I listened to an old podcast from 2012 called "Writing challenges" today. It was an episode entitlted: Beginning at the beginning. The writing challenge was to take the first sentence from a short story as the starting point for your own 200 words. I own but one anthology of short stories, The Daily Assortment of Astonishing Things and Other stories, published by the Caine Prize for African Writing 2016. I have picked out ten starting lines randomly and started with the one I considered to most difficult. It turned out to be quite fun. So thought I could post it here.
The first line is from the short story 77 steps by Kafula Mwila.
The first line is from the short story 77 steps by Kafula Mwila.
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There it stood,
stalwart! Resolute in its intent to remain upright, refusing to surrender. By
all accounts the old ruin should have been little more than a pile of rocks
after the pounding it had received from the local school’s war club, who had
practiced their skills on it the previous day. And yet, against all odds, it remained clear that a sturdy building with thick walls had once crowned the hillock.
She turned to see Phoebe
still gazing horrified at her as she advanced in the clearing. Even from the
distance of thirty meters, she could see the fear etched on her friend’s face. Comparable
of the obstinacy of the old ruin to prostrate itself in the onslaught of the
war club’s games, was the determination of the club’s master to flatten the
ruin for once and for all. White men did not brook resistance. Certainly not
from an old ruin, a mere pile of ancient bricks clinging precariously to some
kind of structured formation. How dare relics of the past thwart the will of
these boys and their master? Antonia reached out and touched the wall, which
was at least still double her height.
“Our past is not so
easily brushed aside,” she murmured.
[207 words]
[207 words]
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It is about how history cannot be obliterated as easily as some think.
It is about toxic white masculinity which seeks to dominate, including what it does not approve of in its own history.
It is about the indominability of those who are not white nor male.
