Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Not too much of a fantasy

"Grampy, will you tell me a story?" chimed a youngster as he got ready to go to bed.

"Sure," his grandfather replied as he grabbed a book of faerie tales off a shelf. "What should we read? Funny stories? Sad stories? Happy stories?"

"Mmm strange and mmmy...myt... magic creatures," said the grandson. "Like the ... sentiers... you read about last week."

He chucked. "Centaurs, AJ... mystical creatures named centaurs. Okay... let's see if we can find one I've never read to you before." He sat down and flipped through the pages slowly. "Say when..."

"Mmmmm stop!" He took the book away from his father and opened to the page they stopped at. He went back a couple pages to find the beginning of the story. There, he saw a creature he never saw before.

"Wowie Grampy... what's that?" He pointed at the gangly things on the page. "They look so tall and big."

"Oooh, those," he chuckled. "You know, some have claimed that these things actually existed at one point or another. Kind of like how the uh... Greek believed in centaurs."

His sat up and listened intently.

"These creatures are very odd. Other than the fact that they had similar body shapes, none of the creatures were alike. They prided themselves to be different. Some were small. Some were large. Some were black. And some... I've heard were even yellow. They lived in large numbers and depended on one another to survive. They aren't great predators. They don't have claws or biting jaws or horns or any of those things."

"So... did they play mind tricks? So they could get food and things?"

"Sort of," he ruffled his son's hair. "These creatures are hard to understand. At the time, they seemed really smart. Right before they say these guys became extinct, they changed from nice and kind and peaceful to hostile and untrusting. They would keep their inner thoughts to themselves or to one or two of the creatures they really trusted."

"Oh," said the young one, not really understanding. "But how did they eat? Did they hunt together like wolves? Because wolves live together in large numbers."

"Well, they never really hunted. It was said that early on in their lives, they used to hunt. But before they all disappeared, they chained up their food or kept them in cages. They would then eat them when they were hungry. But they sometimes were vicious like wolves too. In times of panic or crisis like when there's a shortage of food or when they feel their territory has been invaded, they immediately uh... 'freak out' as you young'uns call it. The creatures that lived together would sometimes then band together and fight the other creatures that invaded or fight neighboring ones for land and food."

"Wow.... but that doesn't happen a lots ... does it? They don look mean."

"Well, actually, they fought a lot amongst each other. More than you would think. In fact, I'd say that at least there were small fights between at least two or three of them every day. And sometimes they are mean. There have been noted accounts of the 'sticky finger syndrome'."

"Sticky finger syn... syndrome?" he stumbled over the word.

"Yes... yes indeed. They liked to covet or steal things that didn't belong to them. In fact, several of them take the things they steal and pretend it's theirs. Other ones steal things and then wait until the time is right. They then trade them for things they really like."

"How mean! I don want someone stealin' my stuffs."

"Mmm they were indeed a mean race of creatures."

"Grampy... why how come the one on this side of the page looks different than the other one? Are they always so colorful?"

"Well, no kiddo," said the grandfather. "I've heard that they try to decorate themselves to ... look prettier ... to the other sex."

"Well... it does help a little. They don look too ugly with all the pretty flowers and stuff. They look too tall and it looks like their arms and stuff are too long. What are these creatures called?"

"I believe the scientific name is homo sapiens... humans... but they're not real. And even if they were, they're long gone. Go to bed. I'll plug in your dream cord and recharge cord." The older robot got off the bed to put the boy to sleep.

"Wow... humans... They sound really creepy."

More writing by this author

Blogs on This Site