Jonathan writing challenge #1

Alright, so this is my week and my first writing challenge! And let me tell you, it was a tough one!


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Title: As Far As Cobbling Hammer's Go.
Genre: Fantasy
Challenge: A character will get dressed. During the story, a character takes a test. The story must have a scholar at the beginning. The story must involve a hammer in it. The story takes place in the afternoon.
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I am told that I am a heavy sleeper. That on the right occasion I could sleep through the end of the world and not be disturbed by its events in the slightest. I suppose this could be true, I’ll never be awake to find out though. All I can really say is that the sound of rain softly falling down in a dance with a gentle wind upon ones tent is enough to allow anyone to sleep away most of the morning, and well into the afternoon. Ireland’s marshlands are the home to many pieces of the country’s history, waiting to be pulled from their soft tombs and catalogued. The rains and the mist, and really the total understanding of just what the old bards were speaking of was one of the largest draws to this particular assignment. The downside however was having to work with a man known within the university for being notoriously difficult to work with and a real stickler for the details. And I perhaps should mention, a complete ogre when it comes to his student’s punctuality. The moment I hear him start to give his lecture from outside the tent, I get dressed as fast as I can to meet him outside.

‘I’ve half a mind to do you in with the spade and leave you to the bogs! This is the 5’th time in as many weeks you’ve awoke in the late afternoon! A whole day wasted to your insufferable snoring and sloth! Honestly Jonathan, I believed this expedition would rouse your attention, but it seems your determined to sleep through my work, be it in a classroom, or in the field. You damnable kids these days, not got a brain for anything but your music and your next party.’

This is where I start to fade out. Not only was the Professor just an all around crab, and anthropological genius, but he was also the universities commander and chief in the war against the MTV generation. Its just to bad that as far as he was concerned, anyone younger than himself was a member of this depraved stain on the cultural hind end of the world. I preferred the old music myself, as long as the old stories, told long before anything was written, but that was just me. No sense in arguing the point either or I would have that grating voice jabbering on all day.

‘You kids have got no pride in anything you make even the most slack jawed of attempts at! I’ve had enough of ya, go grab the bloody spade and start digging in the Area C. And if you haven’t got anything to show for yourself by the time I am done cataloguing what I found this morning, well you can start looking for open spaces in Dr. Gerard’s modern philosophy classes. Spend your days talking about the cultural significance of M. Night Sillyman or whatever the bloody hell his name is…idiots, the lot of them all.’

Even after I leave he keeps talking, it’s the same thing every day. I swear to you, I honestly believe the Professor feels that talking to himself is an intellectual conversation to which none are privy to. As long as he was over there, and I was over here, it didn’t matter.

The sky is still muggy, though its warmed up a little bit and I toss my wool sweater onto a nearby branch to allow myself to cool down a little bit. Fog is creeping its way over and down hills, and gently slinking through whatever tree’s are in the area. Cleaning whatever pieces I managed to find was made that much more difficult though, instead of removing dusted dirt, I had to removed caked mud, among other things, off whatever I found. Which more often than not, turned what could have been an artefact, into nothing more than a rock. And I am sure you can guess how impressed the Professor would be if he saw that I had unearthed some of Irelands oldest stone pebbles. But patience would win me the day. What I found next had to have been the largest item since the start of the trip, and it was whole! When I pulled it, gently from the ground, I didn’t feel anything, not at first. But as I began to clean the item, I started to feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, a shiver, not a bad one, run up and down my spine. I became excited, but it was mixed with something else, something other worldly. Upon removing more of the mud and bog mess from the item I begin to discover just what it is that I am holding!

It’s a small hammer, a flat nose that leads to a small singular fork for its tail with a handle made from the same metal as the actual hammer head itself. Its not so simple however; the handle itself is twisted into triple knots and has small sapphire berries inside and out of the knot work. The actual hammer head itself is also a series of knots that form into the shape of an Irish Wolfhound. The knots taking on the shape of the great dog’s fur pulling through wind as it trots along some field, chasing its prey. The knot work makes the small hammer look alive!

