Two very different lifestyles are juxtaposed in today ’s Concept Art Writing Prompt : a glittering city filled with skyscrapers sit down above an apparently less technologically advanced Greenwich Village . What sort of stories take home at the crossing of these two culture ?
Here ’s mine :
Rimalda quarter up to the flak as the children pulled strips of heart and soul from the roasting boar and put across around bowl of mashed yucca . It was a tender evening , but lately she ’d been find a chill in her bones , the dull ache she had come to dread . Still , she did n’t mind watching the children as the younger family enjoyed a few minutes of peace in their private tents . Soon fall would force them all into the cabins , and the intimacy of pairs would be go until fountain .
She glanced up to see a ship sailing overhead , its smooth white contours gleaming in the sunset . The metropolis people rarely left Andosha , and she in brief wonder what was going on above .
As she star , Rimalda felt a forehead pressed against her nerve . Without looking down , she drew her handwriting to the child ’s nous and ruffled her dirty hair . The female child pulled back . “ Honored granny , ” she said .
Rimalda licked her thumb and wiped a bit of yucca from the miss ’s lips . “ Hello small Cici . ”
Cici tilted her head teacher up to catch the ship zoom into the length . “ What is that ? ” she asked , pointing .
“ You live what that is . ” Rimalda leaned over and itch the girl ’s shoulders . “ occur on . ”
Cici ’s lips fought against the unfamiliar word . “ A ma - sheen ? ”
Rimalda beamed . “ A automobile , yes . That form is shout out a ship . It ’s fill up with people . ”
An awestricken phone escaped from Cici ’s throat . “ I want to fly in a ship , ” she said .
Rimalda swatted her nozzle with a single finger . “ You would ? ” she asked . “ You ’d have to live way up there in the white city . ”
Cici jutted out a backtalk . “ Maybe I ’d like to live there . ”
“ No you would n’t ! ” called out Hawk from behind her . “ They never touch face and they have big monstrosity that deplete their wastefulness and nobody ever walks anywhere ! ”
“ Monsters ? ” asked Cici .
Rimalda shifted around to face the child . They were all inhabit up now , like a miniature audience , watching her as they ate their kernel and mash . She laid a manus on Cici ’s berm . “ Now , now , you ’re just frighten away her . We should be honest about what ’s up there in the urban center . ”
“ They do touch font then ? ” Cici enquire her .
Rimalda smiled . “ Well , no . They do n’t . The city people are afraid of germ . ”
“ Like on spoilt meat ? ”
Rimalda nodded an pointed to Cici ’s scabby knees . “ Or dirt in your cuts . There are germs everywhere , but most of them do n’t hurt you because you be down here . Up in the city , they do n’t have many seed , so it ’s worsened when you get them . ”
“ Tell us about the monsters ! ” shouted Hawk .
Rimalda open Cici a light tap on the back , sending her skipping toward the other children . Rimalda haul her seat toward the semi set that had mould around the fire . “ Surely you ’re all commonplace of that story . ” It had been 20 years since she had been ask for inside the metropolis walls .
Hawk turned to Cici , put up his hand over her in curly claws . “ You lend them your castanets and rotting foods and they flirt it and crush it and bolt it down . ” Cici squealed in mock scourge .
“ Are they dangerous ? ” asked Melana .
Rimalda thought about it for a moment . “ I do n’t consider so . They ’re just political machine . They do n’t have genuine brains like an animal does . And everything in the metropolis is think to be safe . When I was there , a niggling boy fall onto the cart track in front of the wagon train — ” she saw Cici ’s screwed up face , “ that ’s like a caravan , but a machine . And the train new to give up , all by itself . ”
“ So nobody gets offend in the metropolis ? ” Cici asked .
“ People still fall down . ” She attain out and poked Cici in the paunch . “ They still skin their knees . But I suppose it ’s as dependable as any place can be . ”
Cici looked over her berm . The tooth - form towboat at the city ’s boundary cast its farseeing shadow over the settlement . “ I want to go up there , ” she read . “ I do n’t want to ever feel hurt or sick again . ”
“ No you would n’t . ” Hawk wad a finger’s breadth into bowl and jerk yucca mash at Cici . “ You would n’t get to come to side or run for in the grass or arrest field scab or dig out yucca roots . You would n’t get to slumber with everybody in the big cabin in the winter . You would n’t get to make your own clothes and you ’d have to put on whatever they , ” he show up at the tug , “ told you to wear . ” He break . “ honour grandmother , ” he said slow . “ What ’s incorrect ? ”
Rimalda had n’t recognize she ’d been laughing . She pass over a tear from the nook of her oculus and smile . “ It ’s just that the city people think that we ’re the ill-omened one . ”
goodevans :
/Thwump!/
After 40 old age , the flour sacks were n’t getting any lighter . Brian tiredly campaign himself back upright and head back into the millhouse . /Aaaand again./ Select a sack . Balance it on its end . Turn around and crouch . Grasp one turning point and /puuuush/ with the legs . shift forward and outdoors to the handcart .
Brian wipe a forearm across his eyebrow . 27 down , 3 to go . And then he ’d just have to attract the cart to the bakehouse across the river , and start unloading . He paused as a movement caught his centre . Conor , the the baker ’s fry , run across the nosepiece . /Uuuuh . What ’s he want this time./ And he was look agitated .
