Chapter One: Monotony

In the town of Monotony, in the south of Mundanedom, everything was just alike. The trees were short and unspectacular, the buildings were all square. Everything was grey, the same grey, without variation and picking any two things apart was the most impossible of tasks. The people there all looked the same and dressed the same and sounded the same and spoke the same words. They spoke in docile tones and it was all rather dull and flat and boring as anyone would have expected. But that was just how the people there liked it; without suspense or exclamation or interest. It was monotony just the way it should be.
But that was before Ickery Rose. Ickery Rose was born in the town of Monotony with the softest of pink flesh and the most dazzling blue eyes. His very first word he had said in a gasp of desperation that shook the people of Monotony to the core. He was strange indeed. When Ickery was four he threw a tantrum in the middle of a store for he did not want to dress in grey anymore. At the age of five, when enrolled in school, Ickery was sent home for having raised his voice in class, scaring his teacher and fellow pupils half to death.
People noticed him everywhere he went for he went in the opposite direction. They would look at him with unamused faces and wonder how he had come to be born in Monotony when he was so very...different. He’d ask silly questions like “why do the birds sing that same old song that same old way?” or “why are all these rocks the same shape?” and he never liked the answer.
“Because this is Monotony,” his mother would say.
“Because this is Monotony,” his father would say.
“Because this is Monotony,” the townsfolk would say, but Ickery Rose was never satisfied.


It is here in the town square of Monotony that we meet young Ickery, now seven and dressed in a deep emerald green, hands on hips, staring at a stonewashed wall, which he did so very often.
“Why are all the walls the same?” he said aloud to no one and no one answered. “They are all very, very the same.”
“Because this is Monotony,” said a man who had been passing by.
“So?” said Ickery with indignation turning to see who had joined his company. He was unsurprised to see a man who looked just like all the other men he’d ever seen.
“So they are all the same,” said the man like all other men.
“But why aren’t any of them different?”
“That’s the way that people like it here.”
“But they’re all the same,” said Ickery Rose.
“And that’s exactly how they are meant to be,” said the man like all other men.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are all the walls the same?”
“Because this is Monotony,” said another man like all other men, though Ickery wasn’t sure if it really was another man or the first man or any man, but it was a man.
“They are all drab and they are all plain and they are all the same.”
“But,” said Ickery confused. “But they’re boring.”
The first man like all other men looked at the second man like all other men who, at the same time, had turned to the first man like all other men, blank expressions on their faces.
“As opposed to..?” asked one of the men.
“Well,” thought Ickery. “As opposed to... not being boring.”
“Never heard of such a thing,” said a man like all other men.
“Nor have I,” said another man like all other men.
“Preposterous,” came the same man’s voice from a different place.
“Ludicrous,” it said yet again, somewhere else.
“Well,” shouted Ickery above the muted tones and doldrums. “Well, there must be an opposite to boring.”
The crowd of men who were all alike murmured without amusement. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why must there be an opposite to boring?” asked one of the men.
Ickery thought. “Because everything has an opposite. With day comes night, with up comes down, with long comes short...”
“I thought with tall comes short?” said yet another of the men that now surrounded Ickery as he continued to look at the stonewashed wall.
“Well, that too.”
“Two opposites? Never heard of such a thing.”
“Nor have I.”
“Preposterous.”
“Ludicrous.”
“Now, now, maybe young Ickery is onto something,” said the first man like all other men, much to Ickery’s delight. “Perhaps because some words don’t need opposites, others can have two. Perhaps short has two opposites because boring has none.”
The crowd of men all began to nod in agreement with each other or with themselves or just because it was what everyone else was doing. Ickery stood before them shouting at them. “No, that’s not how it works.” But it was too late, nobody was listening.
As quickly as they had come the men like all other men had disappeared, leaving in the same way and in the same direction. Ickery stood alone on the street made of identical stones in front of the wall, any wall, it didn’t matter, they were all the same.
“There is an opposite to boring,” said Ickery to himself. “Just because I’ve never seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’ll show them.”
Ickery Rose licked his hand until it was all damp then pressed it to the dusty floor until it was filthy. Then he pressed it to the wall until a grubby hand print, shiny with spit, shone of the stonewashed wall.
He smiled to himself. “That might not be not boring, but it’s definitely different,” he said smugly.
And in his mind a plan was conjured to leave Monotony, to find something that wasn’t boring. He’d leave at daybreak, in his parent’s small grey carriage pulled by his parent’s small grey horse and he would go to the city of Mundanedom, to the King if he must, and find what the opposite of boring was.

Even if it killed him.



Thank you for reading. If you'd like you can go pack and read the prologue or head over to my blog for the next chapter: http://mundanedom.blogspot.com/