‘Professor, over here! I found something, in tact and whole!’

If you ever thought an old man such as the Professor incapable of great speed, think again. A stride that would be the envy of even the greatest hurdler at the thought of a fully in tact artefact. He reached out, gloves on of course, and his eyes widened in astonishment.

‘Boy, have you even the slightest clue as to what you’ve found?’

I told him I found a hammer.

‘Yes, obviously it’s a hammer, but think boy! What significance would a hammer have in Ireland, especially a well decorated one such as this?’

I told him that it could be a weapon.

‘Please, something this well decorated would have more symbolic purposes. Look at its size lad, what full grown man would have a hammer this small as a weapon?’

Clearly not a fully grown man was my only response. His questions were annoying, expecting to know something without proper explanation.

‘Your starting to get on the right track. Think about it, what in Irish history and folklore utilised a hammer? A cobbling hammer.’

I took the hammer back into my hands and scrutinised it, in truth, at his last question I had already knew the answer, but I was unwilling to just spit it out, it was absurd. Honestly, the idea that this could have belonged to a leprechaun was all the proof I needed to believe that the Professor had lost his mind.

‘I haven’t held one of these in years.’

‘Wait, what? This isn’t the first one you’ve found? Why isn’t it in the university museum?’

‘I never found another one, its just not the first I’ve held.’

The Professor took the hammer back into his hands and removed his gloves, rubbing the palm of his hand over the face of the hammer and down its handle, looking at it with a sense of longing. I had never seen such a stern man look so emotional. In all truth, I had never seen him look like that before in the entire time he had been my teacher, he didn’t look as old as I thought, except for his eyes. The Professor’s eyes carried agelessness in them.

‘Bet you didn’t know how important these hammer’s were, are, to Leprechauns. Not many people know this, but these little hammers were the source of their very being. Sure, they were magical as it was, they are after all members of the Aes sidhe. But these hammers were what gave them their purpose, their task, their knowledge, their skills.’

I had thought the Professor was going to go on another rant, lecture me on how I never paid attention in class. I looked down at the ground I was kneeling in and dug the spade into the moist earth, and instead of hearing more words, more talking, I heard nothing at all. I looked back up, and where the Professor had been, there was now nothing. The whole area grew strangely silent as I stood to my feet and looked around, hearing nothing more than the wind begin to carry away the slinking fog.

Round Two! Fight!

Yo peeps, OK here is my entry for the week, hope to be writing lots of new stories for you people out there.


