May Writing Contest - Voting Thread
Alright, so here it is, the Voting thread for the May Writing Contest. And it's only 16 hours late. But there's a very good reason for that.
I fell asleep watching Letterman but then I woke up again but Cops was on, and y'know, Cops isn't going to watch itself, it was a good episode, it was the one where the man not wearing a T-shirt said he didn't do nothing.
In any case, the voting thread is here now. What literary delights await your salivating minds? Unfortunately there were only two entries submitted on time. Anyways, hopefully the prospect of a monthly writing contest has generated some interest with the writers and we should see some more entries next month.
As there are only two entries, just vote for your favourite. The voting thread will be open for five days, closing on midnight Wednesday June 3rd Australian Eastern Standard Time. Without further ado, here are the entries.
ENTRY ONE
THE ENGLISH SILK ROAD MERCHENTMAN OF ENGLAND
We have walked far. The gritty sand has attacked and invaded our cloths, making the walk uncomfortable and sometimes even painful. We walk anyway. Day by day we are burned by the sun until we are cooked, and can eat each other. Little water can be found in this barren sandy and rocky place. We are walking on the Silk Road to trade with China, we are travelers from Europe and not used to such a harsh climate. I am here though and so are my friends so we feel safe.
My brother left home when I was nine, he was eight-teen and wanted to explore the world beyond England, to become a merchant. He traveled this very road to China. He never came home. I am now twenty-nine and have traveled this road six times; three going and three coming back, this will be my fourth trip there.
The profits are nice and hefty. Hundreds of pounds of gold, silver and other assorted jewels have come home with me each time sometimes more, sometimes less. One thing I wish I could find while I was there and the only reason I keep coming back to the land of the orient, my brother, one day I will find him somewhere on this continent, he has to be here dead or alive.
We are about to leave Persia now, and enter India where we will restock food and sell some of our wares. A dread full place this is but they love silk and the people who have money to buy it do. We get jade, gold, silver, and other precious jewels from India. We make easily forty five pounds of gold and such here and spend fifteen pounds to restock supplies; the rest is profit to buy supplies later on this journey or even capital for the next trip.
The journey from India to China is much easier because we will be going by boat. Before China we will make a stop in Java to pick up exotic things to trade back in Europe, some of the treasures we made in India will go to this. A danger traveling to java is scurvy, it always runs rampant through the crew but I’m lucky enough to have never gotten it but I always get seasick during this part of the journey so I eat oranges to make my stomach feel better and it helps.
Java is a paradise but I could never live here because the food is disgusting. It is also very hot here the sun is not scorching it is a humid heat the worst kind because it is a thirst making heat, it is very important to drink water and here water is almost worth its weight in gold; gold I can’t afford to spare that is why we only spend one night in Java. The trinkets we picked up here will fetch a nice price in Europe, more money for our next expedition to the orient.
Finally we have reached China we will make several stops in places all across China. Our stops will include: Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Nanchang, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha, Chengdu, and we are done, but China always feels a bit off especially at night there is just a mood about this place that makes it feel different, more mystical and mysterious. Depending on how fast our things sell we could be here of up to a year maybe longer. Hong Kong and Shanghai are where most of our things sell and where we will get most of our gold and precious jewels. After China we will go through the very hilly area of the Nepali-Shino boarder, water will be scarce so we buy as much as possible until we get to Nepal.
As we walk and climb moving ever closer to Nepal we hear a voice, not speaking any language that any of us knew or even ever heard before, it was a strange and wild language. We decided to focus on getting to Nepal and not worry about the voice even as it grew ever closer to us and our camp. Night had just fallen, camp fires raged and crackled, laughter, words and the smell of food cooking filled the air a marry and relaxed atmosphere and a perfect way to end the China part of our trip, whoever in a few hours we would have to go off to bed to rest and begin climbing again. Just as I was going to turn in for the night a person entered the camp, it was dark but I could see he was missing an arm and that he was limping badly. I rush to lay him down and try to see what was wrong with the man, I did all I could for him that night he slept in my tent while I counted the stars in the vast sky.
