Re: [NEX] The Unfinished Land [M]
Dan Davenport
[OOC: Response 001.998.734]
> [OOC: Should these posts be [O] instead of [M]? I thought everyone
> was free to do whatever, including messing with other peoples'
> characters? Either way, here's a new character.]
[OOC: It's pretty close to being [O], but there are still rules for
participation set by the thread's originator.]
> On Mon, 24 Apr 2006, la serenissima wrote:
>
>
>> There was one very odd thing about the island: there was supposed
>> to be more to the world. The people were quite sure of this.
>> The fact had been passed on from parents and grandparents
>> forever. No one remembered just how they knew. There was no
>> evidence that there might be more out there. No other land could
>> be seen from the island. No boats or swimmers that ventured out
>> of sight of the island ever returned. The horizon was swallowed
>> by a measureless mist. But the islanders knew there was meant
>> to be more.
>>
>> And the island was beginning to get crowded.
>
>
> Chuchuk had told the other islanders that the reasons he had built
> his oddly shaped house at the end of the dock were these: first,
> because the island was so crowded that there was no room on land;
> and second, because he so loved the ocean that he wanted to be as
> close as possible to it. Of course, the island wasn't /that/
> crowded, and he did like the ocean but not so much as to build a
> house on a very shaky foundation, but nobody else knew the real
> reason.
>
> Through the calm season, he fished from his back porch, dangling
> his toes in the water, and he caught enough to eat while also being
> able to store some for the future. But when the first big storm
> of the year hit, in the middle of the night, he stayed awake
> watching the dark clouds blotting out the stars... and when the
> winds came, buffeting his small house, he released two wooden
> braces and the top part of his house slid off the dock and into the
> water.
>
> He had built his house to double as a seaworthy craft,hoping that a
> storm might carry him through the fog and to a more interesting
> place. The house, bobbing and rocking in the angry waves, was
> quickly becoming a hazardous environment, so Chuchuk lashed himself
> onto his built-in bed and attempted to sleep, believing that the
> storm would not carry him past the fog if he was watching.
>
> When he woke up, the house was in pieces, he was still lashed to
> the bed, but the storm had indeed carried him somewhere else.
The first sign that he had, indeed, found himself somewhere else was
the -silence-. Living all of his live on an island almost literally
overflowing with inhabitants, with their incessant talking, laughing,
shouting, crying, and even snoring, he had never -truly- known the
essence of -silence-.
And yet, here it was. Silence.
The ocean barely stirred. Not a wave lapped at the pebbly beach where
the ocean had deposited his bed.
No wind stirred the dense jungle, mere yards from the waterline.
No birds, no beasts cried out in fright, hunger, or anger.
And most of all, no people spoke.
At first, the prospect chilled him with its sheer -wrongness-, like a
sky of pink rather than blue.
But soon enough, he -exulted- in this new experience. -Silence-! -Alone-!
He performed a little spinning dance on the beach for his own
amusement, but the scuff of his feet on the rough beach made -sound-,
and here, that seemed a sort of blasphemy. So he stopped, and merely
listed to the novelty of -nothing-.
That was when he heard the footsteps. And the sound of these footsteps
were the polar opposite of "nothing."
--
Nexan