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Title: Dawson's Story
Genre: Fantasy
Story Restrictions: Must start in Library, Someone must die unexpectedly, someone must drink something they have not drunk in a long time.
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The room was small, smaller than any Dawson had seen before. There were two tables and several chairs in the cramped space, which made things even worse. Small lanterns were scattered around the room in a random arrangement, each giving off a faint orange glow that illuminated a few feet in all directions. The books along the walls seemed almost ethereal in this tangerine half light, their spines warping and twisting as shadows played against them. Dawson moved through the aisles of the dusty room, trying desperately to not disturb even the slightest speck of history for fear of punishment. The book he needed was on the top shelf of the western wall or so he was told. Dawson had refused help from the mansion’s steward for fear of being spied upon. The eyes of his stalkers were everywhere these days and he needed to keep what he was about in private. Dawson reached the western wall of the small room and pulled the ladder over to where he assumed the book should be and began to climb. His weak arms struggling with each rung as his boney frame climbed higher and higher into the air. He climbed seeing the dust from the shelves getting thicker and thicker from lack of attendance from the cleaning people. Dawson made a mental note to comment on the cleanliness of the room to the Steward before he left. Finally upon reaching the zenith of the ladder he came across a set of books that no one had touched in more than a decade. The spines were black leather coiled with a stark white cord that showed no sign of age or wear. The wording on the spines was in a silver bead and read Brackin Family Tree. “This is what I’m looking for it is, it is!” Exclaimed Dawson quietly to himself. Running his finger along the spines until he found the volume he needed and pulled it from its place. The other books toppled over to fill the place where their brother once claimed. With book under his arm Dawson descended down the ladder and back towards the entrance to the room, a smile on his usually depressed looking face.
Exiting the library he moved into the plain hallways of the Brackin Mansion, their once former glory gone now with the ages. Stains along the walls marked where the great family portraits had hung, displaying proud men and women who had raised the name of Brackin to glory. Now those portraits lay in some waste, shredded, defiled, broken, never to see the light of day again just like the other family heirlooms that had been taken in the great split.
Dawson turned the corner and proceeded down a set of spiral stairs that led to the main hall of the house. As he approached the main floor of the mansion, he heard several people conversing. One of them was the steward his high shrill voice unmistakable, the other two he did not know. They sounded like they were from the JJC, their heavy accents ramming into Dawson’s ears with their heavy H’s and rough R’s. They seemed to be arguing about something; however it was impossible to tell from the stairwell. Dawson moved down out of the stair well and was just about to take the corner into the main hall when he heard the shrill scream from the steward and then a thud as if a heavy bag of yams fell to the floor. Fear ran through Dawson as he edged towards the corner that turned into the main hall. Slowly he peeked around the edge and saw such horror it’s almost unspeakable. There on the majestic red carpet lay the steward, blood creeping out of his lifeless form to soak into the carpet. His head a grotesque jigsaw puzzle after the pincer had smashed it open. Dawson pulled his head back quickly, his heart racing and his hollow face was soaked in sweat. He had just witnessed a murder of an innocent man by government officials. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. His mind raced and reeled as the possibilities lit up before him. He could walk out casually; make it look like he was just passing through. No they would kill him to hide their crime. He could return to the library, hide until they had finished their business. That was the safest option and Dawson was a cautious man. Slowly he edged back towards the steps, careful to not make a sound, each step taken with care.
He began to ascend the steps, slowly at first and then more quickly until finally he was in a full dash, his dark leather shoes slapping against the cold stone with each step. Up and up he ran until he was once again in the hall leading to the library and beyond. Moving past the library the young researcher with book in hand turned into a room that was sparsely decorated but had a very thick Larian oak door with a secure latch. Closing the door behind him and securing the latch in place Dawson turned and examined the room he had chosen as a sanctuary from the evil which chased him. The room was plain, a desk sat in the middle of the room lined with several bottles of liquid and several high backed reading chairs were scattered here and there. The stone floor was lined with a very intricate carpet from the south western country of Lar. The griffins and snakes on it chased each other in a