Picture Prompts: Mystic Fall

There exist a mystic place that cures all diseases of the body and the mind, beauty for flaws, youth for age, intelligence for senility, strength for weakness, immortality for mortality. From this mystic place flows a water so pure, so clean, so true that it cleanses upon sight. I have seen this place. I have tasted its water. I have cleansed my soul in its fall. Its cool waters descend from an invisible heaven and gather in pools, glowing by the light of an unseen source. With every breath, my lungs filled with the mystic mist. My wrinkles vanished. My vision became clear, my hearing crisp, strength flowed through my veins again. My memory returned with knowledge I did not know before. Bliss. Wonderful bliss. I felt whole again. But that is all I remember. I never noticed the watchful eyes on the wall. The ones that protect these pure waters, this mystic fall. Glowing. Glaring. Savage. No one warned me when they whispered about the fabled cave containing healing waters. No one told me that a place so pure could be so cursed. No one told me that this mystic place was never meant to be found by a sinful mortal. So remains the secret of the Mystic Falls.

Picture Prompt: The Lost City.......

No one knows for sure how I met my demise. There have been a lot of discussions, speculations, research, and even grand expeditions to find me and learn about my history and final days. But I was there. I know. Built by hands that were neither god nor human, I governed the great waters that nestled between the vast East and West continents. With knowledge and technology far greater and more advanced than any on the planet, my builders ruled supreme. A city of wonder, a city of power and a city of wealth; I was a city that all wanted to conquer and possess. For thousands of years they ruled in peace, but slowly, like the sanding of shores, corruption crept into and infested the hearts of the builders. The battle began not just from outside the great city walls but within. In a sacred room in the center of the city’s heart, the high elders made one final attempt to protect their city from the wicked and ruthless. During a great storm, they used every bit of their knowledge and power to hide me from the weak and narrow-minded. In one great wave, the finest, most technologically advanced city in the world vanished taking with it thousands of years of knowledge and wisdom. Some say a great tsunami swept me away, some say a devastating earthquake seized me while others don’t think I ever existed. But I know better. I am here to say I do exist. Once a strong, formidable, sight to see, I am here beneath the depths. A remnant of my glorious past, I am hidden away forever.

If Walls Could Talk

Image by Jorge Jacinto. Taken from this site

There is an old earthling saying, “If walls could talk, the tales they would tell.” We were built millennia ago by space faring earthlings escaping the inhumanity of their race and searching for a new place to call home. Every brick, bolt, and steel bulkhead used to construct us embodied their hopes and dreams of a new start. Little did they know they also entrenched us with lies, deception and treachery of their past. We were naught but objects to protect them from the harsh elements and wild creatures and centuries later, their own injustices. We were walls of secrecy, walls of deception. The earthlings hid nothing from us; breathing a life in us they could never fathom. But we were more than just mere walls of their fashion and desires. We were sentient, brought to life by their greed and treachery. We were watching; we were listening; we were recording; we were historical eyewitnesses of the last of the human race. They are gone now, destroyed by their own hands, a fate they desperately tried to escape a millennia ago. We are now free to tell their tales, tales locked away in the walls of our being. We are the walls of Earthen, come witness the death of humanity.

Copyright © 2011 SN Taylor, All Rights Reserved

No Secrets. No Lies. Part One

Photo taken from this site

Life in a Telepathic Society

What would life be like in a society where your thoughts and feelings were an open book for all to read? Where nothing is kept secret and concealing was a sin beyond any forgiveness? Would you feel free, safe, hindered or confined? What kind of laws would govern such a society, where lies are unheard of and crimes are but few and frivolous? Would there even be a need for laws? I would say yes, wouldn't you? You see every society needs laws to govern it, to run smoothly, to maintain order and stability and to avoid civil unrest and anarchy. Even the most ideal and utopian worlds would crumble without defined rules and regulations.

