Halloween Story: The Wicked Witch's reform - Part I

So, I'm finally posting something, yay! After dealing with creativity issues this past week, I finally managed to write the first part of the story. Hopefully by tomorrow I finish writing the rest of the story. And then I will be able to post about two ideas I got this past week.

Crimson Amanda changes her colour

She lounged leaning her head on her sculpted wooden throne, covering her face with her wrinkled hands. Lately, she suffered nothing but failure in anything she did. What could have happened to strengthen those people so badly that they actually resisted her plans?

“Madam Amanda”, a squeaky voice echoed throughout the imposing gothic room.

 She turned her head towards the large wooden door on which two golden dragons moved aimlessly. A short man stood in front of the doors, staring at her intently, the sheer size of his surroundings making him seem even more insignificant. But the woman called Amanda knew better than to underestimate her right hand.

“What is it, Dwarf? Is there anything so urgent that it warrants interrupting the thoughts of Her Wickedness Wicked Witch Amanda?” she said with a cold voice.

“Maybe not, Madam Amanda, but I thought I should announce you that by tomorrow every servant will have left you. I hope you understand that we must take care of our lives and our families and the work under you has become too dangerous. The rest wanted to leave without announcing you, but I have been your faithful servant for over 20 years and I felt I owed you at least that.” the man said in an even voice, sometimes his eyes glittering with tears.

“Well, if that is your decision, don’t expect me to hold you here against your will. But don’t expect me to go easy on you out there either. Once you left me, you’re fair game, I hope this is very clear to everybody,” Amanda said in a calculated cold voice, while pretending to gaze through the open window.

“I hope it’s not a threat, Miss Amanda, for if it is, I wish to declare that I’d rather die than spend another minute in this cursed castle! There is nothing you can do about it. You may turn me into a snail, if you wish. Or even a fish, if that is your desire, and then leave me to rot next to your throne. But nothing can deter my desire to leave. Even death is better than spending another day here,” the man argued passionately, his rough hands rumpled the dirty cloth that used to be a shirt.

“Well, death would be against the reason stated for your departure, wouldn’t it? You yourself said everybody wanted to leave because my business became too dangerous. Why the sudden change in character? What am I missing, Dwarf? What is it that has you leaving?” Amanda said in an even voice, reaching slowly for a pair of silver-studded crimson high-heels she kept near her seat. She could see with the corner of her eye how the short man shifted his weight form one foot to another, his whole silhouette suddenly becoming the very emblem of embarrassment. “Dwarf, I already said I won’t be doing anything in particular to those who leave me,” she reassured him while putting on her shoes.

“Truth is, Madam, that your evil actions no longer deliver the rewards that would warrant your attitude towards us. In reality, I’m leaving because I think I can be a more powerful evil influence than you. Most servants believe that your constant weakening would soon lead to your final defeat in the hands of the more and more powerful heroes.”

“Oh. I see,” Amanda replied walking slowly towards the man. “So I am not evil enough? Crimson Amanda is not evil enough for your liking, Dwarf?” she whispered menacingly. Dwarf stepped back, trying to escape the witch, but with one wave of her hand, the golden dragons stopped their movement and the doors slammed shut.

“You will not intimidate me, Witch. Your regime of terror only made us stronger and more eager to fight you. The time has come to admit that your approach has become obsolete,” the short man said, trying to keep his voice from showing the amount of terror he felt. “I shall fight you if that is what you wish, Crimson Woman.”

“Fight me? It would appear that you consider you developed immunity to my magic. Would you like to test this theory of yours? For example, if I transformed you into a slug, to drag your body slimily across the floor, letting the rest know that Amanda is not the woman to be underestimated,” she said kneeling in order to stare into the eyes of her interlocutor.

 The fear in the man’s heart defeated his willpower, so a salty drop of water fell from one of his eyes. He wanted to ask her for forgiveness, but his pride made his lips stay still. He could feel her breath, the rustle of her clothes caused by her moving hands, the silent whispers. He knew he had no chance from the beginning, but he had gained time for the rest of the servants to leave, since were she to realise that they were abandoning her, Amanda would have punished everybody severely. This way, it was only him taking the punishment, letting enough time for the rest to arrive to a safe place, away from the witch’s influence.