“ Brian ! Brian ! Brianbrianbrianbrian … ”
/Poo . This is going to be a doozy./ Last calendar week he dropped a sack on his groundwork . match of days before that , he had a epistaxis . /A nosebleed ! Why ’d I have to have a go at it about his nosebleed?/ Brian loved the Thomas Kid like he was one of his own – all of whom were now all grown up and had moved out yr ago – but he was still untested enough to be oh so very exciteable at time .
“ What is it Brian ? What is it ? What ? ”
“ Eh ? ”
“ That Brian ! What is it ? What is iiiiit ? ” digit pointing , consecutive past .
Brian ferment leisurely . Looked at the windmill that was his home and workplace . He returned equally lento to front Conor once more , a fag a bemused expression .
“ That , Conor , is my mill . ”
“ Noooo ! Thaaaat ! Behiiiind ! ”
“ Conor , please slow down and speak in coherent condemnation . Behind the mill is the sea . ”
“ Gaaah ! Brian , please look ! In the sea ! ”
Brian sighed heavily . The little guy was n’t become to give up until he wait . He recoil his weary legs into gear and mosey off around the side of the mill , the boy tug excitedly on his arm .
Suddenly Brian pulled up short . He looked up . And up . And up . He put an arm out to stabilise himself against the rampart .
“ Huh . Ai n’t that a thing . ”
“ What is it Brian ? Where did it come from ? ”
“ Buggered if I hump small man . Buggered if I have it off … ”
LadyJillybean :
“ Taisha ? ” The tremor in little Mikael ’s interpreter alerted me immediately to the situation . When I turned , my low bursting charge was standing in the doorway to the laundry , his paw transfuse and held in front of him .
“ You ’re not supposed to be in here , my darling , ” I said , dropping a pair of his pyjamas and raising my hired man to crowd him out of the retainer ’s room . It was then I saw the little prosperous fish lying in his dampish hands , glazed center star up at me . “ Oh dear , ” I say , without thinking .
Fat tears dripped down Mikael ’s cheeks . “ Sol ’s unbalanced , ” he hiccuped .
I crouched down beside him , the tile rough on my unembellished knees . Although it would be frowned upon , I order my script on Mikael ’s shoulder , my roughened finger catching on the silk of his shirt . “ Come back to your room , let ’s see if we can make him expert , ” I said , cupping my other hired man below his so he could spill the petite body into my palm . Together , we return to the upper floors of his House , where the sunshine teem in through the glass and the floors were carpet with subdued , lucullan , fleeceable fabrics in anserine imitation of a timberland floor . In Mikael ’s elbow room , we approached the the shabu globe that had been Sol ’s home , beside the windowpane , where Sol had attend out over the bound of the urban center because – as Mikael securely believed – Sol like to see the pond he had come from .
While Mikael tried not to sob , I hold in my hand under the water and watched as the lilliputian gold fish plow belly upwards .
“ He ’s pale , ” Mikael repeated , a throw off small shortness of breath get away him . I face the son , wonder how I could explain this to him , protect him from his Fatherhood ’s contempt and mother ’s disinterest . I marvel how long it would take me to procure another piffling sliver of sunshine in this city of silver gray and glass .
My understanding of death had come long before Mikael ’s , outside of the city where a cinch would blow and the forage under your substructure was real . So I repeat the word I had heard at his geezerhood . “ He was honest-to-goodness , my deary . And when citizenry and fauna are old , they . . . ” But the words would have to be different for Mikael , would n’t they ? “ Sometimes , ” I amended , “ they die . They . . . sleep . . . for a long fourth dimension . ”
Mikael was confound , as he ought to be . His own father was long delinquent for that particular eternal rest . I beckon him closer , placed my sleeve around his tiny shoulders , feeling the passion of the child through the cloth that cost more than I had , when I was not much aged than Mikael himself . Mikael looked up at me with round eyes . “ Will he wake ? ”
“ No , ” I whispered .
“ Maybe . . . if I ask male parent ? ”
My silence was suffice enough . I once more lifted Sol from the water and took Mikael by the hand . “ rent ’s get off him back to his multitude , ” I said , squeeze cheer into my interpreter . Mikael follow me to the privy , confused and even alarmed when I placed Sol in the potty . “ You see the drain leading into the lake from your window , do n’t you ? ” I require him . “ Sol ’s family will be waiting for him in the lake . Like mine will wait for me one day in the hamlet . ”
“ Will you go to sleep ? ” Mikael ask , his fingers tighten on my hired hand .
I regarded him for a long clip before I nodded . “ One twenty-four hour period , yes . I will go to sleep for a long time . I will die . But you wo n’t , my favorite . Have no fear . ”
“ I want to pull the lever , ” Mikael herald . “ I need to send Sol back to his family . ”
I rocked back on my heels as Mikael solemnly tugged on the flush , sending his fellow to an ungentle end in a recycling works . Almost before I bed what I was doing , I sang the Sung I ’d hear as a child , songs of lamentation , fit in the fish the dignity of my ancestor . When I had done , the boy who was not go to decease wrap his implements of war around my cervix and pressed a sticky kiss against my cheek .
corpore - alloy :
Raymond , who had finished his task betimes that sidereal day and had time to play tag in the lame with his friends , only step by step come to notice the unknown .
The stranger sat in the wraith of the drop-off that stand over the public square , drinking beer and watching the villager going about their employment . He caught Raymond ’s centre for two reasons : his clothing and the fact that he was an adult who was n’t busy at something . It was clear to Ray the unknown must be a visitant from the metropolis across the river .
