Zounds! Thursday’s arrival brings the usual subconscious mucking about for a 100 word story based on the photo Madison Woods provides every week on her blog. I welcome constructive criticism so let me know what you think!
Story is below the photo. Thanks for reading!
The Towers
Little Joseph drew close and looked up at me with big eyes.
“I brought you here to show you something,” I said. “Look across the valley, what do you see?”
“Rusty old towers. Momma said never go there.”
“Eh, yes, good. It was a city, once. Full of people and light. But God came down one day
and said, ‘Look at these people, masters of land and sky, there is no limit to what they can do.’
“And so He scattered us across the face of the Earth and all the lights went out.”
The boy shivered and looked away.
A most unque and creative take on the prompt. Well done. Mine is here and linked: http://readinpleasure.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/fridayfictioneers-the-withered-flower/
You went for a mythology bend too! Yay! This was wonderful, I loved it (but then, I love most everything you write.)
Way to go. You know where to find mine.
Love,
Sarah
Very interesting take. I’d love to hear the process that links picture to story. For some reason I’m contemplating that even more than the tale.
http://keliwright.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/friday-fictioneers-food/
I came to the story by a rather winding route. First, I couldn’t figure out what the thing was in the tree. Then I realized it was a cow skull. Meanwhile, I was thinking about how creepy it is when trees grow over and incorporate fences and other objects, which led me to imagining a post-apocalypic situation. Then I thought: why not retell the story of Babel? Not sure where that came from but it gave me something to work with.
A little Bible a little mythology…all told, made a great little story. Thanks, Danny.
here’s mine: http://www.rochelle-wisoff.blogspot.com/2012/08/casualty-of-war
that’s http://www.rochelle-wisoff,blogspot.com/2012/08/casualty-of-war.html
Very interesting take on the prompt. It’s so fascinating to see the different perspectives. Here’s mine: http://postcardfiction.com/2012/08/17/discovered/
Biblical mythology. A new take. Good job of it.
Great epic language, against the counterpoint of a child’s simple statement – skillfully done.
I like that you don’t feel it’s necessary to specifically mention or refer to the image in the photo. It’s all around you in the world you’ve created. Nice job. Mine’s at: http://photocitations.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/bury-them-friday-fictioneers/
Very interesting take on the prompt. I liked it. Feels like it could also be the beginnings of something bigger.
I’m confused by what “us” are – they are scattered over the earth and cause the lights to go out, but they seem to be human or semi-human. I clearly need to reread my Bible stories and figure this one out.
The story is based off of the Tower of Babel-see Genesis 11:1-9. My thought was that the old man and the boy were survivors of the wrath that descended on the cities.
Curious to know what the towers are made of (metal?). And (I also am not up on my Bible) curious to know about the “masters of land and sky” (particularly sky). Also curious about the lights going out. Is it dark now? If so would the boy shiver at this (if darkness is part of his daily life, would he find it scary?)?
I’m over at http://plowright.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/fictioneers-26/
The towers are the ruins of skyscrapers. My idea was to modernize the tower of Babel story. So instead of a group of people gathering together to build a tower to heaven (as we read about in Genesis), we have modern civilization getting more and more powerful, becoming masters of the Earth (we cover every part of it) and sky (we fly through it, and we even travel in space). God sees this and destroys our civilization, reducing the scattered survivors to the stone age.
The old man is telling the legend with the ruined city as a backdrop. The boy shivers not only about the world going dark but also the wrath of God.
I am definitely guilty of being too cryptic. I’ll try and be clearer in the future
I like the cryptic nature of your writing – that you challenge the reader to do some work. Great stuff.
Mine’s here: http://worksbyclaire.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/short-story-recipe/