Suddenly, Amanda stopped. She walked slowly back to her seat and as she sat, the doors opened wide, the dragons moving more feverishly than before, as if to express their happiness for being able to move again. The little man was looking at himself bewilderedly. He seemed unchanged.

“Dwarf, you are not my opponent. Make sure you stay that way. But don’t kid yourself, self-sacrifice makes no one evil” she added, looking at him. He understood and left the room.

            Amanda was all alone in the huge manor. Hours ago, she watched Dwarf’s departure from the window, afraid she might show how much she would miss him if she led him outside, and since then, she hadn’t moved one bit. Since the beginning of her career wasn’t she without any aid. She remembered that after the servants realised it was she who caused the death of their master, her husband, they had all left her. For three days straight she didn’t realise she was all alone, having locked herself in the library to study her husband’s collection of magic books. It was then that she decided that, in order to survive, she must become wicked. Everybody already hated her because she was a witch; why not take advantage of her talent?

            As a result, she sent sleep potions to every beautiful princess in the kingdom, along with a letter stating that a ransom must be offered for awakening the fair maidens. Some kings sent heroes to her manor, while others sent entire armies to extract the antidote. Only one gave her the money she demanded. In the antidote, Amanda mixed as a token of gratitude a beauty potion, for when the maiden awoke to be more beautiful than any other princess. Unfortunately, the two potions reacted with each other, making the princess more beautiful than any other in the kingdom, but only able to be awoken by the kiss of her true love. Saddened by this turn of events, the king swore vengeance on the inexperienced witch. The woman was still able to outwit both armies and heroes, mixing her mind-control potions in the drinks of nearby inns. She then sent the mind-controlled armies against the kings until they agreed to pay her a higher sum. Shortly after, Amanda had enough money to live her life surrounded by potions and spell books. But that was no longer her goal. She hired henchmen and servants through them did more and more elaborate schemes in order to get money. She even stole the sun and the moon several times. Once said sum of money was paid, she offered the hero information on the weakness of the one guarding the treasure, making them believe that they had killed their opponent, while she teleported her servant them to a remote corner of the world, thus honouring her promise and removing any one who knew her identity. Using others to do her bidding, Amanda kept herself and her faithful servants away from the spotlight, fewer and fewer people knowing that there was a mastermind behind most evil deeds happening in the land.

            But steadily, the kings and princes started to no longer pay for information on the weaknesses of the henchmen, relying in stead on the increasingly smarter and stronger heroes and heroines. Even other witches started joining the ranks of the good people. In the past months she tried controlling the mind of a king in order to appear that he had gone insane, to facilitate her offering to cure him later, but the scheme had fallen when a healer removed her spell recently. It was this event that made her loyal servants doubt her. If she no longer could do as much as control the mind of a king, there was no guarantee that she could continue to set her henchmen free from the prisons the good guys set them in.

            What had made them so strong? Did Amelia herself become soft? After all, she didn’t keep Dwarf by her side, even though it could have been so easy. However, she didn’t change at all. Maybe that’s what she did wrong: she did the same schemes over and over again. But she didn’t. As soon as she saw a plan was becoming obsolete, she found something else. But now, no matter what she concocted, she was defeated even before registering her first success.

            Why did her opponents become so strong? Why were they stronger than when she first found them, and not weaker, as they should have been after being drained of time and resources for so many years? It was only natural for her, the victor, to be growing stronger. But had she truly grown stronger since she started hiring henchmen? She felt so powerless after they left. Every plan Amanda could think of involved at least one helping hand, a commodity she no longer possessed.

            “That’s it!” Amanda thought out loud, rising herself from her seat. “I grew weaker as I had people to act my plans in stead of me. They grew stronger as they had no one to rely on. I thought I was evil, but I was in fact a good influence on them, helping them grow stronger. Now that I think about it, the kingdoms that fought constantly against me are the ones who have flourished since I started my career, while those I had no interest in or actively aided are now subdued by them. It would appear that I trained them without knowledge. As a result, I was good. The Wicked Witch Amanda was in fact the Good Witch Glinda. Now this is a thought to dread.”

