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March 29, 2024, 07:23:16 am

Author Topic: Adapting old Creative Writings for Discovery?  (Read 784 times)

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armtistic

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Adapting old Creative Writings for Discovery?
« on: January 08, 2017, 10:14:44 pm »
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Hey everyone,

I have this short story that I wrote for Extension 1 Dystopia lying around.

It's quite long because it wasn't intended for Paper 1 obviously ;D

But it does contain a few discoveries and discovery elements (e.g. realisation of self, confronting/provocative discovery about the govt. i.e. the cremation of those too old/sick to work and the fact that the world outside is completely safe) so I was wondering how well it could be adapted into a Discovery creative.

Note that this was written in Prelim and I wasn't planning on keeping Ext english anyway so some of the writing might appear a tad unrefined  ;D

Enjoy I guess  ;D ;D


“He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions…”
– George Orwell, Animal Farm

“8:00!” chirped the wall.
Lucifer sighed.
“Remember to take your Civilian Anti-Radiation Emissions Suit in for filter replacement today!” it chirped once again.
He sat up groggily. Sometimes he wanted to muffle the viziscreen, but he knew that would require that he cover its vision, which would in turn lead to an inspection and the confiscation of whatever he muffled it with. Truth be told, he wouldn’t mind an inspection, it would be a change at least from the sickening jack-in-the-box routine everyone else seemed content to follow.

He washed his face, flicking a regulation length brown strand out of his eye before pulling on his faded orange CARE suit and clicking on the helmet. He entered the air locked chamber and let the door scan his suit tag as the chamber sealed behind him, then opened the sole entry to the house.
Lucifer scanned the morning crowd as they headed towards the eating halls, kicking up orange dust. Zone 11 was fairly small as far as Zones went; at only two kilometres in radius the populace numbered in the few hundreds. In the distance he could see the towering circular perimeter wall, evenly dotted with small vents that would, twice a day, release the purifying gas, without which the CARE suit filters would quickly break down trying to cope with the hazardously radioactive environment like that of the wastelands outside the wall.

He listened to the men chat and the boys play while in the distance the women laughed and the girls giggled as they headed to the females hall. He wondered what they spoke of that engaged them so totally. Before he was moved out to an independent unit when his Batch turned 18, he remembered his ‘mother’ and ‘father’ would come home from work and stare vacuously as the viziscreen played some meaningless soap opera.
He’d tried more than once to see what they saw in it and having spent more than a few hours force-watching the vizi he came to the unsavoury conclusion that he was something of a misfit, a loner. He’d never developed close relationships with anyone - not even the ‘parents’ he’d been assigned to after being dispatched from the Nursery- and nor had he tried to.

The only individual with whom he’d had any regular contact was Patrick, whom Lucifer would occasionally sit next to during meal times. Until his retirement three days prior, Patrick had been the oldest citizen of Zone 11. At 68, he’d finally made the decision to be transferred over to Zone 13, a zone dedicated entirely to those too sick or old to work. Most of their time together had been spent in silence, however when they did speak, it was about - at least Lucifer liked to believe – issues more meaningful than the general babble of those around them.

The last thing they had spoken of was the stagnancy that surrounded them. How could anything be achieved when there was no expansion, no advancement? Patrick told him there was a time when progress and change were an ideal to look up to. When entire sections of humanity were dedicated to research and learning. When everything wasn’t rinse and repeat, blueprints and schedules.

