Wednesday's Words on a Friday

On Wednesdays, Elephant’s Child has been putting up a selection of six (or twelve) words which is called “Words for Wednesday”.

She had taken over this meme from Delores, who is gradually retiring from the blogging world.

This month the meme continues here, at Drifting Through Life

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.   

Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.   

I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme.  

 If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.

 

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. satellite

2. bananas

3. unannounced

4. cherry

5. backtracked

6. included

and or:

1. sneaker

2. kitchen

3. force

4. around

5. squelched

6. short

Here is my story:

(a little longer than I expected, the words just poured themselves onto the page.)

World Power part four 

It seemed a lifetime before I was able to tune out the disembodied voice and fall to the floor, where I curled up and slept. I was woken by the sound of knocking and I stood to see a previously unnoticed door being pushed open. Imagine my surprise to see the burly man entering. He still carried his stick and wore the battered brown hat.

He stood near the door and observed me quietly for a moment before speaking.

“You’re surprised to see me, I can tell. I’m not here to hurt you, no one here will hurt you. My name is Graham, and you are Joshua, twelve years old. Born and raised in Green Sector, chosen for Grey Sector because you seemed bright enough to handle the restrictions and follow the rules without losing your sense of self. Not taking the blue pills and communicating with me, shows you can think for yourself and you’re willing to take chances.”

“How do you know about me? Have I been watched all this time? Is that what the camera in the plane is all about? What does that voice mean when it says I am to be regenerated?”

“If you come with me, I’ll get you settled in a more comfortable room and answer all your questions. You’re right about the camera though, you’ve been watched since your first day in Grey Sector. I’m your assessor. Come along now, your new room is ready for you.”

“Wait! I want to know about regenerate, what will happen to me?”

“I’ll explain as we walk, we need to leave this room now, another recruit is expected soon.”

We left the white room and turned left, following a long corridor with walls that changed colour as we progressed. The white gave way to blue, then green and finally yellow where Graham stopped and opened a door for me.

“We’re in Yellow Sector now, this is your new room, it has more space than rooms in Grey Sector, with actual cupboards to hold your clothes and sneakers. Books have been included, we noticed you liked to read, but we’re not sure what you like so there’s a mixture, even a volume of short poems.”

I stood inside my big new room and looked around in amazement. Everything I’d had in Grey Sector was there, plus so much more. A small kitchen area held a table with two chairs and a fruit bowl with bananas which I recognised and small red fruits which Graham said were cherries. He showed me how to eat them and spit out the seed in the centre. I liked the way the fruit squelched in my mouth, releasing its delicious flavour.

After several cherries, Graham began to speak. “Regenerate simply means to renew, or regrow. Those left behind in Grey Sector don’t have the ability for further mental growth. The apocalypse, all those centuries ago, didn’t wipe out humankind, but did damage enough DNA in enough people that future generations were severely compromised. As the centuries passed, it was noticed, via satellite cameras, that certain communities were producing children with potential. 

Now, your first question. We know about you, because we backtracked through your files until we found the one with your parents and birth name on it. You are Joshua Howard Williamson, your birthday is August 10^th.Your parents, Howard and Denise, understood the need to keep you safe and willingly gave you into the care of Green Sector. You were born on the surface, in an old nineteenth century bomb shelter. No force was used to convince them, they’d seen the devastation and diseases of the outside world for themselves and wanted you raised in a clean environment, away from the threats of noxious gases that still broke through the earth’s crust occasionally.”

I interrupted him, asking how did people here survive the apocalypse and not be exposed to all the resulting problems? He smiled hugely and said “This is why we chose you. You think, you have questions, you don’t just blindly go from day to day.”

“There were underground facilities, quite huge places, almost whole towns built underground, and many scientists and medical people moved underground before the apocalypse happened. No one really knows exactly what caused it, or even when it would happen, there are many possibilities. 

People weren’t wiped out as was first thought, but much of the natural growth such as trees, grasses etc died all over the earth. Very few species survived. Fish and seaweeds in the oceans appeared to be okay and over the centuries these were farmed until numbers increased, these are what you ate in calorie pills and protein pouches all those years. 

The fruit we ate just now has been artificially produced in laboratories down in the basement levels. Someone, somewhere, found a dying cherry tree and collected the fruit and kept the seeds. I’ll take you down there tomorrow, that is where we would like you to work and study. Joshua, we want you to be part of the team that helps to regenerate the earth’s surface.”

I was a bit stunned by all this news, I had no idea that I’d been living underground all my life. I’d seen the earth’s surface in old movies and thought we just had buildings on the surface but with no windows so we couldn’t see the destruction that had happened.

I asked about the garden and sunshine we walked in daily and the plane that flew over with the camera. 

“All artificial,” said Graham. “That big blue sky is a giant screen, the plane is a remote controlled toy, large enough to seem real, with a camera installed. Way back in the twentieth century these were called drones and people thought they were used by spies, invading their privacy.”

Graham was quiet as I took this in, then said, “I’ll leave you alone now to get settled, give you time to put away your new clothes,” he indicated a large suitcase sitting beside the door. “This room is yours, your own private haven, no one will come in unannounced, everyone knocks and waits to be invited in.”