Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them.
H Trope: good vs
evil, Goddess of Chaos Will Reign!
“Current” Event:
THE DARK IS RISING series by Susan Cooper + https://www.rt.com/usa/348303-brexit-texit-texas-secession/,
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-24/first-uk-then-scotland-then-texas
But this is just
an idea day, so read the article above about the possibility of Scotland
seceding from the United Kingdom (discussed this with my wife or daughter…there
have been “disunity” tremblors in all sorts of countries at all sorts of times.
From 1836-1846, Texas was an independent republic. Quebec continues a long
history of attempting to break free of Canada. The USSR shattered (or
reassembled itself) into its original annexed nations.
So – let’s take
North America: the Republic of Vermont, the Republic of California, the Free
State of Jones, the Republic of Texas, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de
Aztlan), Deseret, and an Independent Quebec are all movements that are taking
place or happened in the past and were efforts of smaller groups to separate
themselves from the federal governments of the United States, Mexico and Canada
respectively. Now, what if these separatists were being driven by a dark
goddess of chaos and a group of teens from each place met at a camp to discover
they were avatars of this goddess…and didn’t particularly WANT to stay that
way?
Thomas Evans shook
his head and said, “You don’t think we’ll go to Hell for doin’ this?”
Nancy Seddon shot
him a disgusted look and said, “I thought you didn’t believe in God or Hell or
anything like that?”
“Well, I don’t
really, but just in case, isn’t summoning Kauket like a sin or something?”
Nancy laughed, “She’s
already lose in this world, Tom. Look around you.”
They were in an
abandoned barn in southern Missouri. “It’s no different than usual.”
“Yeah, but things
have to change. We can’t go on like this!”
Tom looked down at
her, where she was drawing marks in the packed earth. She’d made a big deal of
sweeping away all the old, brittle, dry hay and clearing a circle. She’d also
set out crude tallow candles which she’d lit with a laboriously struck flint.
He glanced at his bloody knuckles. “It’s worth bloody knuckles for?”
Nancy glanced up
at him as she finished the last line and stood up, rocking to the balls of her
feet. She wore an expensive pair of shoes they’d pulled from the body of a
white woman who’d been strangled to death and left by the roadside to rot. “It’s
worth summoning the goddess Kauket for.”
“Why do you need
to call some foreign ‘gyptian thing for? Don’t we have any chaos goddesses in
the Confederacy?”
“We’re in the
Union now, Tom. ‘member? We’re the Free State of Jones.”
He grunted. He hadn’t
forgotten. He’d even shot a couple of Rebs for the good Mr. Knight. He just
hadn’t the stomach for much more’n two. Nancy had dragged him away and said she
had an easier way to knock down the Confederacy. “I forgot. No Choctaw
goddesses…”
She surged to her
feet and shoved him, “Nanishta is a powerful goddess! In fact, she will reign
over the end of the world!”
“Why don’t you
call her, then?” Tom said, fighting the urge to shove her back.
Nancy looked back
at the ring she’d made, shrugged, and said, “All right, fine. I’m sure she’ll
listen to me even though…”
Tom backed from
the circle as a dark, thunderhead had appeared, roiling in the center of the
circle. At first it looked as if it would begin to rain in the dilapidated barn,
but before he could laugh, the walls all around them began to bleed…
Names: ♀,♂
Common Southern names during the American Civil War
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