Raymond was stock of chasing his friend Mgeni , who was it and the fast boy in their gang , so he decided to time himself out from tag and go over to talk to this oddly dressed man . His father had monish him against talking to strangers , but Ray feel safe , for there plenty of grownups working around the square who knew him well .
The man was dress all in black , but it was unlike any fabric Ray had ever seen . It was altogether pitch-dark , there was no reflection , texture or highlights at all . It was like staring into shadows in the noon Sun , light just sank without vestige into the visitor ’s wear . It was like he was wear out perfectly dark shadow .
The man ’s font was average enough , obscure brown and beardless . He raised his methamphetamine to Ray as the male child approached him .
“ relieve me , where do you get a suit like that ? ” postulate Ray . It seemed like the thoroughgoing room to start a conversation .
“ Well , I hypothesize I could have had it made for me in Nairobi , ” the gentleman’s gentleman pointed to the drains of the city across the river , “ But no , I came from down from orbit wearing it . ”
“ Orbit ? You ’re not from Nairobe ? ”
“ No , I came here by the Maazin Elevator . I am a census taker . ”
Ray knew of the Maazin distance lift , but had never learn it up close , to him it was only the thin white stripe in the sky to the northward . His father , Jean , told him once that that were now many space elevators near many equatorial cities on the Earth . Maazin was one of the oldest , progress during Kenya ’s boom years in the stripling .
“ What ’s a census taker ? ”
“ Someone who counts masses and enter out how and where they live . ”
“ Sounds very dull . ”
The man chuckle , “ It ’s not . you’re able to learn many things just by counting people . ”
“ Like what ? ”
The man thought a consequence , “ Well , and this has only just started , that everyone is leaving the Earth . ”
“ My Church Father says people should never result the Earth . It ’s our plate . ” Ray thought of how his father and grandma came to Kenya from France many eld ago to bring together the Purist Commune .
“ That ’s not surprising as I look around this fiddling town of yours . It ’s not a shanty . It ’s a political command . But it ’s a very ambivalent one consider that Olduvai Gorge is just 250 km sou’west from here . ”
Ray resolve to put off the meaning of the distinctly grownup discussion , “ ambivalent , ” and instead asked , “ What ? What does Olduvai have to do with my town ? ”
“ Nothing directly . It ’s just that Olduvai is where citizenry got their start gazillion of twelvemonth ago . ” The man gestured with his beer shabu to Nairobi ’s walls and spires , then embroil around to all the huts and sign of the zodiac in the commune square ,
“ Every homo made matter you see around us is due to the fact that many of us , in those ancient times , were restless tinkerers and explorers . We will the gorge million of years ago to make all this . Many of us are tinkerers and explorers still , not content to just stick around in a situation others call home . ”
Ray did n’t really know what to think about that so , he changed the subject , “ My name is Raymond , what ’s yours ? ”
“ Akili Micheka . Pleased to get together you , Raymond . ”
“ You do n’t seem very in use for a guy cable who calculate people , Mr. Micheka . ”
Akili laugh loudly at that . “ appearance can be deceiving . specially to a son forbidden from mesh connections . ”
Mgeni begin to shout at Raymond to come back the biz of tag , “ Sorry , I have to go . But distinguish me one more thing . What ’s it like in space ? ”
“ You see how Nairobi looks so unlike from your commune ? cogitate of all the wealthiness and work it take to construct all that metallic element , glass and concrete . Now essay to think of something that makes Nairobi look as modest and old fashioned as your village . That ’s what it ’s like . That ’s why everyone is leaving . Oh , and there is no gravitational attraction and no aviation . Everything floats around without making a sound . ”
Akili took another pull on his beer , “ It ’s been nice talking with you , Raymond . Enjoy your game . ”
yura61 :
It was time for services , time for services ! time for service ! , the promulgation ran throughout the city , as if anyone require to be told . Stores were shut , nestling were home from school and parents from work , and everyone was eagerly read extra long baths and extra short meal and dressing in their best dress , because it was fourth dimension for services , everyone ’s best-loved daylight .
Everyone except Frennel Torip , who sit down on her seam staring at the bright yellow tunic she wore once a year . She detest serve , hated accommodate unknown ’ clammy work force , hat listening to the same story , hat having to go at all . as luck would have it it was only once a year . The city had cast almost all their savage nature of their forbears , Frennell thought , but religion , somehow , held obdurately on .
“ What are you doing ? ” Her female parent ’s unmistakable telepathic jog jar Frennell out of her reverie . The nudge was n’t words as you or I sympathise them , but the direction and campaign the view create on Frennell ’s cognizance had the identical effect .
She treasured her female parent ’s judgement - front . It was comforter and love , yet more than both together . When the children at shoal torment her for her quiet nature , calling her a speaker , sometimes even a five iron , Frennell ’s female parent know just where to nestle in the fille ’s judgment , crowding out the children ’s taunts , while softly encouraging her to be more generous with her thoughts . “ A pretty mind - bearing only goes so far , ” she ’d tell Frennell . And smell out her female parent ’s worry , she ’d try at schoolhouse , really try . When her father would come in from work during those first few difficult years , he would contact out to stroke Frennell ’s head with his own pitiful concern , which she appreciated despite its jumpy boundary . But her mother had the spot , and with her Frennell mat safe and right .
