THE CREATED
by Freddy Robinson
Story: Ashlyn Willow discovers that her favorite storybook is not only rare, but holds the keys to restoring humanity back to its' original state of harmony. Her story becomes a story within a story, one that only she can tell; yet no story worth telling has a happy ending without encountering dangerous obstacles during the course of the journey.
THE CREATED - STORYBOOK EXCERPT
Once in a distant land of the past, King Jessup had at last found a suitable woman to be his Queen in the land of Honorworld. King Jessup was a fitting King, one of compassion yet stern and powerful when need be. People often mistook his kindness for weakness due to his generous heart. Although he had servants, maids, and groundskeepers, he treated them as royalty. “No man or woman in my land,” he would often remind, “shall be deemed inferior in mine eyes! For we are all worthy of love, as so designed and created!” King Jessup was a short man, aging gracefully although his plump belly often found him short of breath on days he walked about his large castle, walking up and down the long and winding stone staircases making sure things were in order. Although the King had his main servant Tippy and loyal trustee Bidden to help him enforce proper order, it gave the King great pleasure making sure that all were treated fairly. Besides, Bidden was often attending to important matters assigned him by the King, and Tippy, well; let’s just say that Tippy was a bit clumsy. On days when strong winds would blow about, Tippy would lose his balance with the slightest gust and fall over if he was simply leaning the wrong way. One time Tippy was walking so fast around a corner with a lean to one side that he fell over onto the ground in a puddle of mud left behind from rain the day before. The groundskeepers all but hurt themselves with laughter upon witnessing Tippy’s mishap, until Tippy shouted out, barely with his stutter “e-e-e…Enough! Buh-buh-buh..back to work!” The groundskeepers quickly resumed their work, for they knew Tippy was highly regarded by the King and if he told the King of ongoing mockery, those reported could lose favor with the King. However, that didn’t stop them from laughing once Tippy was gone, leaving his runny trail of mud behind him on the way into the castle. The castle was very large, surrounded by high walls like a fortress. It had several small ponds and a lake, along with many trees and beautiful gardens. One garden however, was completely off limits to everyone, including Shazelle, the Queen to be. The flowers in this forbidden garden were in a particular order and arranged by color, as they would one day be used- sooner than everyone expected. “Ahses to ashes as we must be, make this a better world for you and me,” is the saying by which all would be replaced should these words be spoken with intent.
"Dare to imagine...."
Story: Ashlyn Willow discovers that her favorite storybook is not only rare, but holds the keys to restoring humanity back to its' original state of harmony. Her story becomes a story within a story, one that only she can tell; yet no story worth telling has a happy ending without encountering dangerous obstacles during the course of the journey.
THE CREATED - STORYBOOK EXCERPT
Once in a distant land of the past, King Jessup had at last found a suitable woman to be his Queen in the land of Honorworld. King Jessup was a fitting King, one of compassion yet stern and powerful when need be. People often mistook his kindness for weakness due to his generous heart. Although he had servants, maids, and groundskeepers, he treated them as royalty. “No man or woman in my land,” he would often remind, “shall be deemed inferior in mine eyes! For we are all worthy of love, as so designed and created!” King Jessup was a short man, aging gracefully although his plump belly often found him short of breath on days he walked about his large castle, walking up and down the long and winding stone staircases making sure things were in order. Although the King had his main servant Tippy and loyal trustee Bidden to help him enforce proper order, it gave the King great pleasure making sure that all were treated fairly. Besides, Bidden was often attending to important matters assigned him by the King, and Tippy, well; let’s just say that Tippy was a bit clumsy. On days when strong winds would blow about, Tippy would lose his balance with the slightest gust and fall over if he was simply leaning the wrong way. One time Tippy was walking so fast around a corner with a lean to one side that he fell over onto the ground in a puddle of mud left behind from rain the day before. The groundskeepers all but hurt themselves with laughter upon witnessing Tippy’s mishap, until Tippy shouted out, barely with his stutter “e-e-e…Enough! Buh-buh-buh..back to work!” The groundskeepers quickly resumed their work, for they knew Tippy was highly regarded by the King and if he told the King of ongoing mockery, those reported could lose favor with the King. However, that didn’t stop them from laughing once Tippy was gone, leaving his runny trail of mud behind him on the way into the castle. The castle was very large, surrounded by high walls like a fortress. It had several small ponds and a lake, along with many trees and beautiful gardens. One garden however, was completely off limits to everyone, including Shazelle, the Queen to be. The flowers in this forbidden garden were in a particular order and arranged by color, as they would one day be used- sooner than everyone expected. “Ahses to ashes as we must be, make this a better world for you and me,” is the saying by which all would be replaced should these words be spoken with intent.
