Jax: The Keeper of Stories

Jax Keeper of the Stories in Bordesley Hollow

In the quiet, misty expanse of Bordesley Hollow, where the flock moved as one, calm, disciplined, and unwavering, there was always an expectation. Follow the path, stay with the herd, know your place.

I never did.

From the moment I took my first unsteady steps, I felt it, that I was different. Restless. Too loud in my head. My thoughts ran faster than my legs could carry me. The others grazed in neat lines, moving as if to an invisible rhythm, but my mind leapt ahead, sideways, everywhere at once. I would start one thing and forget why I started it, distracted by the glint of light on the water, the sound of wings above me, the mystery of what might be hiding just beyond the hill.

They tried to guide me at first. My family showed me how to move with the flock, how to lower my head and follow, how to be still. But stillness never stayed with me. When night fell and the others lay down to rest, my thoughts grew louder. I wandered. I listened to the Hollow breathing. I chased questions I did not yet have words for.

The elders grew tired of my disruptions. I saw it in their eyes before I heard it in their voices.
He is not like us.
He does not belong.

Even my mother, once so patient, began to sigh when I drifted too far behind. I do not blame her. Loving something that will not fit into the shape you need it to be is exhausting.

And one day, the flock moved on without me.

When I woke, the Hollow was empty of them. No trail pressed into the grass. No familiar warmth in the air. I called out until my voice cracked, but only the mist answered me back. They had chosen to leave me behind. To make the quiet easier for themselves.

For a long time, I believed that meant I was broken.

Being alone hurt in a way I did not know a heart could hurt. But loneliness has a strange way of making you listen to the world and to yourself. And slowly, something else grew in the space they left behind. A quiet understanding.

No one was here to tell me to slow my thoughts.
No one was here to scold me for wandering.
No one was here to ask me to be smaller.

For the first time, I was free to move as my mind moved, to explore the Hollow in spirals instead of straight lines, to follow ideas wherever they ran, to sit with my racing thoughts and let them become something instead of noise.

That is when I started noticing the shadows.

Every corner of Bordesley Hollow holds them, creatures who stay hidden, stories that never get told, lives that pass quietly and are forgotten. I see them because I know what it feels like to be unseen. My mind does not stay in one place long, but it lingers on feelings, on details others pass by. I collect them. I carry them.

Telling their stories became my comfort. It gave shape to the chaos in my head. It turned the dark into something I could hold. This is how I learned to turn shadows into stories.

And somewhere along the way, I realised I was telling my own story too.

I am the black sheep. The unwanted. The one who did not fit.
But I am also a survivor.
A seeker.
The keeper of the stories in Bordesley Hollow.

If you are reading this, maybe you have felt like a shadow too. Maybe your thoughts move too fast, or your heart wanders where others do not understand. Maybe you have been left behind, or chosen to walk away.

If I can turn shadows into stories then maybe you can do the same.
Maybe, one day, you will write your own.

And I will be listening.