constant circle never gaining ground over the other, in a constant battle of neutrality. Dawson noticed that there were several glasses mixed in with the bottles. The natural assumption was he stumbled on Senator Brackin’s drawing room. Moving into the room he looked at the liquids closer, each was an expensive spirit of some kind. There was Brandish Wine from 836 EP, Larian Rum that was illegal anywhere but inside Lar as well as several other bottles whose labels were too worn to read. However there was one bottle that Dawson could not refuse to inspect closer. A bottle of 1193 Rockwind Whiskey. He had drunk a few glasses of Rockwind Whiskey in his youth, it was a drink that let you free your mind and dance with the wind, let your preconceived ideas disappear. It was simply an amazing drink. Dawson’s hand began to shake, sweat poured down his already slick face, his heart quickened. A slow smile crept along his mouth as it began to water.
Dawson was a recovering alcoholic, in his youth he was a drinker and he had a taste for Whiskey. Rockwind whiskey was the one drink he could never afford very much of; it was the drink for the rich, the famous and the man who had everything. It was the great equalizer in the end but was too expensive for the common man. It had been a hard fight to get the drink from Dawson’s system, he had gone twenty some years without a single drop of the rich, tasty liquid that burned so hard it made you feel born again. However now, now he was tempted. The first time in all that time and he was finding it difficult to turn away and place the bottle back.
“I just need a little too wet my whistle and to calm my nerves, I did just witness a murder!” He said to himself, half laughing to no one. Dawson popped open the decanter and smelled the liquid inside. The aroma wafted to the quivering mans nose sending him into an ecstatic shock. Licking his lips he began to pour the drink into a cup, spilling more of the stuff then actually getting into the cup. When the cup was adequately filled he placed the decanter back on the desk and raised the cup to his lips. Breathing in the scent he tipped the cup and swallowed the stuff in one gulp. The liquid burned his mouth, injecting its toxins and chemicals into his gums and tongue starting him on a journey he would never forget.
It was a mere seconds before Dawson collapsed on the cold stone floor shaking a foaming at the mouth as the additives in the drink sent him on his other worldly trip. He left his body and went sailing into the other world, stars and moons and suns flew past him. He saw things that were at once possible and impossible, his mind turned and twisted in the chaos of the new land he now travelled. He found that things were upside down and right side up, that he was spinning but things were perfectly still. All sense of direction was gone now, he didn’t know where he had come from or where he was going, he saw others there as well. Mutated freaks, their flesh twisted into tendrils and shapes that the human brain could not comprehend. They tried to speak to him but all that came out was a wailing of such anguish and pain that it made Dawson weep when he heard it. Further and further into the new land he travelled, oceans of metal rose up and crashed against the beaches of wood and cement, the tiny animals that lived here running to and fro amongst the wrecked bone ships sailing the shore. Islands of tears and blood floated in mid air, their inhabitants, more of the twisted flesh creatures he had seen earlier. In the distance he thought he saw himself, lying in a great high backed chair in the drawing room surrounded by an orange glow. He tried to call out to himself but got no response. He travelled the land seeing things that would drive men insane and make scholars question the existence of the universe. He floated there for what seemed years and then as if a timer ran down to its last digit the world screeched to a halt and a black vortex appeared before him sucking him in. The world began to darken around him, thunder striking the air and thunder rolling across the twisted sky. As the vortex closed around him he felt a great heat and his skin began to blacken and burn. Dawson screamed and blue and purple flames began to sprout out from his skin and a great wail burst from his lungs.
Dawson opened his eyes as pain racked through his body; he was in a hospital surrounded by people all working on him. His body was a fire with pain, every inch of him scratched and burned. He tried to move his head and found it was secured to the gurney he was laying on. Huge piece of skin were being lifted out of a cooler and place onto him, the muffled words of the doctors and nurses who worked on him sounded like static to him. One of the nurses noticed he was awake and bent closer to his ear. “You are badly burned, we will save you do not worry. You are lucky to be alive, yes?” she spoke softly into his ear, her accent heavy, and thick, filled with horrible grammar. He was in a JJC medical facility, being injected with their drugs and his body parts being replaced by god knows what. Dawson knew that after they were done with him he would be one of their drones and his life would be over. The last image he saw was of the huge segmented exoskeleton they wheeled in to wrap him in, then there was nothing but darkness.