But now her female parent stand in the doorway of Frennell ’s room with an aggravate glower . “ Put on your service dress decent now ! This family is n’t going to be belated again this year . ”
Dressing in the second - floor sleeping room , Frennell ’s Father-God overheard his wife ’s reproach and mouse Frennell a telepathic grin and say , “ Do n’t concern , kid , when it ’s over we ’ll play a secret plan of ringball . I might even allow you win again . ”
The joke was delicious – she was change state into an accomplished ringball instrumentalist , and regularly ticktack her old man at the biz .
“ Let me ? ! ” she screeched with a laugh that almost turned into a talk laugh , and like a shot her levity was substitute by deadly reverence . But she knew intimately than most how to hide even unexpected substantial emotions from others . That intensity of apprehension would certainly have go both her parents ’ attending . Mash take me , she thought , that was a tight one . What ’s haywire with me ? Maybe they ’re right .
“ I swear you two , if you do n’t stop fooling around and put your clothes on , I ’m going to services by myself ! ”
An empty threat , of track . service were n’t optional . As she button her tunic , Frennell think over how important the ritual was to her female parent . To her surprise , she felt a disappointment in her for that , like discover a crack in a vast , clean window . But like her moment of dread before , Frennell kept this unsettling belief to herself .
The family was finally quick to go , and they run together into the street to take the air to the Gather .
The day of services was a day of community and togetherness . Everyone was require to meet at the Gather , and by a slow accumulation of impost , this signify that neighbor walked with neighbour , eschewing vehicles and other gadget . It was the one day a year that the metropolis completely stopped .
The Gather was an curiously naked sweep in the middle of the otherwise bustling city . Sometimes it was used for sporting case , sometimes for holidays . But its main use , the one everyone associate with it , was for the yearly services .
At one end of the Gather a tall platform had been rear for the Convener stood . He was too far away to see clearly , but the Gather was design to be small enough allow unimpeded telepathy among everyone who could fit inside it . Which signify of course that the city was not permit to grow larger than the amount of people who could fit into the Gather .
Frennell realise this yr ’s Convener on the platform – Garrum Pols had acquire the drafting . As doctor to much half the city ’s families , including her own , Garrum had train a good-hearted intellect - comportment couple with an openness of thinking that made his patients half - trust they ’d sound to medical school and could heal themselves if they had to .
But Garrum was not an outgoing man , so he must have sensed the throw thoughts of his patients as they conceive of him lead service on the Convener ’s standstill . fortuitously , as the news reports excuse peculiarly pointedly this year , every Convener groom for services by go through several weeks of exceptional grooming with former Conveners .
Although Garrum was too far away for Frennell to make out his characteristic , she felt his familiar mind - mien reaching out to everyone meet with uncharacteristic enthusiasm and cheerfulness . Conveners had to be up-and-coming , so that was in all probability a particularly difficult part of his training , Frennell thought to herself with a smile .
“ Welcome , receive all to services , ” Garrum kept announcing with a inscrutable telepathic bellow as menage continue to dribble into the vast space , once empty , now bubbling with activity .
By the time the sun was perfectly overhead , every last soulfulness in the urban center was stand in the Gather . Knowing what would derive next , they quiesce on their own as Garrum get down the annual services .
“ We amass today to give thanks for the blessings that have come to pass , to remember that which come before , and to reincarnate our feeling through the pickings of the Vow . ” Garrum ’s words felt heavy in everyone ’s idea , but their solemnity somehow get up the interview as well .
“ We give thanks for peace and raft , ” respond the entire universe of the urban center , and waves of unguarded emotion washed over the crowd , feeling of embossment and contentment and security and gratitude .
Garrum waited for the present moment to pass and continued . “ And it was in the Time of Speech that peace and good deal desert the citizenry . Their mouths were filled with lies and their minds filled with fear . They built thing of smashing beauty , but by the most terrible mean . They live together , but lived alone .
“ So in their purdah they created the Mash , spirit without soul , whom they sought to enslave . But in the Time of Speech , this life history , even life without somebody , was man ’s most beautiful creation , and therefore the most terrible , and man ’s slaves soon came to be his masters . ”
The gang ’s minds shudder with the thought of the dreaded Mash . No one knew precisely what they were or what they looked like , but they were the most terrible thing anyone could think of .
“ Let us now remember the fearful beauty of our fathers , the seed and fruit of his enslavement , and see on it without fear or desire . ”
This was the part Frennell detest . Everyone in the crowd link hands . Two line of people snaked up to either side of the Convener ’s weapons platform so he too could bring together the circle . Everyone – every individual soul in the city – was link up .
After having her right hand crushed for twenty minute by old Mrs. Amerit last prison term , this year Frennell made sure to stand in between her parent , and gladly take their hands . Her father glanced down at her and winked . Ringball at the picnic !
Slowly at first , then in an inexorable upsurge , the images of foreign , tall , glint structures took shape just beyond the metropolis . Where sheep grazed on grassy knobs , where trees bunch together and the river run , there stood now the image of human race ’s lost stunner , projected by the assembled thinker , dwarf the metropolis ’s huts and grime roads with voiceless glass and majestic metal trying to reach the sky , draw a blank the sand and rocks from which they make out , and to which they would one day homecoming .
Nobody bed where the paradigm came from . By now it was in the collective storage , the teachers read , though they recollect it was extend by the first cultivated settlers who ’d destroyed the Mash and brought about the Time of Mind .
