Wikipedia:Sandbox/Storytelling
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[edit] Caravan
Dedicated to Harri, Sam, Sophie, Donna, Anna, Kim, Steph, Abi, and of course Olive!!
[edit] 0
''Gnidir Reverof, as he is now called, walked the streets not long ago." — Opening passage of the Book of Caravan
[edit] 1
I was walking when it happened.
I walk a lot, although not by choice. I suppose it’s good for me, walking to and from school, walking around the Mount every so often, walking between classes. This time, I had the vague idea of going to Memorial Park. The sun was high in the sky, and it was a Sunday. Clouds had been gathering, though, and I was re-thinking the decision as I paused, looking at the sea.
I took a step forward, deciding to go though with it even if I got wet.
When my foot landed, I wasn't in the same place. It was darker, and trees towered above me. The forest smelled damp, and when I looked down, I saw I was in different clothes. Beige cargo pants, which already had specks of dirt on them, along with a white V-neck long-sleeved top with stars on it. I recognized the design, and laughed. I’d had a top like it a few years ago, and it was exactly the same (apart from the size, of course).
I don’t think white suits my complexion that much. When I was younger, I used to get lovely milk chocolate tans, which went spectacularly with my milk chocolate hair and eyes. Now, my skin is mediocre, which is to say mostly white. My eyes change colour, even though they’re most often hazel and a sign of my difference. It’s impossible for two blue-eyed parents to have a non-blue-eyed child, but here I am. My hair is short and curly, and I like to refer to it as light brown.
“No sword. Bugger.” I said aloud, checking the pockets of the pants for anything useful. “No Swiss army knife, either.” I shivered. The air was cool, and my top did less than enough to keep me warm. I began to walk again, keeping my eyes open for anything that could possibly help me. I was looking for different colours, and not alert for movement. Meaning: I wasn’t ready when a wolf sprang out of the trees and attacked my leg.
“Get off!” I yelled, hitting the wolf with my hands. It looked at me for a moment, staring at me with contempt. I stared straight back into the worryingly familiar yellow-green eyes. It was large and grey, the fur coarse but somehow comforting.
It resumed chewing at my leg, and I bit my lip in pain.
Hang on a mo. Why am I letting this wolf eat my leg? It’s not the sort of thing I do. Get some backbone, Sophia! Kick out at this carnivore! The omnivore strikes back!
I kicked out with the leg the wolf was gnawing on. It jumped back delicately, and then stood up on its hind legs, changing as it stood. “Sorry about that. Sometimes the wolf in me gets the better of me.” Harriet said, giving me a grin that can only be described as wolfish.
“Right.” I said, looking at her with raised eyebrows. “Have you seen anyone else?”
“Yeah. I’ve also seen some caravans.” She said, and I followed her as she led the way through the forest. I noticed her clothes; grey cargo pants, a grey V-neck tee shirt, and a grey jacket that was made out of fur-like material.
“You can turn into a wolf?” I checked.
“Yeah. It’s great. Wolves are so cool.” She said without turning around.
“Who else have you found?” I was jumpy, wishing we could stick to the shadows. Harriet led a way through the middle of the trees, in plain view.
“Sam, Anna, Sophie, and Donna.” She said, changing direction. “They’re with the caravans.”
We came out suddenly, into a clearing with patchy grass. It was no warmer in the clearing, and I shivered as we walked towards two caravans. They were about two and a half metres tall, wooden, and beautiful. I loved them on first sight, and the door that was exactly the same shade of yellow as my room just sealed the bargain. I still wanted to run away from them though.
“Caravans like these bring bad luck.” I muttered, scowling as we walked toward it.
“Yes, but they’re so comfortable and look their having some sex.” She said, opening the door for me.
“Hello, Minnesota!” I yelled as I walked in. The four people inside gave me a strange look. “Sorry, wrong door.” I said, turning to walk out again.
“You are a freak and gay person.” Sam said, inspecting her nails.
“Funny, Sam but lets go in the bed and have some sex . If I’m not wrong though, then we’re all freaks now.” I said, leaning against the doorframe as Harriet came in. “What are your powers?”
“I’m a telekinetic.” Anna said, her blue eyes lighting up. “It’s such a cool power.” She was wearing a powder-blue sweater, black cargoes, and a red Alice band.
“Awesome.” I said, testing to see if I could tell what my power was. Wings pushed themselves out of my back, flicking until they settled, half-folded.
“That’s cool too.” She replied, but my attention was already wandering.
“Sophie. Nice to see you. When I got here, I was just around the corner from your house.” I said. “What power are you graced with?”
“Oh. Nothing much.” She said. “Just invisibility.” She had on the underwater hockey muscle back top, underneath a woollen pale pink sweater. She was wearing navy blue cargoes as well.