Holy crap were back!

Alright, so we are back and we are giving this another shot! We are hoping to enter these into various writing forums or publications so we have stepped up the game a little bit. The themes work a little differently now than before and are a little more challenging! Here is my first entry.


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Title: Soda Fountain
Genre: Macabre
Writing restrictions: Must start in a library, must have a death, character mus drink something they have not drank in a long time.

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With walls made of bookshelves that expand into a blackness of unknown depth, it is no wonder this room was called simply the Library by those that inhabited it. No special name, no code, nothing more, just Library. However its roles are more than just a house for stories and records, it serves many dark purposes. To sum it up, it could also be considered a playhouse, but then where does the tom foolery of those who find time in abundance take place? Think back to school and the things you did in your own library. This is a room that played host to the dark dealings of the worlds utmost upper class. Individuals so rich they can afford to keep themselves a secret to the world and still have enough money left over to embarrass the Forbes top ten richest list. It is these men in this Library who have performed deplorable acts the likes of which even your wildest nightmare could not fathom. Their money has lead them from act to act, finding and delighting in new and more depraving pleasures. Their room is built very much like a pit, circular with an upper ring made of stone walls, homes to the bookshelves that contained these elitists’ records. Every quarterly gathering was held in those volumes, in all their disgusting detail. Then descending from the upper ring are two sets of stairs that fill into a Cineplex style seating before a small stage, where the public acts of just what money can buy are performed for the society. The Library is illuminated by thousands of candles on banisters, wall mounts or upon iron cast chandeliers. The Library has been home to the children of mammon for several hundred years, and tonight’s meeting promised to be its best.

Oppressing silence is pierced by the hinges of a giant, heavily decorated, iron door being swung open and the sounds of footsteps echoing about as thirty people enter into the room. Every last person who enters is between the ages of midlife and death, all except one. Dressed in uniforms of the finest clothes and one of a kind fashion items, each one of them looks as though they are attending a gala.

“ I bought the most beautiful painter the other day, she is indeed a rare gem! I have her painting the study, though I do hope she finishes soon. I grow tired of her sobbing and begging, ‘Let me free, let me free!’ Enough already!”

“Well perhaps you can send her my way when you are done with her? I wonder if she can do more than paint?”

“You are barking mad sir, her work is one of a kind. When I am done with her, what’s left goes to my prize hounds so I can keep her work as such!”

Small chit chat of this nature is exchanged between the thirty members before they finally take their seats. A moment or two to allow everyone settle into their meeting and one of their ilk stands and takes the podium in front of everyone. He is much older than the rest of the members but manages to carry the fierce visage of a predator and commands instant respect from everyone in the room. He is silent for a few more moment still, there is definitely an air of excitement from the members, after all this was a special occasion. There would be no show today, only the offer of a lifetime. A guttural growl emits from the oldest man’s throat as he clears it and speaks.

“ I know most of you are eager to get to the matter at hand. And to be frank with you all, I don’t care. Our fraternity is built on order and structure, no matter how obscure the performances in here have been. And if you, like some untrained dog do not have either of these, go and buy some.” Hold for laughter with the build of a golf clap. “Now, first let us go over old business. I would ask those of you who put on the slayings last quarter to next time do a better job at finding your players. Some of them still had living family members who became roused at their missing family members. No need to fret however, the proper people were dispatched to clean the situation and the proper people were bought. I understand some of them will be used for future performances, but that’s new business. I would like to extend a thank you to Mrs. Widow for her performance last week. Having taken her late husband’s spot in our fraternity, her True to life re-imagining marionette play of “The Jersey Devil” has no doubt raised the bar for some of you.”

The oldest man leads the children of mammon into a small ovation for Mrs. Widow before he continues with announcements.

“Finally, new business.”
The room tenses as he makes this small and yet exciting announcement.

“You all received the parcels, and I trust you disposed of their carriers (he added with a stern glare). So you no doubt are aware at the validity of what is going to be shared with us today. So I will not occupy more time than I am sure some of you are willing to spare and will allow our most esteemed guest to come and make his speech.”

The oldest man begins to make his way to his seat, leading the others in a rousing introduction as the youngest man walks to the stage and pulls the sheet off a, until now, hidden item. It was nothing more than your run of the mill Soda Fountain, which drew scorn immediately.

“Allow me to speak before you all resort to your grumblings, I assure you, you will be involved in my little joke by the time I am through! What is your biggest concern? All of you, you all share it. So What is it? Death. Don’t kid yourselves, death is the disease that no doubt some of you, if not all of you, have invested large fractions of your wealth into. I look around and I see no companionship, which no doubt means you are not willing to leave your fortunes behind, so who has control over your estates when you die? Who gets all that money? Does it just sit there? Going to waste? Does someone who will no doubt use it unwisely gain control of it and squander what you all have worked your lives, some of you generations in family, to amount? If you could snuff out that pesky little detail, you could keep that fortune for yourself, continuing to amass it to greater amounts, continuing to explore all the decadence this world has to offer you. Why, nothing would be out of your grasps, if only you could get past that one…little…hitch. Death.

