This is something I wrote in my Creative Writing seminar today. We were given the starting line and then fed details as to what happened afterwards. The initial premise was a safe place from childhood, so I picked my local playground. What follows, is shocking in it’s verisimilitude.
Only I had this vantage point. I was King of the Playground, Boss of the Slide. The green stretched out like an indomitable ocean, broken only by the thin strip of land that was the main road. Serfs flitted by on their busy schedules, fighting for the superiority of my Kingdom. At my back was the jungle, that secret clearing with the hollow tree hidden from the world by a canopy of leaves. This was my recluse, my place to get away from the burdens of Kingship.
Onions and ale. The crunch of workman’s boots on tarmac. I rankled my nose at the offending smell, dropping my gaze from the far expanse to the immediate supplicant. He was disheveled, old, and looked a little confused. At least he got one in three right. To think, he hadn’t dressed up! It would seem someone had come to see the king.
An order barked, all incredulity and amusement. Who was he to make demands of the King? Did he not know before whom he did stand? A wave of my hand, a dismissal, casting him away. I deigned to drop a look his way, keen senses tracing every wrinkle, a twinkle of humour in the eye drawing stark contrast to the firm line of frustration that was his mouth. His arms folded at my gesture, an affront to my sovereignty. I cast him away again, both arms this time; how common. Still he stands, like the rock to my majestic waves, crashing against him but doing nothing to bring him down. Hmph.
The Poisoned Sponge 