“Neat.” I said, switching my gaze to Donna. “What about you, Donna?” Her light brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, strands of it escaping to lie around her face.
“Energy control.” She said simply, and I noticed she was playing with a blue spark, flicking it from finger to finger. It looked potent. Her cargoes were electric blue (Funny, that.), and her top was long-sleeved and V-neck. It was a pastel purple.
“Are we waiting here for any reason?” I asked, fidgety.
“Well, we were seeing if anyone else was going to turn up.” Anna said.
“I would like to get going, if no one really minds. I think we’ve got more chance of finding people if we find a road.”
“There’s a road just out of the clearing.” Sophie said. “We wanted to head that way, but no one could get the caravan moving. Harriet and Anna said you might be able to, and Harriet wanted to stretch her powers. We’ve just been talking.”
“Just talking? When you could have been playing singstar?” I said sarcastically.
“Can you get us moving now?” Donna asked, a tad impatiently I thought.
“Sure.” I waggled my fingers. “See you soon.” I ran to the open window at the end of the caravan, jumping onto the sill and onto the roof, flipping my wings after me at the very last moment.
The roof was slippery, the wood varnished and shiny. I slid to the wooden bench, and then sat down, wondering how best to phrase my question.
“Caravan.” I began, wondering why I hadn’t seen a name on this caravan. “Can you please take us to the road, and follow the road, off the edge of this clearing. Medium speed.”
There was a moment of silence, and then the caravan began to rumble, moving slowly forward on its massive wooden wheels. I saw the road as the caravan turned around. It was yellow-orange-brown, made out of clumps hard dirt.
As the caravan bumped over the road, no cloud of dust rose. I launched myself off the roof, gliding around the caravan. There had to be some other people around. We only had six people here – it wasn’t enough. I swooped around, not wanting to go any higher. The clouds were clearing, the sun warming my wings.
On my fifth pass, I saw some black writing on the first caravan. I braked hard, falling to the ground in an ungraceful heap.
“Bugger.” Hobbling to keep up with the caravan, I read the words aloud. “Caravan of the Gold Spinners.” I grabbed onto the van with my fingernails, somehow struggling to the top of the van.
I sat up there for at least two hours, watching as the strange yet familiar countryside went by.
After the two hours, I grew restless and decided to stretch my wings. I lifted off and glided high, carried by the warm air currents that were strong now the sun was out in full force.
I had only gone a few meters ahead when I came upon a party of strangely familiar-looking people. Wonder who they are? They were walking towards our caravan, chatting.
I dived, hard and fast, which was dumb as they weren’t far below me. They leaped out of my way, but I braked a good metre above their heads, descending slowly and gracefully.
“Hey.” I said, looking at them closely. First one tall and blonde, with the build of an athlete – Steph. The next one medium height, brown hair, brown eyes, slightly tan skin – Kim. “Nice to see you all.” The last one I concentrated on medium height, long brown hair in a plait down her back, brown skin – Abi. “Would it seem strange if I asked you what you are doing here?”
“Kind of, yeah.” Steph said. “Nice dive, by the way.”
“What are your powers?” I asked, wondering if they knew yet.
“Of course we know.” She said. “I can read people’s thoughts.”
“I can mimic people’s powers.” Kim said, grinning. “I’m the real hero hero.”
She is going to be insufferable. Not to mention Steph, reading my thoughts. Is there no privacy in the world? I thought, looking directly at Steph. I know you can hear me…
“What about you, Abz?” I asked.
“Oh, I can heal people.” She said.
“Cool. We always need a healer.” I replied, just as the caravan came into view. “Hop aboard guys. It’s all people you know.” I waved them towards the caravan. “Nice threads Kim.”
“Thanks.” She said, looking down at the checkerboard design on her cargoes. She had a matching jacket over one arm, and her tee shirt had some kind of Dali on it. “Sexy, eh?”
“Of course Kim, you are wearing it!” I said, rolling my eyes as I flew up to the roof.
Interesting. We have a morph, a telekinetic, a mimic, a telepathic, a healer, an energy-controller, a person with wings, and a person with invisibility. I wonder what Sam is? I should have asked her. Oh well.
I can smell the ocean. Does that mean we’re going towards a beach? Maybe we could see a rustic fishing village. That would be like so exciting. I sighed. The wind feels beachy. I hope we won’t have to swim. The waters here are dangerous, even more so than at home.
Maybe I should write a diary. There will be plentiful paper for me to do so. It works that way here. After all, I would never be pushed into anything by the forces of fate.
All right then: Diary entry number one.
Dear Diary,
I don’t do diaries. They’re not my thing.
Love from Sophia.
I laughed, basking in the sunlight. Things were going well, considering.