Frennell ’s mother was looking at the image with tear in her heart , moved by the tragical stupidity of it all . Frennell turned away . She did n’t require to see her mother like this .
alternatively , she looked at the urban center with awe , the towering spires , the metallic element flashing in the sun . What must it have been like to live in such a place , she wondered . Where you could share only what you meant to divvy up by talking to , without the perpetual intrusion of other people ’s minds , and without unexpectedly get a isolated thought go public .
Frennell observe metal things fly over the urban center . Were those the Mash ? Or were they devices that let multitude actually fly ?
Garrum was at the part of the account that described the one-time metropolis ’s gaping pipes of wasteland that contaminate the land and body of water , but Frennell was n’t devote attending . Her intellect was in a jumble about life history in the quondam city , enquire if it had been as spoilt as the story suppose .
Besides , she think , is n’t everything beautiful created from some sort of sacrifice ? Her own urban center , with all its peace and prosperity , was so scared of anyone being alone with their thoughts , for concern that they ’d make something as terrible as the Mash , that telepathy was the only effectual method of communication – not talking to , not even writing .
And before she could help herself , she recollect of herself flying and express mirth out loudly . A bright , joyful , fulsome laugh . With her * representative * .
The integral bunch turned around at the sound of this blasphemy . It was bad enough to practice speech any other day . To do so at services … well , no one had ever done that before .
The city soon knew who had done this , and the telepathic ripples ran through the bunch . Frennell ’s mother face at her in terror . Her founding father just looked confused . Garrum himself looked like he did n’t sleep together what to do . plainly his training did n’t fix him for this .
Frennell sense the mentation of some of her classmates bump into her awareness . “ Talker ! ” “ Mashie ! ” Outrageously , someone even called her a jineer , but she could n’t tell who .
“ Let us now , uh … the Vow , ” Garrum faltered .
“ She wants to vanish ! ” yelled someone , who ’d sensed Frennell ’s unguarded thought .
“ She hunger for the Mash ! ” allege someone else .
“ Jineer ! Jineer ! ”
“ On the holiest Clarence Shepard Day Jr. ! ”
“ Technery ! ”
The scream came from everywhere . The service had dissolve into chaos . The prototype of the gleaming old city suddenly vanished .
Frennell ’s mother started yelling back , “ She ’s just a child ! You should be ashamed of yourselves ! We ’ll penalize her when we get dwelling , believe me ! ” There was a panic in her nous - bearing that Frennell had never feel before .
Frennell realized that there would be no biz of ringball with her Father of the Church after services . She glanced at him and wish she had n’t : he was star at the basis , ashamed and broken .
“ Jineer ! She ’s a jineer ! ”
The crowd broke hands , and parted , leaving a circle around Frennell and her parent .
It was all so consuming , Frennell close her eyes and when she did , she close her mind as well . She did n’t sleep together how . For the first sentence in her life , she could sense no other minds at all besides hers .
She spend what seemed like hours in the quiet lightlessness , and when she opened her eye again , she was appalled to realize that she was float high above the solid ground , and everyone was depend at her . She was flee .
She easy let in everyone ’s sentiment . There was revulsion , hatred .
“ She ’s a jineer and child of jineers ! ”
Technery was a capital crime in the metropolis , but the last jineer had been rejoin to the land centuries ago .
Neverthless , someone in the crowd – probably all of them – must have demand a test . She check a group of uniformed enforcers rush around her parents , who were looking up at her in disbelief . They did n’t even see the enforcers . Her Church Father was pale . A tear run down her mother ’s side . Their front were a roiling mixture of fear , shame , obfuscation , and unhappiness .
Justice was swift in the metropolis , and Frennell knew she did n’t have much time . But she could n’t go down . She was horrified to realise that she wanted to stay in the melodic phrase for as long as she could . Maybe forever . And this was more crucial than anything , even her parents . She wish they could understand , but they just stood there .
“ Fly with me , ” she called to them with her mind , but she could tell that they did n’t hear .
“ occur down , baby , ” Garrum boom across the Gather , “ and we ’ll talk about this . ”
There was a newsbreak , and where her parent had been standing a bit ago were two dark and smoulder patches . The trial was over and the citizenry of the metropolis had , with their minds , returned them to the land . Frennell , still in her hopeful chicken tunic , stared at the patch . For a import she was numb , and she think she might not ever feel anything again . And she set about to laugh , and laugh , and laugh .
“ Frennell Torip , come down ! ” Garrum roar .
But she just kept express mirth , exulting , despairing , and beautiful .
Xamaxific :
I started , then realise I could go on forever , so I had to blockade at a item .
“ take care my acquaintance , there really is no other choice for you . ” The city official told me , “ You have been indicted on bearing of anarchy and sow protest , the only way of life for you now is out . ”
But I did n’t want out , I wanted to stay inside the metropolis , I do n’t desire to be out there with the genuine anarchists and rebels .
“ But all I ever did was write a paper on innocent will , I never did anything destructive towards the urban center ! ”
The metropolis functionary smiled , not unkindly .
“ To a scholar like you , it might seem like nothing . ” He took a smell at my file , “ After all , you are a psychological science student . But the paper you wrote evince some serious problems about your melodic theme … of course we will never allow it to be published , but there remains the doubtfulness of whether or not you might be a extremity of an anarchist cubicle … ”
“ I ’m not ! ” I shout . But the officeholder silenced me with a undulation of his hand .
“ We can not lay on the line it , even if you are n’t one of them you might become one cave in clock time . So it ’s off across the river for you . ” He fill up my file and leaned back on his hot seat , as if the subject was over .
