The exercise:
Write about: going to the waterfall.
Had a bit more of a hike with Kat this morning than we'd intended, as we explored the Naramata Creek Falls trail. Trails? I dunno. Either way we managed to make a few wrong turns.
Beautiful spot though, and I'm happy to have explored it before taking the boys with us.
2 comments:
Hmm, without you pointing it out I think I would have missed that going there first and learning the area somewhat is a very good idea with children. Getting lost and them getting more and more tired and grumpy, plus "are we there yet?" when you're not quite sure where you are... yes, that sounds like a recipe for a bad day out :)
A waterfall? That's not easy to sort out in an abandoned skyscraper in a post-apocalyptic world....
Going to the waterfall
Danya went back down to the doors she'd been pushed into the tower through, and considered them thoughtfully. If they were inclined to open at all they weren't doing so at the moment, so her idea that maybe she could go outside and look for cellar doors there was quashed quite quickly. She did, hesitantly, ask the doors to open. Her voice sounded strange to her, thin and reedy, and after a moment she realised that with no-one to talk to it had probably been months since she last said anything.
She looked around, wondering how you found a cellar in a tower, and realised that though she'd almost immediately climbed the stairs when she got here -- they were a broad white flight of stairs layered thickly with dust except where her footprints disturbed it -- there were couches further along in the area, and when she went over to look at them (plush blue velvet under a layer of grey, clingy dust) she realised that there was a corner there as well. There were large pots on the floor filled with black-grey earth and long thick branches stuck in them. After a moment she realised that they were dead plants, perhaps small trees that had reached her height or so. She walked past them, and lights came on overhead. Some flickered and gave up after a few seconds, but enough remained on that she could see a door in the wall. It opened at a touch and she found herself in a small kitchen. More doors led away: to a toilet, she found, and to a cupboard filled with tea-bags and sugar. The last door was locked, with a keypad to the side that had twelve numbered keys in a rectangular array.
She paused, looking at this and thinking about the Confession. On the first page there had been a number, she remembered that much. Just not what the number was.
It annoyed her to have to return to her floor and read the number again, whispering it to herself under her breath to commit it to memory, but there was no obvious way to proceed and maybe find a way out without it. Back at the door she faced it, and said the numbers out loud. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again only slower, and still nothing. Puzzled, she reached out and touched the keypad and the number her finger hovered over illuminated. She pulled her hand back, and after a few seconds the light went out again.
She tapped the number she'd memorised: 50017, into the keypad and the door clicked and swung open. A dull roar immediately filled her ears, but nothing appeared that was roaring. She stood in the doorway and looked around. There was another keypad on the other side, and that illuminated when she touched it as well. She typed in her number again and heard the same click as she'd heard when the door opened, and decided that that meant that the same magic code worked on both sides. She stepped through, and the door closed behind her. Lights flickered on again, and she realised she was at the top of a flight of stairs: it seemed that she had found her way down to the cellar after all. She peered down the stairs, seeing that they turned a corner, and when she ventured down that far she saw to her astonishment that the stairs continued on, spiralling down, while water spouted from a wall and cascaded down through the centre of them.
Greg - yes, that's pretty much it exactly. We have certainly made that mistake before...
This continues to fascinate and intrigue. And... well done on figuring out how to work a waterfall into it! I was sort of figuring you'd have to go elsewhere for the day, but I guess I should know better than that by now.
Post a Comment