This is the first part of a book I'm writing about--well, read and you'll see. It's a very rough draft, but I guess I'm just putting it out there to have it out there... anyway, please do let me know if you'd like me to post more.

the map to anywhere

ecological niche n. The entirety of environmental factors that tend to suit and allow an animal or plant species to survive in its habitat.


SULFUR VALLEY

Well, this is my story.

I was born a while ago. I never bothered to remember my birthday or my age. All I knew was, my “home sweet home” wasn’t really all that sweet. Actually, it was downright stinky. I lived with my family in a muddy valley between tall, rocky mountains. The mountains were dry and dusty, though at the peaks there was snow that trickled down into the valley to turn dust into mud. Gargling sulfur pits could be found in the midst of gray rock structures, the boundaries of our little village. We lived in cabins, huts, and caves. We ate waxy desert plants and dry shrubs we found on hikes into the mountains. For meat we had squirrels and an occasional rabbit. We often died early of malnutrition. At any time, one could be either cold and wet and soggy from trudging through mud, or dry throated, dust caked, and dehydrated from a mountain hike. Or, in the worst of all cases, one could be boiling to death in murky waters after having fallen into a lovely little hot spring.

Members of a family unit got along. They were gloomy together. They whined together about how cold and gray the sky was. They told rather morbid jokes to each other about sulfur. Siel, Jae and Furnil fell into a sulfurous hot spring one day and then prayed to God, but only Furnil survived. Siel prayed for a rope to come down from heaven and Jae prayed for ten sacks of ice, but Furnil prayed for a nose plug. Very funny, har har har.

Throughout the entire community, though, relationships weren’t so smooth. Because resources were few, people fought a lot over needed things and stole from each other. Some different families kept grudges against one another over generations. Heated arguments and fights broke out frequently, especially at community meetings. It was dog-eat-dog and an-eye-for-an-eye and every-man-for-him-self. Each of us had to find his own food, build his own shelter, and make his own clothes and other things out of the little we had around us.

Life stank. Like rotten eggs. Until one day.

Morning as usual. I woke up with goose bumps from the cold. I rose from my cot and snapped at relatives to wake up and help make breakfast. Then my little cousin Nieki ran into our cabin from outside and waved at us a circular piece of paper that she’d found just outside our cabin. Having never seen such a well-made piece of paper before, we were at once filled with curiosity.

We took a closer look at it. It looked like some sort of map. The left side of it was covered in gray and brown swirling colors and ugly abstract shapes; the right side was decorated with all sorts of bright colors and strange shape bursts that didn’t exactly resemble anything in real life but were nevertheless pleasant to look at. A green dot lay in the midst of the gray and brown muck, and from this green dot a jagged line of arrows stretched across the map to end at a red dot in the middle of the pretty colors on the other side. The arrows, of course, pointed away from the mucky colors and towards the pretty ones. You could tell that the arrows represented a certain path leading out of some dull place and into a land of color and light.

“I wonder if it’s meant to be this way,” said my cousin, orienting it so that the bright colors were now on the left and the dull colors were on the right.

“Is there a key?” asked some of the others. Nobody saw any. There wasn’t any scale or compass rose, either. Just the beginning, the end, the arrows, and the decorations.

We wondered how on earth this map was supposed to be interpreted. We pondered the matter for a while, and some of the elders in the family kept talking about it and went to the neighbors to talk to them about it. I remained oblivious to their chatter as I did housework, took my nap, and played with my cousins in the least stinky mud pit outside.

That evening word came around that there’d be a neighborhood meeting in the Great Cave. The Great Cave was the biggest hole in the mountain anybody knew about, so that was where we all went for potlucks and conferences.

Tonight my family learned that everyone in the valley had found a copy of the map outside his dwelling. One guy had been awake in the morning early enough to see a magnificent black-and-white bird with a long, flowing tail of streaming feathers drop off the map, which it carried in its beak, at every household. Two little girls claimed they’d witnessed the same thing. After it finished with the maps, the bird flew north and beyond.

Everyone agreed that the starting point on the map surely meant our little village, and the stopping point was in some lovely place that we’d do well to move into. It seemed that for the moment, our job was to figure out just where this wonderful place was.

“But who sent the bird? Who made the map?” cried Twynterken, an elderly lady. “Mustn’t we give some thanks?”

Everyone started talking at once. Must’ve been God, agreed most, including me. So we all decided to bow down and praise God. “Thanks be to God! Thanks be to Him for sending us this map that depicts a path of beauty and happiness and peace! Praises, sing your praises! God is great! Thank the Lord!” Et cetera, et cetera. “And now what do we do?”

Then everyone started talking again. Tomorrow, we decided, we’d split up and go in all directions to see if we could find a geographical path that matched the arrows on the map. Then we all went to bed.

Before I went to sleep, I had a little chat with my best buddy Camdianto.

“You wanna come with me tomorrow? Our entire family is gonna be on the lookout for the right trail,” he said. I said I’d be glad to go with him.

“You excited that we’re finally getting out of here?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? I am so sick of this place, man.” He yawned. “’Night, Qacsprequs.”

“Goodnight,” I said.


And things don't get really interesting until the next part, which I'll be happy to post if you'd like me to...
:)

Hey! I am new here, and I read your story. It is great! I so totally want to read the rest! You have the natural talent to be an author! you were so descriptive and the story was fun to read! Please post the rest!!!!!

I totaly agrre it is awesome! i give it my best mark ever WOW! lol keep going :D :lol: :P B) :rolleyes: :)