"Dare to imagine...."
THE CREATED - NOVEL EXCERPT
In a distant land a small two-story cabin-like home sits isolated in a
country setting. Beautiful snow-capped mountains are being blanketed with blowing snow in the
foreground. Trees surrounding the home sway heavily amidst the Wintry gusts,
bowing down to the constant downpour of heavy snowflakes. Behind the home in a
wooded area, a slither of moonlight filters down from above revealing crunchy
footsteps in the whistling wind. A pair of old worn and thin leathery boots stop
tenderly in the freezing snow. Although her clothing isn’t much, the woman is
dressed as warm as she can afford to with a sweater-like hood over her hidden
face. Her ratted and worn dress blows in the wind revealing the thick leggings
she wears, her rugged attire suggestion she’s homeless. The woman whimpers then
looks to the heavenly moon-lit sky softly pleading “forgive me,” with tears
streaming down her beautiful face. The woman looks to be in her thirties with a
pale white complexion and tender blue eyes that look down from the heavens to
the baby in her harms. The baby girl is a year old, tightly wrapped in blankets
peacefully sleeping as if she were about to be placed under a Christmas tree for
a deserving little girl. However, this child is no toy, nor is the storybook
that accompanies her in the cheap cloth-like baby bag strapped across her
mother’s chest with a single strap. Suddenly, in a distance behind the woman,
the cracking of a weathered tree branch is heard followed a few seconds later by
it crashing to the ground scaring the woman. At once, the woman continues on her
course at a faster pace as if mother nature herself were insisting that “there‘s
no turning back.” Little did the woman know, a pearly white dove quietly
followed her from above, blending in with the snow as if it were on a mission of
its’ own. Minutes later, the woman drew closer to the place she discovered after
carefully watching the couple for several days. Nearing the edge of the woods
and seeing the back of the home, it was as she remembered it before the Winter
storm warning was issued in town. Her crunching footsteps grew quieter seeing
the single windows on the first and second levels of the home; both dark. To the
left of the home was a wooden shed-like storage building big enough to hold at
least a dozen adults shorter than six feet tall, just as she remembered it.
Stacked neatly against the side of the home below another single window was a
tarp-covered pile of firewood. The woman emerged quietly and completely from the
cover of the woods and tip-toed her way up the side of the home. The dove landed
quietly on the rooftop of the wooden shed beside her. No lights shown from
inside the home and not a single car nor any other modern means of
transportation were visibly parked, and no visible signs of a driveway of some
sort. The woman looked up to the roof of the home seeing the traditional brick
chimney and saw no traces of smoke filtering from it, yet her nostrils struggled
to sniff in the crisp air anyway. Fifty more paces brought the woman to the
front of the home, as she now stood beside the covered wooden porch with two
rocking chairs and a neatly stacked pile of firewood four feet high on it. The
front of the home was simple with one solid wooden door and one window. No
welcome mats or fancy modern house trimmings, just simple, plane, yet very
cozy-looking and inviting; regardless if it was well after midnight. The woman
stepped up on the porch and the closer she got to the window, the more visible
it became. The curtain covered window was glowing from inside with a gentle
flicker as though a single candle were burning, or perhaps a lantern. The woman
crept closer to the window until she was finally able to peek in and see through
the scrim-like curtain. Looking in, she saw the man sound asleep in another
rocking chair similar to the ones on the porch. The man was facing the dwindling
yet warm flames gently burning down in a fireplace, a glass hanging from his
hand and dangling at his side. The woman crept past the window and found herself
standing outside the front door. Her hand quietly took off the baby’s sack as if
she had skillfully done this a thousand times before with her child held close
with the other hand. After placing the baby sack against the door, the woman
looked down at her still sleeping child with watery eyes, then gently kissed her
one last time. “I love you, my child,” she whispered with shivering lips, then
placed the baby on the porch beside the sack. Next, the woman picked up a
rocking chair and quietly sat it down without any noise, before placing the baby
and the sack in the rocking chair. The back of the rocking chair faced the
window and the direction from which the woman came; for a reason. The women
crept back across the window with a quick pause to peek in, finding the man
still asleep in his chair. Poverty had stricken the woman after the man she
loved put her out once he discovered she was pregnant. Since that day, she lived
from one shelter to the next, then one alley or abandoned building to the next.