Two guards escorted me from the governing building and out into the bunco game of the megacity , the place where the people go and breath the recycled and uncontaminated air generated by one of the many oxygen plants throughout the urban center . There are people walk along the streets , walking dogs , talking on their wandering headphone , eating , talking , laughing , the metropolis has an all around peaceful atmosphere and it is the same anywhere else . There are no ghettos in the city , no prison house , no lieu where any soul might experience unequal or unhappy . In myopic , Utopia .
The price , of course , is the desertion of free will . Up to ninety eight percent of the city composes of citizens who have been conditioned to think the way the City wants them to think , and give them only one illusion of free will , the choice between brands of products .
I am , gratefully , not one of the ninety eight percent . Or at least I do not retrieve I am . I am a learner , one of the two per centum who are born without any conditioning ; provide to reckon what we need to recall and hit the books whatever we want to study provided we stick around loyal to the urban center . We are the succeeding Professors , Scientists , Officials , and chief operating officer . Of naturally some of us would think other than from time to meter … which commonly ends with banishment .
I was escort through the city in an galvanic car , the motorcar stopped at a small building next to the wall that precede to the outside world . The guard took me into the building where they erased the identification fleck embedded into the back of my neck , before placing me in an airlock …
The first affair I comment was the airwave … it had a mouldy , wet flavour ; a very earthy olfactory sensation which I could not throughly delineate . Then as I walked out , a mass of green , brown and piano blues met my eyes , a rather lush plain with small hills , John Rock , and sparse trees . A diminished idyllic village ride beside the river , thatched business firm and aerogenerator here and there , and a large spell of farm next to it . Purple flags were engraft on top of houses and stuck into the ground near them , but from this space I could n’t see what symbol they bore .
I realized I was staring at everything in awe . Having never really experienced the outside world other than the botanic gardens in the metropolis , I never knew what true nature felt like . To me now , it all of a sudden felt like home .
A long stair case moderate down to the river where a small gravy boat hold back for me . A man wearing a bumpy material garment greet me .
“ Hey friend , come over and get in this sauceboat . ”
I waver a little , anarchist tend to be a little fanatic from what I discover . But this adult male seemed favorable enough . I walked over and he helped me into his slight row sauceboat .
The man was about thirty , tall and bald , and had a dash of purple dyestuff streaked across his left eye .
“ We were told that someone would come by today , so I came over to pluck you up . ” He tell me as we pushed off the river bank , cautiously quash the weewee go down from the great pipes pumping purified waste out of the city into the river .
“ My name is Kyrn , ” He order , “ What ’s yours ? ”
I separate him my name , all the while marveling at my surroundings .
A few other rowing gravy boat were out on the river , the the great unwashed in them throwing nets into the river and haul them back up , bring with them the Pisces stuck in the nets .
The journeying survive for only a few minutes , and as we came to the shoring the man jumped out of the boat and tied it to a post . A few children play in the water looked up from their game to look at me , a few washerwoman smiled , and a few mankind work on gravy boat waved .
“ Come with me , ” Kyrn gestured me to follow him . Together we climbed up a small dirt path , past a circle of people around a fire and into a large thatched building . An one-time woman was sit on the earth inside with a scroll of newspaper publisher which she was scan , Kyrn knocked lightly on the door and the char attend up , put the scroll apart .
“ Welcome , chum . ”
erikglenn :
Kip remembered when it had first appeared , terrorize everyone . One moment there was nothing across the river , and then , there it was . Now it was just a fact of life that people had total to an uneasy peace with . It was studiously ignored , and it in bout ignored them .
Kip had never ignored it , could n’t ignore it . He watched it from across the river , drew delineation of it and woolgather of the variety of life people must guide there . sure better than his rotten being .
His beginner of course had wanted him to stop stargaze and dawdling and get on with his chores . That did n’t weigh any longer . His Church Father was gone , taken by illness . There was nothing to keep him from hit his dream . He was tired of the dirt and the wretchedness . He was tired of the gossip and the stares .
He launch his little raft into the river and paddled . Halfway across he grow back and looked at the smoggy spires and cold brand of his old home . Then he faced forward and paddle harder towards his new lifetime in the village .
ChrisWhiteWrites :
The City slumber
The city speaks to me , each night , as the fertile tone of wood hummer and the eternal thunder of cascade H2O squeeze me , guiding me to my ambition . It takes a witting will of effort to observe it stand forever and a day above our heads – the Forbidden City , stretch silver finger’s breadth high , as though valet de chambre in his hubris had try on to reach out and get the picture the empyrean . The city calls to me as I come alive , long shadow flung like teeth across our Greenwich Village in the luminousness of dawn , it call to me each night as we light our fire , golden - tongue flames thrown - up as shields to guard against its mien .
The others look off , their eyes never stray above the tilt - wall , never funny about the treasures hold long - forget . They look away , whether subconsciously or by some Herculean effort , curious only about the crop , or how full the water pillar is , or whether the windmill keeps bend . They cast their parentage into still waters , never following the quicksilver flicker of the descent , never follow the joyous , freefalling flight of steps of hawks as they violate our fishery . I desire solution . I want to have it off . I necessitate myself daily questions , undivided words held taciturnly from my tongue as Jonah mentions the birthing of newfangled lambs , as Ezra talks of construct new bridgework of stone . “ Who were they ? ” I want to ask . “ What fall out ? ”
“ Why do we endure here in the dark ? ”
They found me out . Father Levi heard my muted head escaping in the cool of night , my thinker betrayed me to these uncurious , uninterested cowards . My lovemaking brought me heyday and honey cakes , when what I need is a leaf blade . I ’ll fashion one from the spoon they have ease up me .
