theprozaccat
08-03-2007, 08:44 PM
Hey everyone,
I know im a newly registered member but i only just found this forum after being reading on the site for a little bit. I havent made any contributions to the site overall but i plan to so any comments would be gratefully accepted... pending their content obviously.
thanks very much to anyone who reads it, it was just a mess about story for a school competition (please dont let that put you off :) ) after having not written anything for a couple of years.
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His destination, a squat grey building of only 34 storeys, was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact there were thousands of other inhabitants of the city making their way to similar buildings at exactly the same time.
Pulling into the space next to his personal one, Alan from the 3rd storey had taken a fancy to his space again, he was twelve minutes late. Another gloomy Monday morning, he grumbled on his way to the right hand glass door, the left had a habit of sticking half way delivering a sharp wake up call to the opener. Noticing the four dead pigeons at the base of the building he pushed through the door, made his way to the lift, and pressed the button. Only this button did not take him to any of the thirty-four storeys, it took him to the 35th and he knew what was waiting for him.
As he stepped out of the lift it bid him a good day in French this time, he had no idea why but it changed the language it spoke in every single day. Needless to say it annoyed him, he only ever enjoyed it's intelligence when it spoke in a Southern States drawl, Mr Patel found this highly amusing. The fax machine beeped at him, always a bad sign, "You're late". A million and one furious thoughts flew through his mind, it hadn't been his fault he'd made it half way to the office before realising he'd left the house in his slippers. For once he thought he'd had enough of this heinous job and set about writing the reply... 15minutes later and it had been sent, "sorry", what else could he send to his boss. A boss who puts all bosses around the world to shame, because Mr Patel's boss was in fact the actual God who watched over the Earth.
The 35th storey of this building was the centre of the world, all global issues were managed here, everything and everybody were monitored from here and Mr Patel was the manager. A self-imposed title as he was the only employee, nevertheless, manager he was.
He was in charge of the world, a being chosen to safeguard the planet, to encourage it's development and that of mankind. This inconspicuous, relatively miserable man is the founder of every myth, of every legend, he is the reason the planet and humanity is in the position it is. He is of course not one of a kind; there are precisely 179 other inhabited planets in the universe, each with their own God and each with their own manager.
Of these 179 worlds, Earth is ranked 177th which can be entirely credited to Mr Patel's inherent laziness. Rather than focus his efforts into bettering his planet, he prefers either to do nothing, or to enjoy his time in office by seeing how far he can push mankind. His particular favourite and one he boasts about at the manager's Annual General Meeting is what some people believe to be a myth and what the rest believe to be a real chance for glory, it is of course the Holy Grail. The truth is, it did exist but was discarded by Jesus before they drank from it because as its name suggests, it was full of holes, they drank from the bottle.
Mr Patel had never really liked his job, largely due to the fact he had to live his eternal life in secrecy, he could never tell anyone what he did for a living, the one time he had they had not believed him and he had been institutionalised for the first quarter of the 20th century. The result of which had been the First World War and the conception of a Mr Adolf Hitler, not his proudest moment. Though he resents it, he does of course realise it's for the best, mankind would be rather aggrieved if they were to find out their lives were governed not by a Christian, Hindu or Muslim messiah, but a middle-aged, balding, overweight man based in Slough. As a result the 35th floor was invisible, unfortunately not just for humans but for the pigeons who had simply wanted to perch on what seemed the roof of a building but had been met by a very real wall of the 35th. Dreadfully reminiscent of the unsuspecting opener of the left door. Mr Patel sat down at his desk ready to get to work, the pile of paper reached his nose, begrudgingly he reached into his top pocket while at the same time bringing the top sheet down to read, with a neat flick he placed his spectacles over his nose and felt them slip securely into place. Suddenly the room swirled, he felt dizzy, he felt disorientated, he felt nauseous, he didn’t know what was happening to him. Surely he’d been poisoned, one of his rival managers must have slipped something onto his toast earlier in the morning, it had happened to others. Panicking he thrust himself out from underneath the desk causing the chair to collapse and hurl him onto his back in the middle of his office, his glasses flew off, he writhed on the floor. Mr Patel was in the middle of resigning himself to death when he realised, he was feeling better, getting to his knees he looked around the room, glanced over his spectacles, glanced back to them… he’d put his contact lenses on first thing, the double magnification had thrown him off. Scouring the room for witnesses to his rather embarrassing episode he, of course, found none. On reassembling the chair he sat down without his glasses on and got to work.
Six hours and a huge amount of hard work later, after all it is not easy to keep the world in check and Mr Patel certainly does not want to lose his job, the pay is good, the hours are bearable and the perks are plentiful he packed up for the day. Placed 177th Earth could not possibly get that much worse and the two planets lower being nothing but smouldering, barren lifeless places after their managers had left the chip pan on; Earth was hardly going to slip down the list. As such, Mr Patel was happy and content with his days work, leaving the lid off his pen as he usually did and as he usually regretted the next day, he made for the lift.
“Au Revoir Monsieur Patel!” exclaimed the lift just before its doors opened on the world he had been working on,
“I’ll bloody au Revoir you one day” muttered Mr Patel as he left. Reaching for the right door, retracting and reaching for the left, he left the building, today was a good day, he had remembered to use the functioning door.
He was half way home before a thought struck him, taking his usual exit from the motorway, right round the roundabout, down the opposite slip road back towards the squat grey building with only 34 storeys he went, Mr Patel had forgotten his spectacles… “Bonjour Monsieur Patel!”