            Amanda, in her rush to confirm her thoughts ran to the observation room, where she held information on all kingdoms, ignoring the cold feeling of her bare feet on the black marble floor. “I’m actually Glinda. But is Glinda actually me?” She continued to ask herself while taking out papers, files and letters from all corners of the room. “Well, maybe it is true. The countries she supports and defends are the weakest in the land. And each and every battle they fought while she was away ended in their defeat. While most have enough resources to build an army or defence systems to keep away even the strongest enemies they refuse to do so, relying solely on the good witch,” she concluded, seating herself on one of the imposing chairs at a large table. The observation room used to be the dining room, before she deemed it useless since she had no one to invite, so she had it transformed to the room where she unveiled her plans. “This is interesting,” Amanda mumbled while taking out a used piece of paper with a table that had numbers and names. She compared it with other papers spread across the large table. “After every great hero’s defeat, the kingdoms they served proved to be weaker than their counterparts. Same goes with highly intelligent or deeply devoted rulers. Look, when the leader left in a long quest, most of the time someone wicked seized the power, the resistance of the people being insignificant. Maybe this is it: good makes people weak, while evil makes them strong.”

            The witch rose suddenly from her seat. Everything became as clear as day. She had been living a lie.

            “Evil is good and good is evil,” she repeated endlessly as she dashed to the potion room, all the way to the other end of the manor. There she began brewing several potions at the same time. “Naturally. I have never been evil. I was always good: I helped people achieve their dreams of strengthening their spirit and their soul. The Crimson Witch was all a lie. Sure, there was my late husband, but I’m sure that he was happier when he died than most of his servants. What do you think, Dwarf?” she asked, while looking over her shoulder. Realising she was all alone, she focused on brewing potions quietly. In order to prove she was still the most intelligent witch in the realm, she had to drastically change her public image. 

Halloween post: Thought process and delay

You know how I promised you a Halloween-themed story this week? Unfortunately I don't have it done, but not due to laziness. I just couldn't answer my own questions.
Here is a record of the thought process that has led 2 days ago to a coherent summary:
Why did the Wicked witch become bad?
Love? Too typical. The story of a villain reforming due to love has been done and re-done for so many times it is unoriginal and uninteresting.
Loneliness? I use that too much in my stories. Besides, loneliness is a good reason for turning evil, but not good.
........ umm... what else?
No reason? That would be good, giving me a good chance to build a random character. One of those fascinating, unpredictible characters.
.... I don't have a proper action. What could be?
I know! Good is bad and bad is good. Wait, what? Yes. The witch came to realise that what she believed is evil is actually good, so she reasons that what she believed is good is actually the real evil. What about that?
. . .  Still, I need a summary. I have no idea. Let me start writing and see where I end up. Ah, a 15 lines about how lonely she is. When did I even come up with Amanda? Did my subconscious watch Diagnosis Murder again?
Okay, okay, Let's see...
So Amanda is evil and a witch. What does she do?
She kidnaps royalties for ransom. She casts spells to her benefit. She mistreats her underlings.
But what's the normal consequence? Do they admit their defeat? Most likely they become stronger and tougher to win against. So Amanda realises she's actually helped them.
Now what?
How does she reform?
What will she do?
Will my story have an actual plot?
I almost have an answer to these questions, but to find out, wait until I finally manage to finish writing the actual story. Definitely before Saint Andrew's Day, for which I'm planning supernatural posts and a story with vampires, undead, witches, maybe ghosts... (which I'll start writing with more than 4 days before the deadline...)
Any way, to find out Amanda's story, join me next week, either on Tuesday or on Thursday.