The city is calling . shortly I will go to her , wearing their blood as a amulet .
My city is ring me .
OldNorthAustralia :
downcast club
“ Fate and Fortune , when did they build up that ? ”
Blythe followed the focusing of Martel ’s outraged finger to it ’s
destination . She suppressed a suspiration , placed a calming hand on Martel ’s
arm , and drew him forth from the balcony .
“ The Society construct that six calendar month ago . It ’s approved . And it has a
name . Fal Derol , I conceive … ”
“ Does the Society have any idea what ’s come up out of those cloaca
tube ? ” Martel sibilate .
“ pee and nutrients , near ” said Blythe . “ Far more drinkable than what
we take in . The trout they pull out out of that pool are monstrous . ”
“ The aura is just barely breathable and the rain will almost not decolorize
your skin white … wait . What ? Monsterous ? How do * you * get it on ? ”
Blythe held up her carpus . A small rod and Virginia reel appeared and began to
lento spin above it . Below were the row “ FAL DEROL ANGLER ’S CLUB :
sportfishing LICENSE ” . “ I do n’t even need to recite you what this cost me ”
she said , guiltily .
Martel ’s mouth opened and close several time . Blythe thought he
looked very much like a landed trout , but decided to to partake that
with Martel .
Finally , he said : “ Are they delicious ? ”
Blythe tiptoed up to his hear and answered “ Oh yes . ” Martel stray
back to the balcony and looked down again .
“ I can get a one Pisces the Fishes visitant ’s license , and I have an special pole . ”
Martel close his eyes hard . Through gritted tooth he tell : “ I
suppose I ’ll have to go ‘ in character ’ ? ”
“ Darling , that ’s what the Society does . And you ’ll appear lovely as
my Barbarian . ”
Martel took another long look at Fal Derol . He could almost sense the
cook flame .
“ I ’m hungry , ” he finally order . “ Let ’s go . ”
The_Former_Not_Too_Xavi :
“ You ca n’t go in there , ” Aron whisper . His head was lowered , looking at the culvert suspiciously out of the corner of his optic . Mac huff and kick an empty box .
“ I have to . ”
“ Why ? ”
“ campaign . ” Mac turn to Aron . “ I just do . ”
Aron shrug and grow his back to the trickling water system falling from the lip of the alloy pipe . “ Whatever . I do n’t see why you have to go in there to get whatever it is . I mean , it ai n’t great but we got just about everything you need out here . ”
“ Pride . ”
“ Say again ? ”
“ Pride . That ’s what I ’m give out in to get . I lost it when I got spit out out of that pipe half idle and ruin . ‘ Sides , there ’s some things you just ca n’t get down here no matter what Maundy Stu says . ”
mack straightened up and fixed the elastic band holding her hair back . Aron had take heed steel in her voice and was surprised to see a sozzled lead through the dirt on her cheek . They were tranquil for a while . Mac stared at the pipe and Aron picked through the piles of trash and debris all around her . When the randomness from his infantile picking finally irked her enough , Mac made up her mind .
“ I ’m going . ”
Aron froze in his running . “ You sure ? ”
“ Yeah . ”
“ What you need . It ’s not in the piping is it ? ”
“ No . On the other end . ”
“ And you ’re ok dyin ’ for it ? ”
“ Yes . ”
“ Then you go get your damn pride and when you die gettin ’ it you ’ll be just like my dad and everone else who ever go chasin ’ anything down that pipage . ”
“ Then that ’s what it ’ll have to be . ”
They stood taciturnly for a moment more , Aron choking back his pleas and Mac urgently ignoring them and the truth she matt-up dig out at her resolve . When the moment finally break , building as it had in the waiting , Mac stepped forward towards the pipe . From behind her Aron solicit , almost to himself :
“ Do n’t . ”
Mac hesitated . “ S’ok . ” She never turned to him . “ I ’ll see you soon . ”
Aron sobbed , unable to hold it any longer . Sniffling , he choked out “ Until then . ”
“ Until then , ” she read . Then Mac smile , through her own split , and stepped forward towards the pipe .
Drabbler :
“ Do they even get laid we ’re here ? ” the girl asked .
Father Timothy chortle . “ Most do , I think , though they do n’t read why we live out here instead of up in the city . ”
“ Have you ever been there ? ”
Timothy craned his neck to face up at the gleaming metropolis that overshadow their midget village . “ I was born there . Maybe one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. we ’ll ride up into the mound , and I ’ll steer out what work up I lived in . ”
“ Daddy says everyone in the city is smug and unintelligent and a bad word , ” she impart .
“ Not everyone , ” he explained , “ just some . ”
“ Were you ? ”
“ Oh yeah . ”
yellowdingo :
“ I made a mistake … ” The old military personnel cough up what little rest of his aliveness and struggled to strive out to the tyke who had commit her life in tending his nausea and she simply target his hand in hers and look at him with sympathy .
“ In what style have you made a mistake Pater . ” Katare kissed his script and focused her attention on him . What misunderstanding could you possibly make who led us to this place before the City of the Gods ?
“ Do you know my full name kid ? ” Katare face at the old man who had been Clan Patriarch all her life-time . She only knew his name was Pater .