Take the sky communities of Naqaba. Their cities are high in the sky protected by atmospheric cloud fields. They are home to the Naqabashi clans; tribes of bold, fearless winged female warriors who were once members of the traveling nomads who crashed onto the planet many centuries ago. A severe mutation from the Naqaban atmosphere caused them to transform into the creatures they are today. Though they appear alien to their Naqaban land dwelling relatives, they still have unique humanoid features that allow them to still inter-marry and interbreed with the male dwellers. Twice the size of an average female, they stand over seven and half feet with a wing span of over four feet. The Naqabashi are vicious when provoked. Five sharp talons grace each hand strong enough to rip through flesh and crush the skull of any beast or man. They are the Amazonian warriors of their galaxy, feared and for the most part, avoided at all cost. Brutality wasn't the only thing the Naqabashi acquired from their mutation; they inherited telepathic abilities. Telepathy allows a telepathist to communicate to one another by means other than speaking with their mouths or hands. They are also capable of reading and interpreting the thoughts and feelings of other telepathists and non-telepathists. This alone gives the Naqabashi a greater advantage over their enemies.

Despite their brute size and fierce nature, they run a highly efficient and self-sustaining community. Their cities are filled with peace, harmony and vibrancy. While every Naqabashi is considered equal to one another, a well-defined hierarchy of authority is observed . A queen warrior is counseled by a group of elder Naqabashi warrior priestesses from each sky community. Naqabashi elite guards protect the cities and train future warriors. Newly crowned Naqabashi guard the low grounds and serve as apprentices to elite guards. Young Naqabashi grow the food and tend to the livestock while injured or pregnant Naqabashi produce the weapons used by the Naqabashi warriors. The elderly Naqabashi who can no longer fight or fly spend their final days in peace, teaching and grooming the young. Every Naqabashi has a role in her society. The laws of their world are instilled at birth. Every Naqabashi toddler can recite the laws by heart when her babbling thoughts become coherent and intelligible. While they have many laws and rules to regulate their society, one motto stands above all else, "NO SECRETS. NO LIES." This motto alone will prove why even in utopian societies, every one needs some sort of rule or regulation to retain law and order.

Next week, we will rendezvous with Nusa, a Naqabashi warrior currently traveling aboard the ship, Hablas. She will enlighten us more on what life is really like in a telepathic society.

Until then......... What kind of laws do you think govern a telepathic society?

Copyright © 2011 SN Taylor, All Rights Reserved

Going Nowhere Fast

A slight drizzle of rain tapped on the bedroom window. A gray forecast, the whole day. “There goes my day,” Annie said with her faced pressed against the window pane. She looked around her room, “what will I do today?” she thought to herself. “How about cleaning your room,” her mother said almost reading her thoughts. Annie jumped, startled. She hated it when her mother did that, it freaked her out at the thought of her mom being a mind reader. Annie poked her lip out, cleaning her room wasn’t on the top of her to-do list, but the tone of her mother’s voice said otherwise. 

Buzz, buzz. Annie could hear a cell phone vibrating in the chaos of what was meant to be her room. “Now where did I put my phone?” she asked under her breath. She had a week’s worth of laundry thrown across her bed; her book shelf was bare of its books while the books lay scattered around the four corners of her room. Last week she had started to rearrange her closet space according to color, season and days of the week. So naturally, those items were laid out across what little space was left in her room. Buzz, buzz her phone vibrated again. “I got to remember to put the ringer back on,” she muttered annoyingly to herself. 

Thirty minutes later, after turning her already hurricane struck room upside down; she found her phone underneath a pillow and an empty bag of marshmallows. There were three text messages, one seemed very urgent. “Are you still coming to the park?” It was from Jessie. “We have a lot to discuss about Melissa birthday party, bring your skates with you.” Melissa was very lucky; her parents were able to rent The Roller Rink for the day! Annie frowned touching a bruise on her knee; she was not very good at skating and needed all the practice she could get. “Clean your room Annie, then you can have the rest of the day to do what you want,” her mother called across the hall. She sighed, and put her skates back under her bed. 

She looked around her room, “where do I begin?” She picked up a sock, then another. Slowly, she made her way around the room, moving steady, like the patter of rain on her window. By the time the rain stopped, she had filled her dirty clothes hamper, put all her books back onto the barren bookshelf, cleared off her dresser, arranged her closet according to season, and found her missing homework. She was just starting to put her clothes in order of color when she got another text. “Everything is cancelled. Melissa’s got the measles!”