In the morning, when I could get a better look at him, I saw a familiar face that I had not seen in twenty years, this wild man he was my brother he was skinny you could see his ribs his hair dirty and oily the dirt in his skin had taken grass seed and it grew no shirt on just some tattered pants that had half fallen off so grayed you could not tell the original color anymore. Even in his dirty state I hugged him for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a minute or two in reality. He spoke gibberish all the way to Nepal, we saw an expert on local languages when we got there he said it was not from around here. A local man recognized him. He said he was the mythical wonderer, it was said for nine-teen years the wonderer walked these mountains eating berries and goats he walked around in an aimless sort of way and spoke nonsense. A goat herder happened by a little later and told us that he had seen the wonderer two days ago, he had tried to eat a goat so the herder cut off his arm and beat him in the leg with his herding stick.
Two months we spent in Nepal fixing up my brother to a state where he could actually speak English, walk and feed himself. Our journey took us back to India where we could take a boat to Egypt where we would then take a boat down the Nile to the Mediterranean and back to Europe and back to home for good. The only reason to go this way was because my brother needed to do as little walking as possible
A month after we got back home to England I asked my brother about his travels to China he told me that he had been tricked into taking this smoking this powder that messed up his mind and prevented him from coming home, the people that he had been traveling left him in Nepal to die but in his haze he had found food and water and kept himself alive for those many years.
He could never get used to regular life but he also did not want to go back to Nepal his decision got him an unmarked grave outside of the cemetery and without the last rights of the priests. I still go on trading expeditions just because that’s what I do, I don’t think I would have given it up even if my brother had not jumped off that cliff. If I did ever decide not to trade anymore it would be from the gritty sand; that stuff will make you want to kill yourself.
After my seventh trip I got to Chengdu and I began to think I’m thirty-eight now, it is time to retire. I sold everything I had left to trade and traveled to Hong Kong where I charted a boat to Java it is there that this was written and it is there where I will die. The food of Java grows on you I have been here now for three years I have a wife and two kids and when they grow I will send them to trade with Europe and maybe they will decide to stay in the land of their fathers. One day I might return to Europe but this is my home now.
From the memoirs of Jonathan Jay Johnson, English Silk Road Merchant B. 1447 Manchester, England D. 1507 Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, one foot from reentering Europe.
ENTRY TWO
Pale Red Dot
Jina Verbati looked into the centre of the galaxy as a night breeze blew over the open field. The stars shone down upon her, dancing in the moon's absence. It was a favourite past-time of hers to lie in an open field and lose herself in the vastness of the universe. The centre of the galaxy was 27,000 light years away. The light she was seeing now was 27,000 years old. She smiled as she stared into space and time from her vantage point stuck to the underside of a speck of a rock speeding around the remote corners of this particular galaxy. Using current technology, it would take almost 540,000 years to travel there. It was significantly easier to reach the moon. Though it was not visible tonight, she could imagine its face in her mind, imagine the twelve men who had been privileged enough to be the only humans in history to set foot on another world. She wished the people of the world had continued to focus on achieving the impossible through hard work and cooperation. Lately though the news seemed to be full of hatred and menace and bile, eradication and enslavement and exploitation, suspicions and subterfuge and stupidity. She probably would not watch the news after tonight.
Jina sighed as the magnificent starry cloud overheard slowly continued its dance across the sky. Every night this spectacle could be seen. Every night you could see the vastness of the universe and the insignificance of the Earth and her people's petty problems. Every night you could watch the news. Every night you could have your heavy heart refilled with hatred. Jina knew there were plenty of people who threw off those suggestions and wanted to create a better future not just for themselves and their countrymen but for all the world's people. Unfortunately, those people offered complex solutions to complex problems and much of the populace did not have the patience to pursue such courses of action. It was much better in many people's view to gain an immediate result regardless of long-term implications. The rewards of rational thinking were passed over in favour of short-sighted satisfaction. A punch was answered by a frenzied massacre, taking delight in destroying those who oppose you and those you suspect may oppose you. Jina hoped those that offer the peaceful solutions were working overtime tonight.