Lots of "blah blah blah"s and the wicked witch's reform

Ahhhh, it's that time of the week again! The time I recap all of the ideas I came up with throughout the week and cross out those who are either too similar to those already posted or are too full of my robot delusions and realise I've got nothing to post. Yeah. This week I'll refrain from posting another story, mainly because I would have to finish one to post it and I also want to post a Halloween story I've got no ideas for. (So, tune in next week to see what I come up with to conceal the fact that I've got no idea what I'm writing!) And did I mention it's 2:28 a.m. here? And that I have to be up at 6? ...
What's with the long and pointless introduction again, you may ask. If not, I've got my Imaginary readers handling the asking of uncomfortable and/or obvious questions. In case you're wondering, my Imaginary readers are some really annoying voices I come up with after asking myself how can my words be misinterpreted. To answer your question, that long introduction serves the same purpose as this paragraph: to distract you from the fact that I've got no idea what to write. Actually, the only certitudes I have are the fact that I really need sleep and the fact that I have to come up with something really awesome next week to make up for today's this month's laziness. Well, I guess we'll have robot ghosts then. How about this: a tale about the wicked witch wishing to reform herself. By "wicked witch" I refer to the archetypal evil sorceress in fairy-tales: knows various spells, is creative, envious, controlled by an unexplainable grudge against the main character of the story and usually has a repulsive physique to match with the soul. What could lead her to reform? What feelings does the wicked witch have before and after? How does she atone for her wrongdoings? Does she manage to atone for them? Does the others' perception of her change?
I'll post next week my take on this story. As always, I'm looking froward to receiving feedback from you. There's a limit to how much my Imaginary readers can stand my writing.

No character traits

Sorry about the delay of this week's post. Before accusing me of being lazy, please allow me to say that I am that I've been trying to continue the robot-free streak I've been on. Moreover, the post I'm trying to write has undergone tens of changes, in my feeble attempt to convey the proper message since, no matter how many times I wrote it or re-phrased it, it ended up meaning a completely different thing altogether. In the end I gave up and posted the most recent version of it.

All characters have at least one trait, even if it's not mentioned specifically. As long as they do, think, say something, a trait will stem from there. Even in stories featuring otherwise mindless creatures, such as zombies, the character around which the action is centred must have a trait: be it that they're compassionate, merciless, active, humorous, they must have something that drives them through the story.

As a result, I was wondering whether it would be possible to write a story where the main character has no traits. Just like the woman in "B.D. în alertă" :„nici tânără, nici bătrână, nici înaltă, nici scundă, nici grasă, nici slabă” ("neither young, nor old, neither tall, nor short, neither fat nor thin"), they can't be defined by anything. I've spent months thinking whether there was already a type of character like this. After all, zombies are supposed to be mindless and robots are supposed to be soulless. However, in all stories I've come across, main character zombies had to have even an ounce of brain or soul and robots, although cold and soulless, were programmed to do actions that were either immoral and/or cruel or empathic and/or helpful. 
Would a main character that can't be defined through anything be dull? Would they be mysterious? Isn't being mysterious a trait in itself? How can it be avoided? Would it be possible to make a captivating story even with such a character?

Guest Story! Trapped

You know how the last posts have been about a writing contests and the ideas for it? And how I mentioned that usually when I write on a topic, I write it because I have agreed to write with a friend to both write on that very topic? And how that practice gave me the idea for this blog? Well, now I have the great pleasure to post one of the writings of that very dear friend of mine:

Trapped

by Alexandra (TooCloseToTheEdge)     

“I am here! Look at ME! Stop talking to this body! I am here!” I keep shouting at my sister while she is talking to me. She will not. She cannot hear me. Little did she know about the girl in front of her, the one she is calling Anaïs. It is my name. It is me. We are the same; the body and me. Yet so different. I have not been myself since the accident.

            It happened almost 4 years ago, only a few days apart from Christmas. We were getting home, my sister and I, after a great funny evening spent in search for the perfect presents for our parents, my boyfriend and several relatives that we usually get to see only once a year, as well as the friends that we were going to spend the Christmas with. Almost home, with all the presents packed and neatly arranged on the back seat, singing along with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby’s carols hearing from the old radio, only a moment was needed for Brigitte to look away. It felt almost like a flashback; a bright intense light hurt my eyes, then the loud sound of the truck’s honk warning us that we are way too close to it and then blank. I vaguely remember hearing my sister shouting for help and a man running to our car.

