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A number of years ago I sat down on a stone bench outside the Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique, when I worked as an artistic consulter.(1)____(2)____ It was a hot day, and we were taking a break from rehearsals. The theater's air-conditioning system had long since stopped functioning. It should have been over 100 degrees inside while we were working.(3)____
Two old African men were sitting on that bench, but there was a room for me, too.(4)____ In Africa people share more than just water in a brotherly or sisterly fashion. Even when it comes to shade, people are generous. I heard two men talking about a third old man who recently died.(5)____(6)____ One of them said, "I was visiting him at his home. He started to tell me an amazing story about something that had happened to him when he was young. But it was a long story. Night came, and we decided that I should come back the next day to hear the rest. But when I arrived, he was dead. "
The man fell silent. I decided to leave that bench until I heard what the other man would respond to what he'd heard.(7)____(8)____ I had an instinctive feeling that it would prove to be important. Finally he, too, spoke. "That's not a good way to die-after you've told the end of your story."(9)____
It struck me as I listened to those two men that our species might be the storytelling person What differs us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people's dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats-and they in tum can listen to ours.(10)____