Nothing really happened after that until sunset. I had spent the whole time on the roof, unwilling to try and organize the others, asking them to do watch, to make dinner, and to find the swords. I shuddered. I wouldn’t trust them with swords as far as I could throw them.
The light turned the road a vibrant orange, and I was just wishing that I had some paints when I noticed a black patch, a smudge of oil on the canvas. As we got closer, I realized it was a person, lying on the ground. She looked injured.
“Abi!” I called into the door as I got down, slowly bringing the caravan to a halt. “There’s someone out here and she’s hurt!” I ran to the body, noticing with dread that it had an arrow sticking out of it.
“Pirates…inland.” She said, her voice dry and cracking. The clothes were tattered pants, bagging around her slim frame. Her top was tattered as well, but as I rolled her onto her side a gold medallion rolled out. She scrabbled to gather it back up again, and I saw her eyes.
They told a story of once being fine, but I ignored it. The story somehow seemed – wrong to me. The eyes were light green, along with straight brown hair that fell to just below her shoulders. Maybe it was the shape of her face, but she reminded me somewhat of Olive.
“A healer’s coming. In the meantime, talk to me about this arrow in your back.”
“It’s an arrow. Fledged with goose feathers for maximum flight efficiency, and made from the hardwood that grows on the coast here. They followed me inland, but I think I escaped.” She said breathlessly, and I narrowed my eyes.
“I meant whether there were any barbs, any sneaky tricks that prevents me from pulling the arrow out right now. Should I just tug instead?”
“Nothing I know of.” She said, shaking her head.
I placed my feet firmly on the ground and tugged. She gave a little gasp of pain, but stayed still as I slowly pulled the arrow out. I tossed it to one side.
“Hurry up Abi!” I yelled, bending back down over the girl, keeping her on her side. She looked about fourteen as well, and I sighed. “What’s your name?”
“Lily.” She said softly, and this didn’t ring true with me. I kept quiet though.
“You do know how to use your power, don’t you?” I asked as Kim bounced up.
“Ooh! Can I learn too?” She said, touching Abi briefly to copy her power.
“It’s not really learning…” I said. “You should know inside.”
“Okay then.” Abi said, shrugging her shoulders. “First, you need to touch the person you’re healing. Then you just ask yourself to heal them.” She said to Kim. “You’ll need to be careful that you’re healing them and not copying their power.”
Kim knelt down by Lily, stretching her hands out as if she was warming herself at a fire.
“Like this?” She asked, her brow furrowed.
“You need to get a bit closer. Look, you can see the hole closing up.” She replied, pointing as the arrow wound closed up. “How did she get it?” She directed the question at me.
“Apparently, from pirates.” I said, wondering if Lily was telling the compete truth. “Do you want to join our caravan for protection? We’ll help fight the pirates. We’ll fight them in the air, in the water, and on the land. We’ll fight them on the rooftops and in the streets, in the jungle and in the deserts. We’ll fight them until death’s cold grip parts us from our swords, and our last breath is spent on fighting them.” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“Right.” She replied, getting up stiffly. “You guys have weapons, right?”
Oh dear. Now I have to tell them people about the swords.
“Yeah, some swords.” Kim said, getting up as well. “How did I do?” She asked Abi, directing an angelic grin at her.
“So, Lily, what caused you to be attacked by pirates?” I asked.
“It is a tale of courage and strength, a tale wrought with sadness and love, a tale-”
“Cut the crap and get to it.” I said roughly as we wandered back to the caravan.
“My parents were merchants on the high seas, but also part of a lineage that was foretold to destroy one particular band of pirates – the one that’s chasing me. My parents took me with them on our ship, for we did not have a home on land. Three weeks ago, we were charged with delivering a cargo of safara to a port about 300 miles from here. Pirates attacked us though, and they sank our main ship, the one with the cargo of safara. My parents were captured by the pirates and executed, but I managed to escape in the coracle my parents had brought me for my twelfth birthday. I rowed to shore in my coracle, and abandoned it on shore. The pirates must have seen me escape though, for after my first night here they came looking for me. They shot me from a distance and retired, obviously thinking that when I’d fallen down I was dead. I was not, only in great pain. I stood up after they’d gone and stumbled to this road, where I fell down and you found me.” She said, and again I had the sense it was not quite true.
“Well, Lily, I’ll do the introductions.” I said as we stepped inside. “Everyone, Lily. Lily, everyone. Introductions over.”
“As you probably guessed, I’m Kim. I’m the real hero hero. A mimic.” Kim said.
“I’m Abi, and I can heal and morph into a mermaid.” Abi said. “See, I have the right hair for being a mermaid too.” She flicked her long plait.
“Hold the phone.” I said, glancing at her. “You can change into a mermaid?”
“Oh yeah. It’s interesting to have a bottom half that’s a fish. Not to mention gills.
“That could help me fight the pirates and exact my revenge!” Lily yelled.