            As I understood later, the accident must have been terrible, for my body was very close to shutting itself down. The day I was aware of what was happening around was the happiest in my life, even though the realization that I may never be able to walk again scared me to death. Ironic, isn’t it? From what I knew, it was 24 December. I will remember this day for the rest of my life. The first thing that I hear after waking up is the sweet terribly worried voice of my mom. I understand that we are in a hospital, as many medical terms flow and fill the space in the room, until they reach my ears. It seems that they do not know that I am able to hear them. The term paralysis hits me. As the doctor explains further, I feel lighter and lighter, my chest squeezing, slowly loosing the connection with my body. I feel like I am backing off, going in the depth of my brain, a dark silent place where nothing and no one was present. I am even more scared. I feel my heart pumping more blood, faster and faster trying to make its way to my brain. Everything is spinning. The dark space extends and then contracts itself at the same time with the rapid irregular beats. I cannot breathe. The doctor’s fast precise reactions save my life. She puts an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose and starts counting. At first, the counting seems repeatedly chaotic, but soon enough I understand that she is only trying to save my life, pressing on my chest in order to make my heart beat again. As she does so a few times, the monitor to which I am connected starts to beep regularly, making the annoying prolonged sound disappear. I see myself waking up. What was happening, though? It does not make sense. I wake up, yet I am standing here alone, in this dark somber place from where I cannot come out. After a few tries, I did it. My eyes are wide-open and the panic starts to vanish as I start to get used to the diffuse light in the room.

            “Welcome back”, the doctor says and as I slowly open my eyes, I hear myself speaking with a scared precipitated voice that I do not recognize as myself:

            “Where am I? What had happened to me?”

            “Let’s send her to a CT scan”, they announce after a moment of silence that seemed incredibly long. My bed is being moved, slowly, to the CT room. I am terrified. In the end, what can go wrong? Many people have to go through this many times while they are hospitalized. Why would my experience be different? Then, I black out. Again. But this time, it is different. Instead of that huge black space, I find myself standing in the middle of an astonishingly beautiful glade. I can hear the thrills of the birds, as well as smell the perfume of hundreds of all sorts of flowers; from the tiny blue forget-me-not, to a lane of poppy flowers, my senses are flooded with an amalgam of smells and colors that started mixing, making me believe for what I thought was only a blink of an eye, that I am a synesthete.

            “Anaïs ! Anaïs ! What is wrong? Please, somebody call a doctor!” my sister shouts in despair while pressing the emergency button. It is only then that I see the tube coming out of my trachea, and by the time the doctors came in a rush to take it out, I was having a seizure.

            The doctors started talking to my sister as I was starting to breathe on my own. I was mistaken. They did not take it out. What they did do actually was to change the medication that was now going to float in my blood, through my veins, making me fall asleep again. The next minute, my sense of hearing felt distorted and the speech sounded muffled, but I was able to understand what they were talking, as I was lip-reading.

            “Mademoiselle, I am afraid that your sister will not be able to move anymore.”

She turned to her left, where my mother was sitting, to wake her up. Then, they showed a scan. The CT scan I had only a few hours ago, I think. “As you can see here, the doctor was pointing the right side of the brain; the hemorrhaging was greater than on the other side. Now, if we take a look on this, you can see the extension of the hemorrhage to the inferior midbrain and into the left side.” My sister was crying. So was my mother. I wanted to talk, but no word would come out. Then, it hit me. Not able to move, literally meant that I was not able to move. But it was worse than I was thinking. I was paralyzed below the neck, unable to speak, move or feel anything. Locked-in-Syndrome was the final diagnosis the doctors gave me and it described the situation and the way that I was feeling, better than anything else. I was trapped in my own body and petrified that no one would realize I could understand.

            A few minutes later, they saw that I had my eyes opened. I want to shut them so I seem asleep, but the tall blonde doctor was faster than I was. He shone his flashlight into my eyes probably to see what the pupils’ reaction to light is and that it’s not only an involuntary reaction due to the stimuli.

            I was terrified. My dreams started to become nightmares. I thought that I am delusional, only to find out that I was asleep. What if they decided that I was not going to wake again and I was brain-dead? All these “what ifs” scared me to death. It was not only the fact that I wouldn’t ever be able to move ever again in case they realized that I was aware of what was going on around me, but also the thought of being a burden for everyone if I was lucky enough, and they stopped sedating me.

            One day, it must have been late January by than, Sébastien came in the afternoon, to visit me, as he had usually done. His perfume tickled my nostrils, and as it entered my lungs, I inhaled. Wrong move. Or not? I started coughing, thinking that I can suffocate every second that passed. He had the brilliant idea to remove the oxygen mask off my face and let me breathe. Then, he called my doctor and the nurses, who were astonished to see me breathing on my own. This was the day when I can say that I was reborn, just like a Phoenix. It was the most important day of my life. Everything has changed since.

