Post by Zoe on Mar 3, 2005 0:04:57 GMT
Hi there!
My name is Zoe, I am fairly new to this forum and I have written a story I would like to share with you all. It is called....
Only Fiction
The writer looked very smug. As I finished the last page of his new manuscript he smiled in anticipation of the praise he knew was to come.
“A clever blend of fact and fiction, Mr Wells!” I could not deny that he wrote with elegance and power. It was a disturbing story.... I even wondered about the writer’s sanity! “The ending is very clever! The Martians slain by the common cold!”
“Well, perhaps not the common cold. There are any number of diseases that could do the trick. I was thinking of the diseases that laid low the soldiers of the British Empire during their conquests. Ruthless killing often carries disease in its wake.” His voice was rather squeaky when he got excited. I must admit that it spoiled the story for me; imagining the narrator’s voice as a shrill treble. As I read, it was hard to take it seriously, for all its macabre subject matter.
“Still, I’m glad you gave it a happy ending! The characters were believable too. That artilleryman; was he drawn from life?”
“As a matter of fact he was.” Mr Wells beamed at me “We writers have to draw on experience you know!”
“Not a particularly likeable sort I would wager.”
“Oh, I hope I did not paint him too black. The point of my writing is always to show how we are victims of circumstances. All the scenes I imagined in ‘The Exodus From London’ for example. I just thought how ordinary people might behave in extraordinary circumstances.”
“Ah oh!” I smiled at the thought. “Your brother’s account? So it wasn’t your brother who wrote that after all?”and I winked with mock complicity.
“Not a word of it!” Laughed Mr Wells. “It was pure fiction!”
“Very imaginative though. And the technical descriptions too.” He clearly enjoyed the compliment. “That account of the heat ray and its workings. How did you come up with that?”
“Well, of course,” he frowned with sudden seriousness, “a writer like me simply takes the science we know and extrapolates it. Given the idea of a thing like the heat ray it is easier than you might think to come up with a general idea of how it might work. It’s not much different from fleshing out a character. Actually making a heat ray would be a quite different thing. That is well beyond our capacity to manufacture at the moment – if ever!”
“Still, I’m glad you gave it a happy ending.... Optimism! Can’t beat it!”
Mr Wells smiled rather childishly; “Yes. I believe so!”
The door opened and one of the traitors came in. He was wearing a tattered uniform of the Royal Artillery and carried a rifle. The writer jumped to his feet. “I knew that help would come!” He was very cheery now and gave me a reassuring smile before turning to peer at the stranger “Why! It’s you! Don’t you recognise me, man! In Woking and afterwards on Putney Hill!”
The artillery man held his gun up and pointed it at Mr Wells. “That was in another life.”
He pushed the gun against the writer’s middle and made him march, still protesting, to the door. “We can get out of here! We can get the others with us! We can take over a fighting machine.... you know.... just as you had all planned! With the heat ray wide and free! We can do it, you and I!” Optimistic to the last, he disappeared behind the door as the artillery man slammed it shut.
I laughed to myself in a half hysterical way. “Disease micro-organisms!” I said out loud. “What a fantastic idea! If only! If only that part of it were true!” The tears ran down my cheeks as from outside I heard Mr Wells’ silly, squeaky voice turn to a scream, as he woke from his dream into the nightmare our world has become.
“If only it were true!” I sobbed and my tears blotted the manuscript in my hand as the Martians hooted outside, obscenely cheerful as they fed.
My name is Zoe, I am fairly new to this forum and I have written a story I would like to share with you all. It is called....
Only Fiction
The writer looked very smug. As I finished the last page of his new manuscript he smiled in anticipation of the praise he knew was to come.
“A clever blend of fact and fiction, Mr Wells!” I could not deny that he wrote with elegance and power. It was a disturbing story.... I even wondered about the writer’s sanity! “The ending is very clever! The Martians slain by the common cold!”
“Well, perhaps not the common cold. There are any number of diseases that could do the trick. I was thinking of the diseases that laid low the soldiers of the British Empire during their conquests. Ruthless killing often carries disease in its wake.” His voice was rather squeaky when he got excited. I must admit that it spoiled the story for me; imagining the narrator’s voice as a shrill treble. As I read, it was hard to take it seriously, for all its macabre subject matter.
“Still, I’m glad you gave it a happy ending! The characters were believable too. That artilleryman; was he drawn from life?”
“As a matter of fact he was.” Mr Wells beamed at me “We writers have to draw on experience you know!”
“Not a particularly likeable sort I would wager.”
“Oh, I hope I did not paint him too black. The point of my writing is always to show how we are victims of circumstances. All the scenes I imagined in ‘The Exodus From London’ for example. I just thought how ordinary people might behave in extraordinary circumstances.”
“Ah oh!” I smiled at the thought. “Your brother’s account? So it wasn’t your brother who wrote that after all?”and I winked with mock complicity.
“Not a word of it!” Laughed Mr Wells. “It was pure fiction!”
“Very imaginative though. And the technical descriptions too.” He clearly enjoyed the compliment. “That account of the heat ray and its workings. How did you come up with that?”
“Well, of course,” he frowned with sudden seriousness, “a writer like me simply takes the science we know and extrapolates it. Given the idea of a thing like the heat ray it is easier than you might think to come up with a general idea of how it might work. It’s not much different from fleshing out a character. Actually making a heat ray would be a quite different thing. That is well beyond our capacity to manufacture at the moment – if ever!”
“Still, I’m glad you gave it a happy ending.... Optimism! Can’t beat it!”
Mr Wells smiled rather childishly; “Yes. I believe so!”
The door opened and one of the traitors came in. He was wearing a tattered uniform of the Royal Artillery and carried a rifle. The writer jumped to his feet. “I knew that help would come!” He was very cheery now and gave me a reassuring smile before turning to peer at the stranger “Why! It’s you! Don’t you recognise me, man! In Woking and afterwards on Putney Hill!”
The artillery man held his gun up and pointed it at Mr Wells. “That was in another life.”
He pushed the gun against the writer’s middle and made him march, still protesting, to the door. “We can get out of here! We can get the others with us! We can take over a fighting machine.... you know.... just as you had all planned! With the heat ray wide and free! We can do it, you and I!” Optimistic to the last, he disappeared behind the door as the artillery man slammed it shut.
I laughed to myself in a half hysterical way. “Disease micro-organisms!” I said out loud. “What a fantastic idea! If only! If only that part of it were true!” The tears ran down my cheeks as from outside I heard Mr Wells’ silly, squeaky voice turn to a scream, as he woke from his dream into the nightmare our world has become.
“If only it were true!” I sobbed and my tears blotted the manuscript in my hand as the Martians hooted outside, obscenely cheerful as they fed.
