500 words a day

515 words - 21st July 2009

Dark and dismal are the days and the nights no different. Ishmael has been through this before, when he was sent to the Northlands as a young adult, prove himself. Now the darkness had come to his own, once beautiful, land and everything was withering and failing beneath it. None of the scientists could agree – typical- said his Father, they never could agree, some of them thought the world was round at one point, idiots! Still at least there was a glimmer of hope, well, a glimmer of light that is. Last week, it was noticed and reported in all the newspapers, to the south, just behind the Great Fathers mountains, if you looked carefully and for long enough at the right time, the time that used to be noon, you cold se a faint orange glow. No one really knew what t meant but the speculation and hopeful conclusion was that the darkness might be ending.


Amongst the range of theories that attempted to explain the darkness three were the most prominent:


1.          Some ort of reaction to the burning of the forests – they were now reduced to less than a quarter of their size in all areas of the country


2.          A punishment, some sort of Armageddon, sign of the end of the world as a result of the sins of mankind – nonsense, as far as he was concerned, but surprisingly well supported. People always want to believe the most negative – his father said.


3.          A change in the atmosphere related to the meteor shower which fell a few months ago, mostly on the mountains but some nearby. It was the biggest and most devastating ever recorded and any villages or towns beneath it were completely annihilated.


This was the one that Ishmael tended to believe. He knew several people in the closest village to be destroyed and part of him wanted there to be some sort of explanation or consequence or marking of the event. The darkness, t him, felt like an extended mourning. He felt guilty about wanting the light back but as it had been gone now for 3 months, thought that it was probably OK to think this.


Hi Father had his own ideas, it’s the Grenglsih, I know it is. I heard they were experimenting with some kind of weather control or some such tomfoolery and this is the result. I told the idiot n the council we couldn’t trust them but they did absolutely sod all. Have you noticed, not many of them decided to stay in the town once the darkness came. This last part was true but Ishmael figured that if he were in their position he would go back home, back to n the few remaining places that had some daylight – 4 hours now, at the last report and dwindling an hour each month.


His Mother said it wasn’t for the likes of them to try and fathom it and that it was the gods’ way of showing their power. They’d put it right if and when they wanted to and that was that.








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Steve Wybourn





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