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I know im a newly registered member but i only just found this forum after being reading on the site for a little bit. I havent made any contributions to the site overall but i plan to so any comments would be gratefully accepted... pending their content obviously.
thanks very much to anyone who reads it, it was just a mess about story for a school competition (please dont let that put you off :) ) after having not written anything for a couple of years.
-----------------------------------------------
His destination, a squat grey building of only 34 storeys, was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact there were thousands of other inhabitants of the city making their way to similar buildings at exactly the same time.
Pulling into the space next to his personal one, Alan from the 3rd storey had taken a fancy to his space again, he was twelve minutes late. Another gloomy Monday morning, he grumbled on his way to the right hand glass door, the left had a habit of sticking half way delivering a sharp wake up call to the opener. Noticing the four dead pigeons at the base of the building he pushed through the door, made his way to the lift, and pressed the button. Only this button did not take him to any of the thirty-four storeys, it took him to the 35th and he knew what was waiting for him.
As he stepped out of the lift it bid him a good day in French this time, he had no idea why but it changed the language it spoke in every single day. Needless to say it annoyed him, he only ever enjoyed it's intelligence when it spoke in a Southern States drawl, Mr Patel found this highly amusing. The fax machine beeped at him, always a bad sign, "You're late". A million and one furious thoughts flew through his mind, it hadn't been his fault he'd made it half way to the office before realising he'd left the house in his slippers. For once he thought he'd had enough of this heinous job and set about writing the reply... 15minutes later and it had been sent, "sorry", what else could he send to his boss. A boss who puts all bosses around the world to shame, because Mr Patel's boss was in fact the actual God who watched over the Earth.
The 35th storey of this building was the centre of the world, all global issues were managed here, everything and everybody were monitored from here and Mr Patel was the manager. A self-imposed title as he was the only employee, nevertheless, manager he was.
He was in charge of the world, a being chosen to safeguard the planet, to encourage it's development and that of mankind. This inconspicuous, relatively miserable man is the founder of every myth, of every legend, he is the reason the planet and humanity is in the position it is. He is of course not one of a kind; there are precisely 179 other inhabited planets in the universe, each with their own God and each with their own manager.
Of these 179 worlds, Earth is ranked 177th which can be entirely credited to Mr Patel's inherent laziness. Rather than focus his efforts into bettering his planet, he prefers either to do nothing, or to enjoy his time in office by seeing how far he can push mankind. His particular favourite and one he boasts about at the manager's Annual General Meeting is what some people believe to be a myth and what the rest believe to be a real chance for glory, it is of course the Holy Grail. The truth is, it did exist but was discarded by Jesus before they drank from it because as its name suggests, it was full of holes, they drank from the bottle.
Mr Patel had never really liked his job, largely due to the fact he had to live his eternal life in secrecy, he could never tell anyone what he did for a living, the one time he had they had not believed him and he had been institutionalised for the first quarter of the 20th century. The result of which had been the First World War and the conception of a Mr Adolf Hitler, not his proudest moment. Though he resents it, he does of course realise it's for the best, mankind would be rather aggrieved if they were to find out their lives were governed not by a Christian, Hindu or Muslim messiah, but a middle-aged, balding, overweight man based in Slough. As a result the 35th floor was invisible, unfortunately not just for humans but for the pigeons who had simply wanted to perch on what seemed the roof of a building but had been met by a very real wall of the 35th. Dreadfully reminiscent of the unsuspecting opener of the left door. Mr Patel sat down at his desk ready to get to work, the pile of paper reached his nose, begrudgingly he reached into his top pocket while at the same time bringing the top sheet down to read, with a neat flick he placed his spectacles over his nose and felt them slip securely into place. Suddenly the room swirled, he felt dizzy, he felt disorientated, he felt nauseous, he didn’t know what was happening to him. Surely he’d been poisoned, one of his rival managers must have slipped something onto his toast earlier in the morning, it had happened to others. Panicking he thrust himself out from underneath the desk causing the chair to collapse and hurl him onto his back in the middle of his office, his glasses flew off, he writhed on the floor. Mr Patel was in the middle of resigning himself to death when he realised, he was feeling better, getting to his knees he looked around the room, glanced over his spectacles, glanced back to them… he’d put his contact lenses on first thing, the double magnification had thrown him off. Scouring the room for witnesses to his rather embarrassing episode he, of course, found none. On reassembling the chair he sat down without his glasses on and got to work.
Six hours and a huge amount of hard work later, after all it is not easy to keep the world in check and Mr Patel certainly does not want to lose his job, the pay is good, the hours are bearable and the perks are plentiful he packed up for the day. Placed 177th Earth could not possibly get that much worse and the two planets lower being nothing but smouldering, barren lifeless places after their managers had left the chip pan on; Earth was hardly going to slip down the list. As such, Mr Patel was happy and content with his days work, leaving the lid off his pen as he usually did and as he usually regretted the next day, he made for the lift.
“Au Revoir Monsieur Patel!” exclaimed the lift just before its doors opened on the world he had been working on,
“I’ll bloody au Revoir you one day” muttered Mr Patel as he left. Reaching for the right door, retracting and reaching for the left, he left the building, today was a good day, he had remembered to use the functioning door.
He was half way home before a thought struck him, taking his usual exit from the motorway, right round the roundabout, down the opposite slip road back towards the squat grey building with only 34 storeys he went, Mr Patel had forgotten his spectacles… “Bonjour Monsieur Patel!”
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