Wouldn’t it be interesting if every Sunday, for just a few hours, everyone sat down and splattered their brains onto a piece of paper? Yes, metaphorically of course. This is what I thought we could play around with once a week, because sometimes you just want to write.
Virginia Woolf is regarded as a pioneer of the stream of consciousness, defined nicely over here as “a narrative technique that gives the impression of a mind at work, jumping from one observation, sensation, or reflection to the next. These varied elements are usually expressed in a flow of words without conventional transitions.” Quite simply put, you write whatever comes to mind. So with a little adaptation and slight deviation from it’s original context, I have a stream of what could possibly be described as fantasy with a (hopeful) touch of satire:
Virginia’s Dragon
Part 1 – 29 April 2012The smoky hills were alive with distant embers that moved to the rhythm of a once peaceful valley. Ripples of ash licked the surface and danced into a sky which bled with crimson fire. The life that once flourished through this side of West Country now lay melted and ashen like a burning glacier of charcoal over the Earth. Everything and everyone that ever moved, that ever breathed, in the surrounding Jade Village, was nothing more than choked up ash and molten flesh. From the corners of the vineyards and llama farm stalls to the treasuries and prisons in the town, there was nothing.
Rippling through the crack and hum of death, came the faint cropping of a hero’s shoes. All four of Titana’s hooves chopped through the ash that blanketed Jade. He moved over the clearing in a flash of white, swiftly tearing towards the village like a beam of light that painted hope across the murky land.
Titana was all that meant power, justice, and honour. Tales of his mystery had spread across West Country and carried with them a promise hope, should the peoples’ serene and simple lives ever be troubled. He hailed the name of King Jubaba for all of West Country to praise. He carried the strength and loyalty of the royal crown that had the people swooning under Jubaba’s rule. He breathed life into all that was brave and true when it was needed, and it was needed now more than ever, at a time when Jade Village had been swallowed by terror and drowned by hell’s inferno.
Titana’s master pulled at the reins which dug into his palate, bringing his gallop to a halt. His lungs burned with the taste of scorched Earth and flesh and heaved furiously as his frantic eyes darted around the blackened wasteland. The reins rested tightly in his master’s hands, frozen with shock, unable to nudge him forward. Titana knew that Virginia needed a moment to wake up from her twisted reality and realise that what shouldn’t be real, was as real as the pain in her pounding heart. Virginia gaped in the misty remains of Jade, stuck to Titana without any inclination to continue their journey. She could only look on…
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