This month I’ve partially succeeded in writing a lot of words in not as much time. This challenge was a part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) - the aim to write 50,000 words in the month of November. The words form a story, under the title “No flies on you”. It is one in a series of stories based on idioms, of which I have finished none. Hopefully, soon, at least one will have a complete raw draft. The story follows the journey of a girl through her diary over the course of the month. This is the final except for Words on Wednesdays, hopefully one day the whole story will reach a point where you will be able to read it. As there has been neither editing nor proof-reading, please take this with a grain of salt. Current word count - 35092 You can find Day 1 here, Day 2 here, Day 3 here, and Day 4 here Saturday, November 5, 33 PE
Dear Diary, Today was the draft. Everybody had to be in the food hall for it, even if you aren’t a part of the draft. All of the people in the draft have their names written on little balls that bounce around in a big glass pot with a fan at the bottom until one of the balls bounces through a little hole. Then they read out the name on the ball. If you are chosen in one draft, your ball doesn’t get put back in for the next draft so you can’t do two in a row. Nobody wants their name read out. Some people cried. Some people shouted and got angry. A lot of people just looked very sad and hugged their friends to try to make them feel better. There are 12 people that are picked for the draft. Ms Crystal and James and Marcus all weren’t picked, but I was worried every time a ball fell out that it would be one of their names read out. The hall was very quiet after the draft was done. Some people walked out when it was over. Some people kept sitting. A few just stared at nothing. Their eyes were facing this but the weren’t looking at anything, they were looking past the things to where they couldn’t see anything. Looking at them made me feel uncomfortable. I feel sad for them now. The 12 people who were chosen had to leave after lunch today. They had to go to get ready right after the draft was finished. I think it would be easier to be chosen if you had more time to get ready, but it would be easier for someone to get out of going as well. James told be that he heard that one time somebody hurt themselves by falling down a staircase and breaking a leg to get out of going. Now the hunting party is watched from when they are chosen to when they leave. James was very interested in my game of chess with Joanna yesterday. He said that a lot of people outside of class had heard about it because they’re all drama queens. At least that’s what he said. He brought a chess board and we went to a quiet place so that I could show him what happened. I didn’t remember everything, but I remembered some of the important bits, like when I took her queen and when the game finished because she couldn’t move any of her pieces anymore. James made me take it very slow so that I could copy all of the moves that we made. He wanted to explain to me what happened so that I could learn more. He showed me how to stop the game ending in a draw, and how I could have won if it hadn’t. After that we played a game of our own. He tried not to help me out this time. He won. While we were playing he told me why playing chess was so important. I didn’t write down what he said, but I will try to remember it. Ever since the beginning of the new era, which is called the post-common era and that’s what we write after the year to say when it is, but we only write PE because that’s faster. Since then, people have needed an easy way to test other people to see if they are infected. James says that there used to be machines that could do it for us, but there were not many of them, and most of them got destroyed in the early years, or the people who know how to use them and fix them died. If people didn’t have the machines, then they would talk and then decide based on the talking if the other person was infected. That wasn’t very good because people said that it didn’t really show real intelligence, but it could be faked. They also said that it was very biased, which means that people will already think what the answer is before they do the test. That was unfair. So, one person decided that we could use a game to test people. It would always be the same game, and it would show that someone could plan and think. It became very popular and now everyone uses it. That means that everyone needs to know how to play, so that they can be tested and make sure that they don’t get infected. The hunting party will all play in a tournament of chess to rank everyone in the group so that they can see if anyone changes. They always bring a travel set with them when they go out on the hunt, and will play each night. There will be another tournament when they come back. James says that it’s not a perfect test, because some people don’t think the same way as others, like me, so they won’t be very good at chess. I think that’s one of the reason’s why I’m scared of the outside. I’m already at the bottom so how will they know if I get worse? James is worried that if they ever suspect that I am infected that they won’t be able to show that I’m not because I’m not very good at chess. That’s why he is trying so hard to make me better. I think Ms Crystal worries about that too. But everyone is scared of the outside. The outside isn’t safe. Nobody knows how it started, or why it started but there are a lot of rumours. Some people say that it was a science experiment that was released. Some people think that it was just because of nature, that the flies evolved. Some people think that it was by accident, and some think that it