscast we have breaking news of a rolling head chasing after her children! I would advise your children to leave the room because the pictures and story itself could be considered quite disturbing…

(News room Photograph. Source: Wikipedia)

Good afternoon everyone! We’ve recently received a heinous story including murder, talking snakes, and chasing heads. We’d like to call this breaking news title: “Heads Will Roll.” Our very own George Smith is out in the middle of the action talking to anyone in the area trying to get information on this crazy event. Lets cut on over to George and see if he’s received any insight on what happened earlier today…

“Thank you Veronica. I currently have one of the neighbors here who happened to see murder happen. Would you be able to tell me what happened earlier today around 10 am?”

“Well, I was washing the dishes and gazing out the window like I do every morning. We live next to a lake so our view is just gorgeous. I could stare at it all day! As I was looking out the window I saw one of the wives from my book club walk down to the lake. All of a sudden a huge snake came out of the water and I kid you not the two started talking to each other! I even rubbed my eyes a few times to make sure I was seeing this correctly. A few minutes later the wife’s husband jumped out of nowhere and killed both the snake and his own wife! The whole series of events scared me so much that I dropped the plate I was washing and it shattered everywhere.”

“Wow I can’t even imagine how terrifying that would be to watch… Did anything else happen?” asked George from the news.

“Unfortunately yes. I watched as the man cut both his wife and the snake into tiny pieces. He put them into a bag and walked back to his house. That’s the last I saw of him,” said the neighbor.

“Thank you so much for giving us a little insight to what happened. I know it must be hard to relive such a graphic sight. I now have the oldest child of the murdered wife with me. Can you explain to me what happened to you today?” George asked inquisitively.

“It was a normal day until we came home from school. Normally mom is the one who is there to greet us but she was nowhere to be found and my dad had already made us dinner. We didn’t ask any questions because we were so exhausted from a day of classes so we sat down and ate. A few hours passed and mom still hadn’t come home. Dad said that if she came back while he was gone to tell her that he had gone to get the rest of the food he hunted earlier that day. So I was sitting at the table with my siblings working on homework and all of a sudden my moms head… still alive I must add… rolled in and said “I am very sorry that my children have eaten me up” I freaked out! How could I have eaten my own mother!? I had no idea she had even been murdered! My siblings and I ran out of the house screaming and as the head pursued us. I didn’t know what to do so I drew a thick line in the sand so the head would get stuck. This worked and we ran all the way to the police station.” Said the oldest sister.

George’s mouth and eyes were wide open when the camera panned back to him. “This is just traumatizing. I’ve never heard of something so crazy in my life! I’m so sorry for the loss of your mother and I really appreciate you taking the time for this interview. Now I’m going to send this story back to the news room.”

Thank you George for piecing this terrifying story together for us. We’ve recently heard that the father has been taken into custody for further questioning and the children are currently being evaluated for the psychological trauma they have been through today. When we get more details on the story we’ll be sure to tell you on our next news segment!

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Author's Note: I chose to do this week's assignment off of the story called The Rolling Head. In this story a woman would go down to a lake every day after her husband had gone to hunt to talk to a snake. The husband caught on and followed her one day and when he saw what was going on he killed both the wife and the snake. He cut both of them into little pieces and fed them to his children. The head of the murdered wife rolled to the children and told them that they had just eaten her. When this happened the children got scared and ran away but her head followed after them. The oldest child drew a line in the sand so the head would get stuck, which worked. The children had to fend for themselves for awhile so they hunted and gathered a lot of food which caught the attention of a nearby town who was starving. The people came to the children and were fed. Soon enough they left and it was just the children and the father living together, but they were mad at him for what he had done and they had lions come and kill him! I decided it would be fun to write this assignment as a breaking news story since there are so many crazy events involved. I kept the story very similar to the original but decided to stop the ending with the mother's head getting stuck. I wanted to make it more modern so I had the father going to jail and the children being evaluated for what they had just been through. 

Bibliography: "The Rolling Head" by Stith Thompson. Website: UnTextbook.