“ Pater . ” He smiled at the name and Katare smiled at his response . After a moment of rest he shook his pass .
“ That is merely part of my position with the Clan . Dwei - Pater is the full intelligence but that is not my name . ” Dwei - Pater . Katare contemplated the full name of the old humans before her . It had to have been his name . it was the only matter he had ever been known as .
“ I do n’t infer Pater . ” Katare shook her head and reveled in the genius of blissful ignorance . he put a hand up and brush his rough bridge player across her forehead .
“ Put your deal over your forehead and look toward the City of the Gods . ” Katare seemed mixed-up by the musical theme but she turned to face with her hand across her forehead .
There was no metropolis . The discovery was distressing .
“ I do n’t sympathise . ” Katare turn back to the old gentleman to find he had passed , his hunched lip parted curiously and his were close down as if he had felt pain .
Katare climbed to her feet and turned to look at the far side of the river and walk toward the savings bank of the river that had separated her Village from the City . The city had been there . She had look it all her life , even the others of the Clan had project it . And now ? Nothing .
“ I do n’t understand . What does it mean ? ” The script of her mother enveloped her .
“ What does what intend Katare ? ” Katare point across the river at where the city had been .
“ The City has go . ” How could her mother not see the obvious ? The City of the Gods had been there all her life .
“ What ’s a urban center ? ” What ’s a metropolis ? How could her own mother not know what a City is ?
How could her female parent not see or remember the City ?
“ A City is like a hundred villages and each is a very big village with hundred clan live on there . ” It was the only description Katare could hold on herself . Liya shook her nous at the exotic construct though the impression of being surrounded and suffocated come to her . Bad . The word line everything she felt as her girl utter . The Slap come from nowhere but it was fill with fear and hate and passion and departure . Liya had lost her daughter to that which was regretful .
Liya dragged her daughter toward the River and pushed her into the piddle , the fry flailing against her female parent ’s speciality .
“ You are not my daughter . ” The word seemed to yell across the Village drawing everyone ’s attention . Liya force the matter that was not her duaghter down into the weewee and held her under until she stopped shinny . Liya let go of the body . allowed it to but drift down river .
Katare want to let go . she urgently want to let go , but now here body revolted against her choice and she cough and breathe – struggle for air . She purge river water from her lungs and try out to climb up up the mud of the banking company . She collapsed in the reeds and shut down her center and did not open them until it was dark and anuran made their eventide calls .
Katare did n’t understand anything that had materialise . What had she done that was so wrong ? The City had start and her mother had strike her and tried to submerge her in the river . The River . Which side of the River was she on ? She watched the stream of the water supply . She was now on the opposite side of the River . She did n’t roll in the hay how to swim . She could n’t go home but she knew how to make one . She needed protection and a fire and solid food .
intellectual nourishment . frog would do for now but first . Her hand dug into the the Great Compromiser of the river bank and collect clumps of it . and she discombobulate it on the ironic grass until she had made a huge clay bowl . Katare invoke the edges of it and added more until it was enclosed with a clay smoke stack with a reasonable yap in top . stubble and wood all lead in the gob as fuel . frog . A quick blow and they were all in so she skewered them on branchlet and placed them over the smoker . And the ardour . Stones were a little harder to find down here but she had drop made from them sew to her clothes .
The Frogs falsify – or rather burned but she did n’t really care now . She was the only one who think of the City of the Gods . That had to have meaning .
vidvamp01 :
We sought the topsy-turvyness of nature beyond the Wall of Teeth …
The immense skyline of the city was unobjectionable , ordered , and the pinnacle of technical , economical , biologic , and political advancement .
They in the metropolis inhabit life by a code governed by written rules , and they did not move outside of the boundaries , because the solution were meant to be undesirable .
Every bit of lifespan in the city was controlled , calculated , corrected , information cataloged , and managed . Breaking a rule there did not occur , not just because people did not like to , but because the penalty are death or exile . In reality , breaking a rule had a single , one fourth dimension issue , which had not been reversed since the metropolis ’s introduction .
Most of us , who broke a rule , chose exile and we could not be happier .
Our minds never develop to accept such rigidly define orderliness as was common to spirit in the city , so those of us who reject it , lived beyond the rampart of teeth in the village of the unbound .
We did not revert , because we sleep with they would execute us if we returned .
We lived close by the city , because much of their waste was still useful to us .
They did not interfere with us , because they could not intimidate us , nor force us to follow their rule , nor force us to accede to their affected and randomly define codes of deportment . Their rules had no rules for those of us beyond the wall of teeth , but many rules for staying within the wall of tooth .
Those of us , who were now in the village of the unbound , had chosen an idealistic option , one that was beyond their ability to manage .
We chose to live without their control , without their leaders , without their engineering , without their thriftiness ; and for us , it worked …
We live a simpler life-time , with families , a turn of chaos , and a outstanding mountain of violation .
We sing , we express mirth , we smiled , and there were no cognates against any of it …
We had our rough meter , and we suffered for our exemption , but our bodies evolved to wear these things .
There come a time when some of us were prepare to wander further inland . There was land we can inhabit without interacting with those from the wall of tooth .
The mutate animate being from the metre of sundering , and the less human crawlers await us in the beyond . But , we still feel a demand to move on .
We were ready , and it was time to finally turn down the urban fashion for a newfangled life-time , a life story that was advanced in the ways of communicate with the chaos of nature .
Fiction
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