Juan Ponce de Leòn found himself in Florida around 1512 trying to find the remedy for death. Herodotus believed that the answer was found in the lands of the Ethiopians. A lot of people believe you can create this elixir with something called the Philosopher’s stone through Alchemy. The point is that this story has permeated almost every civilization we can think of for the last several thousand years. I am of course talking about the Elixir of Life or,” the young man points to the soda fountain which was already drawing some laughter, “the Fountain of Youth.”

Everyone stands to clap for a wonderful and inventive means of presenting his product and the young man had the attention of every member of the ancient fraternity.

“I hope you all can excuse a young man for his desire to install a little humour, all in good fun I can assure you. I can assure you though, what I am offering is a lot more real than these tall tales. The elixir is the precise combination of several ingredients at a precise moment in time. Mix the ingredients in the wrong way and the results can be far more disastrous than you could ever want. That is why I built the elixir into this soda fountain. It allows the ingredients to be mixed at precisely the right moment, and offers up one frosty beverage.”

More chuckles from the members, the young man knew what he was doing.

“You all no doubt received a small sampler of what I have to offer and have seen what it can do. I will warn you now however. This elixir does not offer you eternal life, the continued consumption of it does. One glass full will grant you hundreds of years of life. Life without disease, life without frailty, life in the highest definition of the word. Tonight, all of you will get a sample, one glass between you all, enough for youth for another fifty years of life. After that, the recipe and the means of its creation goes to the person who wants it most.”

“And what is to stop us from having you flayed and hung on our walls now and just taking what has been prepared of the elixir so far? Time will allow us to figure out its creation.”

The young man smiled.

“The elixir is not complete. There is one thing missing, and it must come from each and every one of you. You followed the directions on your sampler. It requires your blood. One drop from the each of you. One drop and the elixir many of sought, fought and died for will be yours.”

The sounds if whispering and conversation filled the Library, for a short time. The oldest man stands up.

“We accept the offer.”

In mere moments each member was lined up, with a finger ready to be pricked and their blood placed into a small eye dropper. It was a small amount of blood to be true, but every last bit of it was squeezed into a small container in the soda fountain. All it took, at least from the spectator’s seats, was the flip of a switch. The whole process was a lot less magical than everyone expected it to be. The machine just clicked and whirred as it started mixing and chilling its most precious drink until the only noise left was the silent hum of the soda fountain keeping its precious cargo chilled. The young man placed a glass under the fountain head and turned to look at the children of mammon. A small click and the contents were being deposited into the glass.

It was as the youngest of them all was pouring the drink that all the members of the fraternity begin to feel strange. It was as if their very life essence was being drained from them. They all start to feel the same way a juice box might feel as every last part of its juice was pulled out of it by a straw. Slowly they all begin to fall to the floor, still holding onto their last twisted hopes of immortality. Perhaps this was all a part of the process, perhaps when they took that one sip they would start to feel invigorated and renewed! But that moment would never come. The members fall to the floor, their life still draining from them until they are nothing but grey corpses, devoid of the signs of life having ever been in them in the first place. The young man grabs the glass from the soda fountain and brings it to his lips. It was a taste he had been without for at least three hundred years. And every time he drank it, it was that much sweeter. It was a perfect balance of flavour, its hard to compare the taste of ones life force to something, but you could take your sweetest meal or drink and it still would not compare. The rush of life entering every facet of one’s body, gaining strength and youth from it offered the kind of feel good burn that no exercise could ever offer. The young man, now a child began to step over the bodies and up the stairs, removing a candle from the banister. No one would ever find these people. They paid to remain secrets, and secret’s they would remain, kept in cleansing fire.