The God yawned and stretched in his bed. How long had it been since he fell asleep. "What day is it? For how long have I slumbered?" he called out. At the sound of his master's voice, the Pterodactyl arose and entered the God's bed chamber.
"My dear Savior!" he greeted, "It has been nearly 10,000 years since you laid down your most gracious head."
"Oh dear," the God replied. He had overslept by a centuries then. No matter. He wished he had been awake to witness the fall of mankind, but a part of him was fond of the silly little bipeds. Perhaps a few could have joined the Pterodactyl and Unicorn in his staff before they were completely wiped out, but it was undoubtedly too late now. "For how long has man been removed from the earth?" he inquired.
"My lord?" The Pterodactyl responded, sounding quite confused. "Man has not only survived over these long years, but is thriving. His people number in the billions and cover every piece of the world!" Confused, the God stood up from his bed.
"But they were too wasteful! The Ox did not deliver my message as he should have. How have they made it this far, and multiplied that much, without learning to save the resources precious to their survival? I must see this for myself!" and so he did. The God toured the earth, visiting the varying tribes of humans. He still saw the waste, more than ever, in their daily lives. It seemed as though mankind simply produced enough extra to account for the waste. Their farming techniques had improved 10-fold since he had last been awake, and they now possessed- the power to bring back a loved one after their heart had stopped? The humans had harnessed the power of lightning and had too many metal tools to count. The evolution of mankind was truly a miracle. But how could this possibly be sustainable? The God wondered. As he rose back into the heavens, the answer became clear. The earth was not as bright and shiny as he remembered. The human were living because the earth was dying.
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| In the Eyes of the Creator by Melinda Rathnayake via Flickr |
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Hello Jessica, I love what you did with the story! I thought it was so cool how you wrote a continuation to the present on this story. It really makes you think on how much were wasting and how much longer do we have until we need make a drastic turn to save the planet. Overall I thought your story was great, keep it up!
ReplyDeleteWow. I hadn't read the original story, but I think you've given me enough of an allusion to it that I can sort of guess whats going on in your adaptation. I like the humor that you put in, Pterodactyls and Unicorns--brilliant. And I think that you had a great mic drop moment in the last few lines of the story--it's intense because I get the sense that we were not supposed to live so long. Was it like this in the original story, or did you extrapolate? Also, the only grammatical error I noticed was "He had overslept by a centuries then"--you just don't need the "a." Everything else is great, loved it!
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of “How the Ox came to be the Servant of Man”. It was nice that the author’s note was at the beginning so that I could better understand what to expect! I really like your take on this story. Having a lot of dialogue was nice as well because it was just like a conversation. The way you continued the story was great! Thank you for sharing!
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ReplyDeleteHello Jessica,
I really liked how you started your story off with the author's note. This is important for setting up your story, allowing the reader to understand what God meant by the Ox not delivering the message. I thought it was really funny that you incorporated the Pterodactyl and Unicorn. That, and the way you explain the God's reaction to oversleeping was comical to me. One suggestion that might help the reader would be to explain why God's servants let him sleep for so long. It seems that they would know he would not want to sleep for that long. Something you could add would be to have the Unicorn and Pterodactyl bickering outside the door, trying to decide if they should wake him up and who should be the one to do it. You sort of introduce the Unicorn, but that character seems to get lost. However, I think your story was really fun to read and different from anything that I have read so far. I look forward to reading more of your stories and project.
~Madi Reynolds