            “She is fully conscious”, Sébastien kept telling the doctors, but they seemed to be too blind and self-confident to listen to what a slightly immature boy had to say. Nevertheless, the kind and perseverant boy that I so deeply felt in love with, would not give up on me. I may have fallen asleep, while he was humming a lullaby, my lullaby, because when I woke up a few hours later, he was gone. Stunned as I was, I thought that he left me, only to realize it was the middle of the night, and as every person should do once in awhile, he went home to sleep.

            The very next day, he and my parents came at the first hour of the morning with daffodils, and many cards. It seemed that they have talked to the doctors and that those flashcards were going to help me recover, or, even better, communicate.

            My birthday arrived, and as I was going to spend it on the hospital bed, I was quite down, and the inability of expressing myself, of moving, made everything even worse. As months passed, I learned how to use my eyes to replace the voice that I lost.

            Everyone was so kind to me and almost all the time nearby to help me with whatever I might have needed. I think that they were wearing gloves with me, so nothing could ever hurt me again. Careful is the right word when trying to describe my family’s attitude towards me. They thought they were doing their best, and who am I to contradict this statement? Yet, deep inside, I felt left apart. As if all that everyone could see was only the shadow of the girl that I used to be.

            “Look at me!” I try sending her the telepathic message once again. “Why can’t you see through this flesh and blood and realise that I am inside here? A prisoner of my own self.” It is pointless and I stop staring at her as if I were a lunatic.

            “It is time for your afternoon walk, Anaïs”, I hear my mom calling from the other room. I think that I am choking. How I miss walking, running in the first hours of the morning, feeling the sun warming my limbs. Now I have to watch others move and walk me everywhere. I feel the air touching my face as my mom is pushing me outside the garden on the road now covered  with rusty leaves.

Life is passing by and I do not have the power to make it slow down only for a split second. My sister has just got married and is waiting for a baby. How wonderful life can be, yet, so unfair!

           

Creativity

A friend agreed to let me post one (or more *evil grin*) of her stories here. And I planned for this week's post to be one of them until I got an idea for a post (actually, until I realised I can't find the right story among the chaos in my computer).

I noticed today's society pushes us more and more to think outside the box. If we are to succeed, we must find new unexplored corners, new creative ideas and solutions. So more and more people strive to find newer and more original ideas.

  Is this where we are headed? In a place where individuality is so high that everybody is required to find a new niche, a new unexplored corner of humanity's imagination to exploit? How would we live in a world where if you're not able to come up with something creative, you might as well cease to have dreams of succeeding in life? What would happen if our world really evolved into it? Would we be ranked by the success of our ideas? By the level of our creativity? Would we have a maximum level of ideas we can come up with or, the other way around, a quota of innovative ideas to come up with?

What would happen when we won't be able to find any new idea? When every possible idea in the world has been explored and exploited to its maximum potential? What would we do then? How would our society look like? Would it fall apart?

Next week I will post a story. My mind needs a break from all this thinking! 

Without the Internet

Since I skipped last week's post (because I'm a moron), I decided to give out a double post this week. ^^

In the past years, the Internet has replaced in many homes the well-established means of information and communication, such as the television, the radio, the post, even the phone. Speaking of phones, now even on our mobile-phones we use the Internet to communicate with our loved ones. Because the Internet has made the world smaller. Now we can see what every one does regardless of the distance or time. Every action someone takes is known by every one and every one knows ever action that is taken. We became dependent of it: we work through it, we talk through it, we learn through it, we escape our world through it. 

What would happen to our society without the Internet? Would it collapse? Would it face mass-spread withdrawal symptoms? Would we be able to cope with not keeping in constant contact? 

But what if a war struck? A war so massive it would leave a great chunk of our world without electricity and, subsequently, without the Internet. Would be able to cope with it the way our ancestors did? Or would we crumble, would the contrast between what we lived so far and the situation at hand would be too great, too massive for our minds to comprehend? We choose to escape even from the current society, how would we cope with a war or a major cataclysm without our primary means of escape from reality?

What if we faced a major cataclysm? Would we handle the mental pressure of not knowing whether our loved ones are all right. Would we pack everything we have and head to find them? Or would we wait, the incertitude slowly eating us from the inside? Would we wait, confident that whatever happens, humanity will find another way of keeping in touch with their loved ones?