“Pirates? Oh, we are so helping you now.” Harriet said, her eyes lighting up.
I asked Abi, "Hair can turn you into a mermaid? What a crock," rolling my eyes and laughing. Abi defended herself, saying, "When I twirl my hair just so, I do become a mermaid".
She headed into a bathroom and closed the door with her face sticking out. She twirled her hair. Suddenly there was a loud crash and some thumping coming from the bathroom. And it was true! She'd become a mermaid!
- “So now what? do we carry you to the beach or something?” Lily asked
“I can change back if I cross my eyes three times and say there's no place like home” Abi answered
“Excellent!” Lilly said
“Umm I think its a joke Lilly” I said
“I'm serious” said Abi standing in the bathroom doorway, “Well.. except for the no place like home part its cross eyes, blink, cross eyes, blink, cross eyes, blink” she finished
“It doesn't matter, If i can just get revenge on the pirates who killed me parents!” Lilly replied
“Sam what's your power?” I asked I hope He knows or I am an evil embarrasser
“I'm a pyrokinetic”
“Umm I think Lilly wants to get going to fight the pirates” Steph said
We all looked at her
“Its all she has been thinking of!” she said cringing
“I can control the wind directions” Lilly said, she shrugged “It was a good power to have when we were only the sea sailing as merchants”
[edit] Sarah
What a babe. I LOVE TO SARAH!
Well, now. Before you go on to read about our friend who loves Ms. Mcgee, we can maybe hear
more about Sarah.
- The day that Sarah decided to become an anarchist was not all that unusual for a day. In
fact the only thing that made this one stand out in her mind, aside from a broken shoelace
earlier, was that this was the day in the middle of a long period of contemplation about
authority, human relationships, defiance, luncheon meats, responsibility, and other stuff that
she decided to cement her identity in her own mind. At least on a certain level. Anarchist.
Not the chaos-loving demon of sociopathic tendencies that lurks in the nightmares of every
upstanding citizen, but the sort of mythical creature that denies hierarchy and competition,
and ignores the empty threats of authority.
- "Yeah" she thought, "I wonder what kind of weapon an anarchist carries," perversely
thrilling in the contradiction of the idea.
- As she tied the broken ends of her lace together and rethreaded them into their holes, she
worked the absurd task of defining her new identity in her mind. "Not a vandal, who wants to
strip the glory from another and claim it for myself..." but this thought stopped her cold
with its reminder of her morally-elitist tendencies. How do you get beyond your ego, how do
you avoid the ridiculous hypocritical trap that is the desire to put yourself above others?
How do you really become an altruist, without the motivation first coming from some self-
serving desire to be better?
[edit] My awesome story
I am so bored. Once upon a time, I fell asleep. Then I woke up the next morning...
- Speaker219 04:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
And found himself transformed into a monstrous vermin...
- DrWho42 04:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
The vermin was the size of a large ape and twice as strong. It could break through walls with relative ease. --Arrista30 16:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC) It did break through walls. It broke through a lot of walls. It broke all of New York's walls in 27 minutes and 31 seconds
- Themcman1 15:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
REALLY! I COUNTED! 169.204.7.152 15:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
With no walls left to break in New York, the vermin was in danger of becoming bored!
[edit] Special Extended Edition of Fredric Brown's "Knock"
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door...
- DrWho42 04:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
- --Applegasm 06:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
"gosh-diggity-ding-dong-darn it. WHO PUT THIS KNOCK ON THE DOOR?!" the man angrily pulled off the knock and drop-kicked it into the conveniently placed brush. He sat back down.
[edit] Yamayamayama
So I heard you on the wireless back in '52 while I was like lying awake intent at tuning in on you and if I was young it didn't stop you coming through. And then I thought "Oh-a oh!"
And then they took the credit for your second symphony! And then I heard it was rewritten by machine and new technology, and now I understand the problems you can see! I totally said "Oh-a oh!" at that.
You know I met your children? Oh-a oh I did!
So what didja tell them? "Video killed the radio star? Video killed the radio star?" Pictures came and broke your heart? Oh-a-a-a oh that's bad.
And now we're gonna meet in an abandoned studio? We hear the playback and it seems so long ago, y'know? And you remember the jingles used to go! Oh-a oh, indeed. You were the first one? Oh-a oh! You were the last one?
Video killed the radio star, y'know? Yeah, video killed the radio star. In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone to far...Oh-a-aho oh, Oh-a-aho oh Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. Goddamnit!
And like, in my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone to far, y'know? Pictures came and broke your heart and like totally put the blame on VTR.
You are a radio star, you know that? You are a radio star! Video killed the radio star...video killed the radio star...video killed the radio star...video killed the radio star!!
Video totally killed the radio star. (You're totally a radio star.)
