eyenot
in
beginnings
Challenge #57
Submitted by: eyenot
Challenge 57 “It was a dark and stormy night”
Started: Dec. 20th, 2007
Words/time: 496, about 20 min.
Title: Story Storm
"It was a dark and stormy night."
They all waited while the storyteller sat. He did not continue for some time, almost twenty minutes. Some of the audience, mostly children, began or continued conversations with each other, though in semi-polite whispers.
"Shuuut uuuup!" the storyteller yelled in a croak, staring wide-eyed at one toddler in particular, who was startled at first but then began to cry, and his mother picked him up and coddled him, glancing over his shoulder at the storyteller. He was the most trusted and revered member of the society. Everybody did shut up, too.
A man came into the story room carrying several jugs of beverage and set them down at the story teller's table next to his chair, the only chair in the room. Everyone else sat on rocks or logs, or dirt. The room had a dirt floor and there were bugs and worms crawling in it. The people occasionally ate the bugs, worms, and dirt, as no food was offered to them during these extremely long story telling sessions, sometimes lasting several days.
The storyteller poured a mixed drink from several of the jugs. Sometimes very good listeners were allowed to approach the table with mouth upturned, and the storyteller would pour his choice of beverage into their mouth, often spilling it in their eyes or hair.
"Where was I," the storyteller continued. "Oh, yes. Dark and stormy. And cold. Like tonight. But scary. You would have been scared to have been there that night, believe me. Any ways, the, ah..." One man fainted from exhaustion. The storyteller stared at him for awhile, then continued. "The old man sat in the forest, whittling sticks. He did not know, but through the woods approached a fierce beast. With golden teeth and splits in its eyeballs, where blood and foam poured through, all the time." The people were glad the story was continuing, and the fainted man was roused. Sleeping was not polite.
Suddenly several men in black clothes and masks stormed the story room, waving thin, black sticks and yelling "get down! everybody get down on the floor!"
The storyteller was hauled off in handcuffs and his cult members taken away for psychiatric therapy and counseling, as part of their long-term deprogramming.
The investigator threw down a cigarette butt and spit in the dirt. "Worms and bugs."
"And dirt, they ate dirt, too," the detective responded. "It gets worse, there are hidden enclaves all up and down the countryside. We probably won't find them all, and already several hundred might be fleeing."
"Can't let them get to the rest of the population. Normal people would eat them alive," the investigator worried.
"Especially since their diet has been so free of the pollution of preservatives and poisons normally associated with processed agricultural products," the detective offered, "that makes them more viable eating. From a cannibalistic standpoint."
They left the crime scene and began the search for the rest of the captives.
Challenge 57 “It was a dark and stormy night”
Started: Dec. 20th, 2007
Words/time: 496, about 20 min.
Title: Story Storm
"It was a dark and stormy night."
They all waited while the storyteller sat. He did not continue for some time, almost twenty minutes. Some of the audience, mostly children, began or continued conversations with each other, though in semi-polite whispers.
"Shuuut uuuup!" the storyteller yelled in a croak, staring wide-eyed at one toddler in particular, who was startled at first but then began to cry, and his mother picked him up and coddled him, glancing over his shoulder at the storyteller. He was the most trusted and revered member of the society. Everybody did shut up, too.
A man came into the story room carrying several jugs of beverage and set them down at the story teller's table next to his chair, the only chair in the room. Everyone else sat on rocks or logs, or dirt. The room had a dirt floor and there were bugs and worms crawling in it. The people occasionally ate the bugs, worms, and dirt, as no food was offered to them during these extremely long story telling sessions, sometimes lasting several days.
The storyteller poured a mixed drink from several of the jugs. Sometimes very good listeners were allowed to approach the table with mouth upturned, and the storyteller would pour his choice of beverage into their mouth, often spilling it in their eyes or hair.
"Where was I," the storyteller continued. "Oh, yes. Dark and stormy. And cold. Like tonight. But scary. You would have been scared to have been there that night, believe me. Any ways, the, ah..." One man fainted from exhaustion. The storyteller stared at him for awhile, then continued. "The old man sat in the forest, whittling sticks. He did not know, but through the woods approached a fierce beast. With golden teeth and splits in its eyeballs, where blood and foam poured through, all the time." The people were glad the story was continuing, and the fainted man was roused. Sleeping was not polite.
Suddenly several men in black clothes and masks stormed the story room, waving thin, black sticks and yelling "get down! everybody get down on the floor!"
The storyteller was hauled off in handcuffs and his cult members taken away for psychiatric therapy and counseling, as part of their long-term deprogramming.
The investigator threw down a cigarette butt and spit in the dirt. "Worms and bugs."
"And dirt, they ate dirt, too," the detective responded. "It gets worse, there are hidden enclaves all up and down the countryside. We probably won't find them all, and already several hundred might be fleeing."
"Can't let them get to the rest of the population. Normal people would eat them alive," the investigator worried.
"Especially since their diet has been so free of the pollution of preservatives and poisons normally associated with processed agricultural products," the detective offered, "that makes them more viable eating. From a cannibalistic standpoint."
They left the crime scene and began the search for the rest of the captives.