This post is intended for guild members but I also encourage every reader to give it a solid read and attempt to complete the challenge.
Here's the challenge, take the word at the end of this post in blue, say it aloud, then craft a story with the first thing that comes to mind (aside of the definition). Try to get at least one page written.
Whether you are in the guild or not, feel free to post your story as a comment on this thread. I will have mine posted by Friday, June 9th.
The word is:
INCITE
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Victoria stood in front of the classroom, hands clammy with cold sweat beading in her palms, with her report paper giving a little shudder from the annoying shake that coursed through her body.
ReplyDeleteTwenty minutes ago if you had asked Victoria what her paper's goal was she would have commented faintly on the small hope that she would at least receive a passing grade.
Now, however, she was fused to the floor, mind racing, trying to rationalize how her paper (based on the similarities between the traditional high school caste system and social discrimination) could have possibly incited the war that was now raging in front of her.
Later, Victoria would realize that all the signs for a revolution had been staring at her for a while now (hardships in economy = unemployment rising = loss of income for families = loss of priveleges = diminishing power and status...etc etc etc.) To put it plainly the people who were used to comfort and security were even affected. It was like throwing a match in a barrel of gas.
As Victoria stood helpless watching several students, all hard working and relying on scholarships to have any kind of future beyond the local fast food chain, throwing words back and forth with another group of students, most having a more pampered ensured future thanks to family wealth, one thought kept pounding to the cadence of the yells... Change.
Though it is a day late, here is my own submission to this challenge (in parts):
ReplyDeleteGabriel stood in the field of crushed and trampled wheat, not noticing the morning’s rays as they paint a gruesome portrait of human nature. The thin, tan rods blood soaked and flattened, all point away from the bulky mass of a man, bruised and broken. The grainy stalks, in their throes of death, weave over and under equally lifeless forms of discarded human flesh and abandoned steel weaponry.
Only Gabriel remains standing, but just barely. His right leg trunk is severely hacked and ready to fall. His bear paw of a hand holds the crimson gash on the bottom side of his rotund belly from puking out his intestines onto the destroyed battleground. The arm that holds his other massive mitt has gone limp due to repeated battering from opponents’ oaken clubs and iron hammers. A human tainted cleaver lay on the ground just beneath the inflamed digits. Already the blues, reds, and yellows swell outward from his face and neck, protesting at the pain that courses through the tired butcher’s body. The only thing working on this tower of a man aside of the blood pump in his chest is his aching brain that draws him from the ensanguined present to the night before in Harold’s tavern.
The light from the fire in the pit emitted a glow of reds that painted the room, not unlike the field he currently occupies. Harold’s two daughters, both a long stretch from being women, sang bright as the fire to the gathered townsfolk who were all enjoying after hour spirits, a hot meal or one another’s company. Gabriel stood at the bar, secretly admiring the honey haired wife of the tavern owner, Bethany. She was somewhat round but her humor was always high along with the corners of her lips and her plump breast line. She had a laugh for every down man or woman that walked through the bar’s threshold.
The young girls stop singing. The room has grown silent aside of the snapping and crackling of the fireplace and the disagreement that has captured the breath of the large drinking hall. Gabriel might not have notice if Bethany’s curled lips hadn’t straightened and then sagged into a frown. The man’s wide face turned to follow Bethany’s scornful glare, his ears reaching the argument before his dull eyes. At the far dining bench, Gabriel took in the sight and sounds of the men from the college upon the hill just south of town as they were looking up and grumbling at some townsfolk that Gabe knew to be farmers and ranch hands also on the south side of town. A few of the ranchers have stood and were yelling down at the educated men. Not content to let these men continue their dispute, some nearby citizens have gravitated closer and began choosing sides, which escalated the level of aggression, causing curiosity within others not-so-nearby. The wave of anger and hatred wash through the bar and the tide crashes on the coast of the bar, sweeping Gabriel into the heated debate.
The girls are gone and Harold is in the center of the whirlpool, trying to calm the hurricane. The learned men are claiming that they have found proof the world is round! “How ridiculous!” Gabriel snorts. The first chair is thrown and chaos envelopes the tavern. The constabulary were quick to the scene, most of them were already in the lodge with their food or family. Thanks to the local officials, the disturbance was abruptly quelled. The college men were asked to leave and to take their foolish notions with them, which they did without resistance and before too long, the fight was nothing more than yesterday’s dream.
ReplyDeleteHours into the night, Gabriel was finishing what was left in his stein when Jeremiah, the cobbler sat beside the beefy cleaver slinger and leaned in close. From behind the frazzled, straw moustache, Jeremiah whispered, “Some of the guys and I are going to shut those heathens up for good.”
The two exchanged evaluating stares. Moments pass, then the cobbler leans in again, “We sure could use your strong arm. Care to join us?” He leans back and stretches, then collapses back into his conspiratory pose, “It ain’t right that they go about speaking against the book, you know?”
Gabriel nods slowly, deliberately.
Knowing he has the butcher on board, Jeremiah finalizes, “You go get yourself some weapons and we will go out right now to show those heretics our righteous wrath!”
Gabriel nods and then rises.