She saw one star amongst all the others that was moving across the sky. It flashed red and blue occasionally. Jina knew it was the 9:30 flight from Sydney to Singapore. She saw another plane pushing silently through the sky. That was the 8:45 from Auckland to Cairns. Yet another plane was visible in other portion of the night sky. She speculated that was the 6:30 from Melbourne to Tokyo. The most distant portions of the world were mere hours away these days. The most mysterious of destinations of centuries past offered tacky souvenirs at airport giftshops that anyone could purchase. The explorers of years gone-by spent years reaching these far-off places and became famous for opening up the world, for filling in one more piece of the puzzle that is Planet Earth. Jina wondered if the people on those planes gave that any thought, if they realised how incredibly lucky they are, if they made the most of the opportunities modern times gave them. She supposed they would realise it a damn sight more than those who had not only never set foot in another country, but those who had never given it a thought, those who hold their flags high and shout aloud that others are not welcome. Those that defend the freedoms they claim to hold high above all else by destroying them for everyone else. Those that decry someone's culture they never bothered to learn about or understand. Jina thought those despicable attitudes were the only thing that actually strangled her country's identity. She sighed again, it probably wouldn't matter after tonight anyway.
Jina sat up and stretched, she was reluctantly curious about how things were progressing across the world tonight. She fetched her laptop from her nearby bag and quickly booted it up. Within minutes she was connected to the rest of the world. At the mere touch of a finger she could talk to someone on the opposite side of the world, she could learn about everything and anything she ever wanted. The internet had allowed access to an amount of information unparalleled in history. The great repositories of knowledge were now not just of the learned scholars or for the wealthy kings or for the tyrannical dictators. This was information for everyone, everywhere. At least, it was supposed to be. There were still tyrannical dictators, there were still wealthy kings, there were still politicans with a smiling facade and a promise to protect people from the unsavoury elements of the world, most of which happened to be unsavoury to his or her own political and religious beliefs. This world-wide network had been severely stripped of its 'world-wide' nature in many parts of the world, from governments fearing people might actually learn about their brothers and sisters in other corners of the world, fearing they may feel compassion for them and discover that in the hunt for 'the bad guys', many more good and innocent people are hurt and killed. Though governments try to enforce their version of the world on to their people, there were people who choose to live with their eyes open to the possibilities of a connected world. Jina had made friends in many corners of the world for life using this technology, some of them she had met, and some of them she would probably never have a chance to meet after tonight.
She typed in the address of a news site she regularly frequented. She saw the main headline and a few of the related stories beneath it. She sighed yet again, this time a sigh of defeat, heavy and resigned. She turned her laptop off and put it back in her bag. She returned to lying on her back and staring into the galaxy.
Another object raced across the sky. This wasn't a plane though. A long orange and red flame spewed out from the rear of this object. Jina knew what it was. 50 kilotons, New Zealand to Jakarta. She saw another similar object. She deduced what it was from the direction it was coming from. Russia to Sydney, 150 kilotons. There was another object, this time from the opposite direction. 250 kilotons, Antarctica to Pyongyang. There were more around the world she could not see. Israel to Washington D.C.. France to Mumbai. India to Beijing. China to London. England to Tehran.
Another one appeared in the sky. Jina saw its direction and kept her eyes on it. She knew what was about to happen. It grew larger in the sky. She wondered if any of those countless stars had civilisations orbiting them. She wondered if they had the same problems. She wondered if one of their people was staring out to the edges of the galaxy, if they were reflecting on how their people found peace with each other, or if they too were about to suffer the same fate.
Somewhere over the horizon to me, she thought, it's a small world after all.
The missile grew closer and closer. Its defeaning roar could now be heard, drowning out the peace and tranquility of the night. Jina never took her eyes off it. She did not blink.
It struck the ground, releasing a blinding white light and an overwhelming amount of energy. Within fractions of a second everything in the area was reduced to nothing. Jina Verbati was torn apart into billions of pieces by an enemy she did not know for a reason she did not understand.
All over the world, missiles were launched, cities were obliterated, more missiles were launched, towns were obliterated. The fragile, pale blue dot that hung in the vastness of space, the speck of insignifant rock and water, the fraction of a grain of sand on the universe's beach, continued to dance uncaringly around its star as the most advanced and intelligent life to ever grace its surface threw away its intelligence and destroyed itself.
The pale blue dot turned red with its people's blood.
Commence with the voting! I'll just be over here watching the next episode of Cops, ooooh, it's the one where the lady with a tooth missing is upset the police are searching her trailer.
05-29-2009, 02:31 AM
I'd elaborate more, but it's late for me. I'll edit my post later with all the reasons for why I chose Entry Two. :3
"I like Red. Period. :3" - brokenjoker
