The problem was that, since this is not a school assignment I'm scrambling to complete three hours before the deadline, there was no pressure and heat to forge my scattered wisps of ideas into a semisolid reality. Instead, I decided on the very time-inefficient method of writing an outline of what I knew I wanted to have in the story first, and proceed from there.
Since I didn't have many ideas fully-formed yet, however, and as I do have just so much time available, I ended up turning the outline into a story itself, sorta. I knew I wanted to make the story first-person, but after i thought through the history of the setting and what the reader might need to know I realized this could end up being a very, very long story indeed. So to get the general plot and several details squared away beforehand, I ended up working on an outline written in a fairy-tale style. It uses repetition and simple language and really just serves as a kind of proto-draft, so I can see what's happening and where changes need to be made.
I'm not finished, but I needed to update the blog and thought this might interest some people. Or not. I will say that I enjoy the fairy-tale format and think it still holds a place in fiction, and can be used to tell certain stories in a uniquely effective way. This post might also help me to finally finish the outline, since I've left it languishing for a week or two now. As always, chalk the crudity of the writing and story up to a pre-first-draft and a bad storyteller.
Scrum (very much a working title)
Once, in a time like now or maybe before, there was a beautiful woman chained atop a great marble pillar. This pillar sat in a cave, its roof open to let the sky in, and for forever she could only see the stars, and the sun, and the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave. Near that cave was a spring, single and lonely in the desert. In time a group of travelers found the spring, losing many people, and established a town. In their tongue they named it Scrum, and though living was hard, their ingenuity and the crystalline spring allowed their village to thrive.
It wasn’t long before a group of young villagers found the cave with the beautiful woman, chained atop the great marble pillar. They shouted up at her and asked her questions; she spoke in return, and the sound traveled down to the villagers as clearly as if they were next to her. They asked who she was, and why on Earth she was up on that pillar, and if she would like it if they got her down. She said she would very much like to come down, and that she had been up there so long that she had forgotten why she was there or who she was; the only things she knew were the stars, and the sun, and the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave. She knew a great deal of these things, however, and the villagers learned much from her.
Every man and woman who left that cave did so under the woman’s enchantment. Whether that was her intention or not, I cannot say; in any event, I do not believe it was magic or slyness that had bound the villagers so tightly, but rather her knowledge and her naiveté, her vulnerability and her strength. Each one made a vow to themselves to rescue her from that pillar, to be the one who freed her from a life of only the stars, and the sun, and the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave.
So they worked, each alone. I cannot say why they worked alone; perhaps the young villagers felt they were in competition, or perhaps they knew that this was something each must do of their own strength. Either way, each made a valiant attempt to reach the woman: some constructed wooden ladders which rose for hundreds of feet; others cut stone from the quarry and stacked them atop each other; still others attempted to climb over the mountain and reach her through the great opening at the top of the cave. The woman spoke to each, encouraging each one in their efforts, and this made the villagers work even harder. And while they spoke the villagers learned much of what she had seen of the stars, and the sun, and the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave.
One by one the ladders broke; one by one shoulders spent lifting and stacking stones gave out; one by one those who sought the mountain skylight did not return. And one by one the villagers abandoned their quest, leaving their tools and their failed attempts. The woman saw this happening, but did not despair; for though she had dared to hope, she had never truly believed she would be free. She had just been happy to, for a brief (to her) time, she had gotten to know more than the stars, and the sun, and the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave.
As the young villagers returned to their lives in the village, the knowledge the woman atop the marble pillar had given them - and the skills they had developed trying to reach her - enabled them to live better lives, provide more for their families and the other villagers alike. Soon their children were of an age to wander, and discover, and once more found the cave of the woman chained atop the marble pillar. And they also spoke to the woman, and were spoken to, and fell under her enchantment, and vowed to rescue her. And so the story went, and the village of Scrum obtained knowledge known to no one else about the stars, and the sun, and the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave, and so became profitable and wealthy and comfortable.
In time visiting the beautiful woman chained atop the great marble pillar became a rite of passage for the children of the village. They would see, speak, build, and, eventually, destroy their attempts to reach her. She did not mind this cycle; it was something new to her, events which served to punctuate her conception of time much better than the stars, or the sun, or the rain or the clouds or the walls of the cave. The woman knew that no one would ever reach her, yet still remained hopeful that someone would.
There was a child born to the village called Mok. He was quiet, and thoughtful, and adults often said he had an ‘old soul.’ He grew up, like all children did, hearing the stories of the beautiful woman atop the marble pillar. But Mok was also rebellious, and stubborn, and when the time came for him to travel to the cave, he refused. Mok saw the wasted years spent pursuing the woman on the pillar, and heard the adults talk of the enlightening but painful memories of their own youth.
The elders resolved that, if Mok would not go to the woman on the pillar to learn strength, and commitment, and knowledge of the stars, the sun, the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave, then he would spend his time learning in the village. And so he did. Mok was a voracious learner, and the first true student the village of Scrum had ever seen.
When his friends returned from their days spent at the cave, Mok would listen to their stories and think them fools. He would tell them, in turn, of his own days, spent learning and building, creating works of engineering mastery and intellectual creativity, but they seemed unimpressed, occupied by their own endeavors to reach the beautiful woman atop the marble pillar.
Finally his friends grew tired of their efforts, and returned to their lives in Scrum. With their quests finished, they were amazed and envious of the things that Mok had done while they had worked and talked to the beautiful woman atop the marble pillar. Mok not only knew almost as much as they about the stars, and the sun, and the rain and the clouds and the walls of the cave - though he had never seen the walls of the cave, of course - but he had pursued other knowledge as well, the knowledge which the villagers of Scrum had created once they had learned from the beautiful woman atop the marble pillar. He was acquainted with science, and theology, and medicine and mathematics and literature.
