A long time ago in the city of Calcutta there lived an
intriguing child named Johnny. Now
Johnny was known all around his city as the boy would would get freaked out by
anything and usually try to cause a panic.
One day when Johnny was in school his teacher was telling them a story about
how the Earth first started breaking up.
As his teacher was talking she said, “And Jimmy heard a giant crash and
when looked behind him, the Earth started to open up and swallow the houses whole.”
Now this story genuinely freaked Johnny out because he was always afraid that
he would get swallowed by the Earth. After a week or so went by Johnny almost completely
forgot about the story.
One day Johnny was napping under a giant apple tree when he
was awoken when he heard a loud “crash!” noise.
Remembering what his teacher said Johnny got up and took off running for
the town screaming, “The Earth is opening up! Run for your lives!” At first the
people thought he was kidding because he was known to have pulled pranks like
this in the past but when they saw the terror in his eyes they realized he must
be telling the truth. People soon began
to grab items from there house and follow Johnny as he made his way through
town. Eventually, the whole town was following him, and they made their way to
the adjacent town of Derk. When they had
arrived safely in Derk, the mayor of the City Dwayne, called out to the masses,
“What is the meaning for all of you people entering my town!” One person spoke up and said, “I heard that
the Earth was opening up and swallowing our city whole!” When asked where this
information came from the people started to respond saying they heard it from
this person who heard it from another and so on. Eventually it was traced back too little Johnny
boy. Johnny told Dwayne what he had heard and told him about the story his
teacher had told him. With a great laugh,
Dwayne told him, “It is just a story boy, lets go back and see if the Earth has
opened up indeed.”
So, Dwayne and Johnny
made the long trek back to Calcutta and the tree where Johnny heard the
noise. When they arrived, they found
that the Earth had not opened, just that the apple from the tree had fallen off
and been getting cut open by a sharp rock. Dwayne went over to the rock and
ripped it from the ground, but when he did that they Earth started to open and
he looked at Johnny with fear in his eyes and then was swallowed up. Johnny freaked out and ran as fast as he
could and could hear the earth swallowing everything in its path. As he made his way back to derk the people of
both towns could hear him yelling out, “The Earth is coming to eat us!” When
they all went to see him, they saw the earth just devouring everything behind
Johnny as he ran toward them. About 30 heard
from t eh town the earth stopped swallowing everything in its path and Johnny and
the rest of the towns people were safe.
Johnny was labeled a hero and his heroic deed of evacuating the town was
remembered long after he was gone.
Authors note: I wanted to make the characters human and give
a little backstory about why Johnny was afraid the earth was opening. I also thought
that it would be a good idea that instead of having the earth not open and
swallow everything, that instead it does. I thought it would be kind of comical
to have Dwayne, the mayor, pick up a rock that destroys the town. It was also imperative that I make it seem like the boy who cried wolf too many times, but the final time he was correct and not lying. The moral is kind of like sometimes what people say is the truth even if it doesn't seem like it.
Hi Andrew, I enjoyed reading your rendition of the foolish and timid rabbit. I think it is a creative twist to make the kid into the hero by showing he is right to worry about the earth opening up and swallowing everyone. I also like how the mayor is so confident but ends up being the loser in the end.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI love how you draw on the American trickster character "Little Johnny" to fill in for the rabbit trickster character. And, yes, I get your Dewayne "Rock" joke. I found it hilarious. I also like that you turned the story into a cautionary tale.
I wonder if there is something that you could add to your story that would make the audience notice that an apple hitting a rock wouldn't make a sound loud enough to make Johnny think the earth was breaking up so the audience would be as suspicious of the rock as Johnny is.
I suggest running your story through Grammarly to catch some of the issues in your story. I also suggest playing around with the visual structure of your story. How could you use line breaks to add suspense in your story? Think about how poetry breaks the standard rules of composition structure. That's the cool thing about blogs, you can use some of those same poetry concepts to add interest to your story.
The plot itself is great, you just need to control how your audience interacts with it to make sure that they don't rush the reading.
Thanks for sharing!
-Eden
I'm so glad you ended the story how you did! Well, not because the mayor ended up dying... but because I've read at least three other stories in this class that were all based on this same folktale and all had the same story lines + endings. Finally - a twist! Although the photo you included in the post is quite terrifying to think that the mayor fell into a hole like that one... nonetheless, it's a fictional story and I applaud you for the unique way you told it :-)
ReplyDelete