A few words about stories, consider them true. As true as stories can be. All stories are made, are constructed, are artificial, would never occur so in nature. There are no true stories, one could even say the true story itself, is an invention and yet stories are all we have and all that is, we owe to stories.
Without words, bundled into stories, we could not remember the world. We could only see and hear and feel and taste what is, we could perceive the world, but it would be gone as soon as the moment passed and disappeared into the past. We would not be able to remember anything. Everything would consist only of the moment in which it is. Without words, the only place we could live would be the everlasting, eternal moment.
A story is nothing more than a bunch of words that rhyme in a certain way. The rhyme is what holds the words together so that they can be remembered, transported from brain to brain, last [1].
Words may be an approximation of what is, stories, on the other hand, are arbitrary. Stories do not care whether they are closer or farther from what is. Stories only care about whether they rhyme. The better the rhyme, the better the story.
Not every brain appreciates all rhymes equally. For example, some prefer simpler rhymes, some more complex, some funnier, some more serious, some with a clearer melody, some with a more polyphonic one. And so not every brain appreciates the same stories, but all brains appreciate stories.
Words outside of stories make no sense, fall apart, are empty words. The number of non-bundled words a brain can remember is limited, the number of stories a brain can remember may also be limited, but it is vast. You can see it for yourself once you turn your gaze inward. Look at all the stories you can remember, all the stories that make you who you are.
All stories are inventions. They are all that we have. All that we are.
[1] There are techniques and technologies to transfer knowledge out of brains (books, movies, ect.) but this can only be (inanimate) temporary storage.