Mok’s friends had learned also, though, and while they praised Mok for his vast stores of knowledge and marveled at the numerous ways he excelled, they also looked at him the same way the other villagers had for all those years: with pity. He had learned to recognize that gaze from his instructors; it’s what drove him to work so hard for so long, and he hated it. Yet now he recognized it on the face of his colleagues, his friends, whose own achievements were far inferior to his. At first he tried to ignore the looks, yet they pressed upon him each day, pressing in and smothering him until he could no longer stand it and he exploded. He demanded to know what made them look at him in such a way, what right they had to place themselves above him, Mok, who had surpassed so many so quickly.
Those he demanded answers from could give none. They only replied that his accomplishments were truly amazing, and averted their gazes and whispered in corners where he could not hear. Mok, who had never belonged while those of his age were at the cave, still did not belong now that they had returned. And he grew hateful, and suspicious, and bitter. He stopped speaking to his friends, and locked himself away from his teachers, and remained alone all day and night.
Until one night, when Mok was granted a flash of inspiration. In his dreams he saw Scrum as it once stood a small, impoverished village. Slowly the village began to expand, and grow, and the tiny hovels were replaced with larger homes, the few rows of struggling vegetation with vast fields, the crooked people with villagers tall and strong. And amidst all of this change, a monument was begun. And as the homes become larger, and the fields expanded, and the people became stronger and more beautiful until they seemed almost as the gods, the monument grew, and revealed itself to be a statue. Mok had never seen the woman it portrayed, but he knew who she was, for she sat atop a great marble pillar.
However, just as the great monument was finished, so large that it seemed to dwarf even the great constructions of the future, it began to shake. It was blown in the wind, and waved from side to side, and began to swing so violently that Mok was sure that it must fall. Which it did. And as it fell, it crashed into the buildings of Scrum, and the fields, and the people, and by the end not a person or place remained in Scrum that was not reduced to rubble, to its component parts.
Mok awoke gasping and trembling. He told himself that it was just a dream; that it meant nothing; that it was only a result of his fears and insecurities about the shared experience the others had had, one which he could no longer participate in. He even told himself he believed that. But he spent the next day restless, unable to focus; he would begin daydreaming and find himself facing towards the cave, and the woman sitting on the marble pillar inside. Or so he figured.
Three days of this and Mok was ready to do whatever it took to regain his peace of mind. He attacked the problem from every angle, analyzed what exactly he had seen in his dream and how likely it was to come to pass. He made this discovery: the woman in the cave atop the marble pillar had too much power over Scrum. She was, he realized, the one thing everyone in the village had in common. This singular experience, this singular source of knowledge, was what bound Scrum together and made it strong. Yet it was also Scrum’s greatest weakness. Mok had been to other towns before, had seen the disorder and lack of cohesion there. But he had also seen the camaraderie, and the unity, and although it was not nearly to the extent of Scrum, it was free from reliance on any one person or thing. Mok feared what might happen if the woman atop the marble pillar in the cave ever decided to wield this power; the damage done to Scrum could be irreversible. She hadn’t yet - or had she? Mok tried to put a stop to those thoughts - but to all appearances the woman was immortal. Who could know the mind of such a being? Had Scrum been merely a puppet the woman caused to move as she willed? These thoughts filled Mok, filled him to the very top of himself, until he finally decided that the woman in the cave atop the marble pillar had to be dealt with. He didn’t want to harm her - he wasn’t sure if she could even be harmed - but removing her from the cave seemed a fine first step to limit her continued influence on Scrum.
So Mok set off for the cave, where the woman chained atop the pillar sat. The younger members who were on their own, mandated quest stopped and stared the first time he stepped into that chamber, with the marble pillar and the roof open to the sky. Even the beautiful woman, who was in the middle of a friendly dialogue with one of the youngsters, felt the force of that hush and followed along in its wake. Mok was not much older than they were, and yet they knew - they all knew - that he was too old to be one of them, and yet too young to be one of the elders in charge of hauling the failed experiments away.
Mok stood in front of the pillar and looked up, to where the beautiful woman chained to the marble pillar was. And he looked at her face and she looked at his; and what he saw was what he had expected, and yet not. He had grown up hearing the stories of the woman; her beauty and wisdom was legendary in Scrum. And Mok found himself… disappointed. All this obsession and ritual over her? he mused.
Mok spent the rest of the day - as the youths were made to leave at night - studying the chamber, the marble pillar, the roof open to the sky, and everything in the cave which was not the woman, who was, after all, the last part of his plan which needed thinking about. He estimated lengths and widths, and sketched the pillar and the walls from multiple angles. Lastly, as the light overhead was growing dim and the other villagers in the cave, having quickly overcome their shock at Mok, began to head home, he brainstormed a few ideas. It was going to be tricky, he admitted; the slenderness of the pillar relative to its height made constructing any time of ramp or ladder questionable at best, and he had long ago discarded the notion of finding a way over the mountains and down into the cave from the top. He stood up from the small boulder he had been using as a seat, stretched painfully, and began to the trip home.
All this day the woman chained atop the pillar had watched him, without stopping her conversations with the others in the cave. She had addressed Mok (though she did not know that was his name) directly a handful of times, but he had paid no heed, and listened only to the dark thoughts inside his head. When he began to hobble home, away from the woman chained atop the marble pillar, the woman exhaled a tension she did not know she had; there was something about Mok that disturbed her, though her conscious mind did not yet know it, it’s as though she could feel he was an agent of change, and both hated and loved him for it.
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