Walking across the glass pond, I stopped to view the wonderful creatures below. Some were blowing bubble kisses as they swam by. Many different kinds of fish were joined together in a natural aquatic adventure, manuvering themselves as synchronized swimmers in tune with the music. I was sadden by the appearance of loose fishing line pieces, rising as weeds from the bottom, in an enticing dance of their own. A black water snake startled a rather large turtle, as the turtle hid his head in fear. The snake kept on going without looking back. The journey across glass pond seemed to take hours. I was caught in all the beauty. Animals that I didn't even know existed, were seen for the first time..
Finally I reached the shore of the forest of color, where the trees were talking of death. I was confused, to see such life worried only about death. I couldn't believe they heard my thoughts. One asked, "can't you see we're dying?" Where is your respect?" Nervously I replied. "How am I to know?" Firmly the tree responded. "You can now see our beauty from within. This is the only sign given to the natural life of a tree. Yes, some die before their time, taken to satisfy some unearthly need. Our natural beauty is kept secret to the world until our moment of rest."
Instantly upon the last word spoken a crow cawed, a wild boar sneezed and a eagle flew over the glass pond. As I began to think a voice seemed to speak from within me. "You have been given this chance to see many things and many things are expected. Now go on the path you see up ahead and return without leaving a mark."
This can't be happening, I thought to myself. I bent down to pick up a golden leaf. It did not budge from the ground. I was weak and out of breath. "Something in the air," I reasoned, made me appear this way. Again I attempted with more desire to keep the golden leaf for myself and again it would not move. One last time I tugged until I passed out.
There upon my couch, I lay sleeping or so I thought. I could hear voices. "What in the world happened to him? I don't know.
He was like that when I got here. Did you try to wake him? No I didn't dare. He was saying strange things and throwing his hands in the air. I thought it best to leave him alone. What is that he's holding? I'm not sure. He kept moving and I was unable to see."
Immediately, I opened my eyes and found the golden leaf in my hand. I gave a sigh and returned to sleep amidst the forest of color.
Author notes
Option D- Dreamland
contest
A contest entry
- Writing Exercises - Descriptions by Delfishie.
400 points, ended August 6, 2007, 11 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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Notes:
- Your background is very dark, making the text hard to read.
- Your first three sentences are all incomplete. Did you do this on purpose for stylistic reasons? If so, interesting choice.
- "the ground, I was weak" - Use a period instead of a comma.
....
Ooooohhhhh, I really liked the section with the talking trees. It reminded me very strongly of Dante's Inferno. (Did you ever read that? There's this section where, in hell, all the people who commit suicide are transformed into twisted trees, and when Dante walks among them, he can hear them bemoaning their fate).
The ending to this story was much better than the beginning. It was really hard to read at first because of all the weird sentence structure and grammar errors, but once I got into it, it flowed really well.
I loved the strange message the disembodied voice gave him and I really liked that he held the gold leaf in his hands.
By the end, this succeeded in being very dreamlike. Great job.
The only major criticism I have is that you need to work out all the grammar (and the occasional spelling) errors. Those made the story hard to read.
But besides that, awesome. Thanks for joining my contest!
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