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“Exilarchy, how often do you look up at the stars?” Kakistocracy stared at the night sky, scouring the skies for everything: Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, Cetus, all of them. The greats. The remembered, plastered in the night sky: ancient beings of myth rendered in stars like kings and queens are depicted in paintings.
“Lookin’ at the stars is stupid, Kak. It won’t get you anywhere. You need to look at the farming tools so that you can get to work and learn to feed a family someday,” Exilarchy said.
Kakistocracy knew what that meant: give up on your dreams; they’ll get you nowhere. Still, she couldn’t help but want to sit amongst the constellations, happy, rendered in stars.
They always said that there was magic in the woods. Kakistocracy went there, seeking a great fortune. She knew it was wrong; she knew it could go bad, but she went up to the well. An ancient well. A magic well.
The well—it was a great thing. I stood, staring at it, for some time. It was covered with moss from the ground up, surrounded by smooth fallen bricks, grown over with lichen, and it reeked of mildew. It seemed that the thing had grown right up out of the very earth.
Kakistocracy knew it was wrong, she knew it in her bones, but she still went up to that well. She knew it was called the Well of the Downtrodden, and for good reason: those who had nowhere else to turn went to the well. Asking the well for fortune was a bargain with the devil, but Kakistocracy asked anyways.
“Grant me my wish,” Kakistocracy said with all of the power she could muster. She turned her head, just for a moment, up to the stars. For guidance. For help.
A deal was struck. Kakistocracy was going to get everything that she had ever wanted.
I knew that time was running out. The well-spirit had told me I had thirty years to live in high status and prosperity in my great mansion, and then, I would have to pay terribly. A fall from grace, they call it.
Anyhow, I was in my room at the top of a mountain, so close that I could nearly touch the sky. I was standing on the balcony, the only thing saving me from falling hundreds of meters to my death.
However, this didn’t intimidate me—nothing ever intimidated me. I was looking at the stars that day. For once, I was sitting with the stars, amongst the constellations, but I realized that I was doing what I had always done—staring up at the stars and wishing for more.
Now, I am no longer sitting amongst the stars. My time ran out, just like the spirit of the well said, and I fell back to earth; now I am nothing. I can’t exactly remember how it all happened, how I fell. I just remember sitting in my mansion, knowing that I would no longer be rich or happy, and then this light swept over me. Yellow light, yellow as my hair, and then I was in the gutter of an unfriendly city.
I am still in that city, thinking of the stars. I will never be one of them again, and my mind is a mottled mess of thoughts, and I’m jealous and hungry and angry, but somehow—even though I’m not rendered in the constellations like an ancient goddess—I’m serene.
I stand still, and from my vantage point in the gutter, I look up at the stars.
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Well, there's my entry. Sorry it's such a mess.
The drawing is by me (Crayola pencils, some
ballpoint pen I found on the ground, and a
slice of printer paper was used if anyone cares).
The writing is exactly 600 words--I had to cut a lot!--
and I owe all of the credit for those text images
to the 1001 Fonts website.
Anyways, good luck everyone, and have a nice holiday!
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