For the last 6 years Lucifer had taken the same Tube (subterranean to “minimise exposure to the dangerously radioactive wastelands”) to the same compound, Zone 4 Industry Plant B, and then he and all the other drones were away to their stations, packing, installation, safety first out of one box into the other factory new hey-ho back home we go. He’d been in Industry for as long as he could recall, since his Selection the day his Batch turned 13. Before that… well he couldn’t really remember. It didn’t matter anyway, nothing did…

Every morning the combined populace of Zone 11 would wake and chatter about yesterday’s shows, yesterday’s work; then spend the day watching said shows or at said work, then return home to chatter about today’s shows and today’s work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam. And why would it be any different in the other Zones? Could it be? They all ate the same food, watched the same shows, wore the same standard issue garments, lived within the same walls; hell, after passing through the filters they even breathed the same air.
Patrick’s final words had been, “If only I could see the world outside these walls…”

He’d trailed off as he glanced at the SuitCam on his helmet. The lines on his forehead tightened as if in worry and before Lucifer could respond he’d muttered some apology and walked off. He retired that very same day, and whilst nobody in this world expected a good-bye from anyone, it seemed out of character for him to simply disappear, the viziscreen’s cheerful “Patrick McClellan has departed for Zone 13, wish him luck!” the sole evidence of his existence.

Lucifer pondered the meaning of Patrick’s parting glance at the SuitCam. He remembered the buzz generated when the Supervisor announced that the GPS tracker in each CARE suit would be replaced with a SuitCam which would allow the Medics to “ensure our citizens’ safety and respond appropriately to any dangerous situations they may encounter.” Except what was there to encounter? It was the most blatant façade for the newest advancement in the Clinic’s efforts to monitor every word and action of the people and yet the citizens ate it up. “For the safety of our citizens…” was the mandate of the gods, the warrant for everything, the master key; appearing at the beginning of every new policy with the same constancy with which Scripture ended “amen”.

Lucifer made a decision. HE would see the world outside. No blueprint, no schedule, nothing like the way he’d been taught to tackle any challenge. Clicking his helmet back on, he simply walked out of the hall and headed straight for the wall.
His thoughts clarified and his resolve grew firm as he approached. He was tired of this perfect cycle, this gilded ca… his thoughts were interrupted by a sharp beeping noise. As he neared the wall it continued to grow in intensity until he had to roar to drown out the sound, and still he pressed on. At fifty metres his eyes watered, at twenty his brain felt it would explode, at five metres his left eardrum near ruptured and in an ecstasy of fumbling he twisted off his helmet and tossed it away. Ears ringing, he sobbed in relief but with the first breath he took he realised his mistake.
He gagged as the corrupt air entered his mouth, suffocating his thoughts and overwhelming his senses. He panted hysterically and with each breath he felt the contents of his stomach threatening to escape. Bludgeoned with sensations he’d never experienced before, he lay hunched over in the withered yellow grass, waiting to die.

A full minute passed before he’d regained the faculty to realise that he could breathe. Everything he’d been taught pointed to the fact that he should be dead by now, but whilst the air was putrid, it was harmless. He’d just gotten up and started towards his helmet when the vents released their ‘purifying’ gas.
This time he retched. It was all the evil smells in the universe refined and distilled into the Devil’s cologne. He vomited until his stomach emptied, then he puked bile, until he was hurling dry. Lucifer propped himself weakly against the wall as the ‘purifying’ haze drifted into the Zone, reinvigorating the noxious miasma. He watched a MedVac chopper grow closer and closer until two Medics in their suits of red and white were dragging him into the hold. They lifted off and back to the Hospital, wherein the Supervisor of each Zone and their team of Medics resided. As the chopper rose, Lucifer found the strength to lurch from his seat and look out the window.

The wastelands were a lie! Massive trees and fields of green speckled with every other colour dominated the world outside the wall. In only a split second Lucifer’s outlook on life was turned on its head. Here was purpose! A whole world to explore!
The Medics dragged him back to his seat, tying him down before one reached for an Injector.

“Off to Zone 13?” chuckled the first.
“Nah, the crematory’s jammed,” replied the other.
“He’s seen a bit too much; reckon we gotta wipe him at least,”
“Lucifer… yeah I’ve read this kid’s file, never had to do this twice before.”

***
“8:00!” chirped the wall.
Lucifer sighed. His ears still hurt from watching the viziscreen on maximum volume. What it was he was watching… well he couldn’t really remember. It didn’t matter anyway…

« Last Edit: January 08, 2017, 10:16:26 pm by armtistic »
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