was on purpose. That someone wanted to destroy the world. Or that they wanted to use the flies as a weapon. They say that it was ‘terrorists’, or the ‘Russians’ or the ‘Americans’. People like to have someone to blame for things I think. They get very angry about who they want to blame sometimes, because other people want to blame different people. We don’t know who did it or why it happened, or even if it was anyone’s fault. All we know is that it did happen, and now we are here. Everyone was back in the great hall for lunch. The hunting party was prepared and ready to go. They sat on the stage at the front of the hall to eat, and each of them was allowed to chose the meal that they ate. Some people called it their last meal, but most of them would make it back after the hunt and they’d have more meals, so it’s not really the last one. James said that’s what they used to give to people on the night before they were executed. I think that’s a waste if they are just going to be killed afterwards. They shouldn’t get to eat if they aren’t going to use the food. James said that he would have a big stew with sweet potatoes and wild boar, and onions and a little bit of sweet plum sauce mixed in. We don’t have any wild boar though, so he wouldn’t be able to have that. We only have rabbit and some tinned meat. The tinned meat isn’t from an animal. It grows in a vat, but it doesn’t grow very fast and we need to have other meats as well or we won’t have enough protein in our food to survive. I would want a cake. We haven’t had cake for a long time because it’s very hard to make. We don’t have much flour and it’s always used to make bread. But if I got to choose I would want a strawberry and lemon cake. That was my favourite. Nobody had cake today. I think everyone wanted meat, and the only meat left was rabbit. It was a very sad last meal. None of them talked to each other. They all just stared at their food. I saw Michelle pushing around some mashed potato. It looked like she was making a sculpture out of it, but I couldn’t see what it was from here. She wasn’t eating very much. Sometimes it’s hard to eat even if you need to because you’re about to use a lot of energy and not have much food. Sometimes the body is silly. The rest of the hall was talking, but very quietly, like James and me. They were probably thinking about what they would be eating if they were up there, and talking about how happy they were that they weren’t picked. There’s a ceremony at the end of the last meal, once all of the plates are taken away, then everyone in the hall has to stop eating. We all stood on either side of the hall so that there was a big walking area between us, with each side making a wall of people. The council got up in front of the stage and made a speech about how important it was that people went out to hunt for fresh meat for the community. They said that it was a honour to be chosen, which James said that it meant that they should be grateful to be picked. I knew that none of them were grateful about being chosen, and I told him that, but he said he knew, and they knew and the council knew, but they still said that anyway because sometimes people like to be told a lie so they feel better about being in a bad situation. The 12 chosen ones followed the council, none of the council were chosen this time, through the walkway and out of the food hall. Once they left the hall the rest of us could do what we wanted, but a lot of us followed behind and walked with the hunting party up to the entrance. I didn’t really want to, but James did and I wanted to be with James. We walked at the back of the crowd. The 12 went into the anteroom, which is where all of the suits are for going outside. Their packs and tools and hunting equipment were already there. The got into their suits. A few of the people who work with the suits, doing the repairs and making new ones, made sure that everyone was wearing them right and that none of them had a leak. They tested all of the radios. A few people had tears in their eyes. Michelle was one of them. Michelle’s mother was in the crowd and she was crying too. Then they were out of the anteroom and into the airlock. I could hear the hissing of the air through the concrete walls. I don’t like that sound. It’s the sound of the outside coming in. I know the airlock locks the air out, but I still don’t like the sound. It sounds like a big leak. The hunting party walked out and the airlock door closed behind them. They didn’t look back. Some people waved but their waves weren’t seen. Nobody waved back. The air hissed back into the airlock. Then it was quiet again. We could all hear who was still crying. No flies on you, diary. No flies on you.
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. . Self care - 26.01.2022 (Poem) Perceptions of reality - 2.02.2022 (Poem) Natural impunity - 9.02.2022 (Short Story) Lost in a Labyrinth - 2.03.2022 (Poem) Ministerial Standard - 23.03.2022 (Poem) Dungeons and Dating - 6.04.2022 (Short Story) Better Shared - 20.04.2022 (Poem) Touch to toilet - 27.04.2022 (Poem) Shooting Stars - 4.05.2022 (Short Story) Chop Shop - 18.05.2022 (Poem) Family Ties - 25.05.2022 (Short Story) Age of Consent - 8.06.2022 (Poem) Legacy - 24.08.2022 (Poem) Performative Enjoyment - 7.09.2022 (Poem) Bridge of Dreams - 7.12.2022 (Poem) Faultless - 22.12.2022 (Poem) Disconservative - 11.01.2023 (Poem) Single use - 1.03.2023 (Poem) Donor Cards - 6.04.2023 (Poem) Creative Art Say I - 13.04.2023 (Poem) Home-bound - 5.07.2023 (Short Story) Sand and Sea - 20.07.2023 (Short Story) Luminosity - 15.11.2023 (Short Story) About the AuthorA 33 year old medical intern who plays frisbee and likes long walks over mountains. Archives
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