Her child was sick and time was running out with limited resources and food from
charities. She had no family or friends left to turn to, and thought of raising
Ashlyn on the streets wasn’t an option and this choice had to be made. The
decision to pick up a single piece of firewood was easy.
* * *
Franklin Time has always been a gentle, warm, and chubby
white man; even when he’s not drinking strong distilled spirits. At age
fifty-three Franklin retired from working at a meat factory in town after
thirty-five years of loyal employment. Despite his drinking habits, he was never
late for work. The only time he missed a weeks worth of work was during the time
he built his beautiful wife Grace a new roof. He stepped back on a loose plank
by accident and plummeted to the living room below, luckily landing on the sofa,
then onto the hardwood floor with his arm extended to break his fall; breaking
his arm. The doc said he’d “be out of work for four to seven weeks, if he
followed orders and healed accordingly,” but Franklin wouldn’t hear of it. “You
just keep my prescriptions filled doc, and I’ll take care of the rest,” he told
the doctor. Franklin had been a workhorse since his early teens, like his father
and grandfather before him who both started working forty hour weeks at age
sixteen. Back then, in this distant land, there were no child labor laws and if
your back was strong enough to lift at least fifty pounds, you worked. Work
ethic was a must for all young men in Nowville. In this distant land, most
people live simplistic lives, growing their own vegetables, fruits, and raising
their own cattle and chickens without the modern day gadgets and hassles of
farming. This is how Franklin met Mrs. Time, his wife Grace. Grace’s father
owned a farm years past, and each day after school, her chores consisted of
helping her mother tend the gardens, plucking fresh green beans and other
vegetables in the back yard, then picking red and green apples from the front
yard. As a child, Grace was a bit “picky” about eating an apple of the ground,
and would often climb the green apple tree, then the red apple tree, grabbing
one of each to stuff in her nap-sack. As if fate had designed their daily
routines between the two of them, Franklin would somehow always be walking by on
his way home after school, just in time to see Grace climbing down from one of
the apple trees. With him being twelve and her being ten at the time, their
“attraction” early on was rather- inevitable. One day Grace was climbing down an
apple tree just as Franklin was passing by and she fell to the thick grass
padded ground below. Other than her pride, luckily for her the only bruised or
rather busted, was the bright green apple she just picked from the tree.
Franklin crawled through the parallel rails of the wooden fence and helped her
up. From that day on they became- friends, and Franklin’s good deed was rewarded
by Grace’s mother who was looking out the kitchen window that very moment, after
placing a fresh baked apple pie there to cool off. Grace’s mother rushed to the
front yard to check on Grace after witnessing her fall, then thanked Franklin
handsomely with a fresh slice of apple pie. “Any other boy would have laughed
Franklin, but you, you truly are a gentleman,“ she told Franklin as she prepared
his reward. Moments later as he sat waiting at the table, an aromatic steam,
more like a hypnotic vapor, hit Franklin square in the nose as the piece of
fresh apple pie was placed before him, followed by a heaping fresh scoop of
homemade vanilla ice cream. In Franklin’s mind, this reward all but crowned him
king, and would surely gain him favor in the years that followed; when he asked
for the permission of Grace’s father to marry Grace. For the most part, their
marriage has been one of bliss, built on mutual respect, trust, friendship,
love, and all the other little things that count such as quiet walks in the
country. Rarely a day goes by that they don’t go on a quiet walk together,
especially during the Spring when flowers bloom. Every Spring season, Franklin
picks a different flower each day, then gently places it behind Grace’s ear on
their way home. Is this done to keep their “flame burning,“ perhaps, yet as
they’ve gotten older, Grace often sees it as a “hush tactic” so Franklin can
enjoy his habitual beverage. However, he seldom gets into a drunken stupor and
he’s woken up everyday for the past forty years just minutes before sunrise,
working or not. As always, some things ultimately come to an end and old habits
do die hard; unless life brings about a sudden change. The interior of their
home is something that rarely changes, and has wooden everything except for the
simple cushions padding the new custom made wooden couch, sofa, and rocking
chairs. All custom made by Franklin including the remodeled staircase leading up
the second story. Very few fixtures in the house are modern other than the usual
door knobs and other needed fixtures. The only means of communication he allows
in the house is an old telephone, and a small radio. Not a single television nor
a trace of one is visible. Although the home is equipped and wired for lighting
fixtures, oil lamps and lanterns are used for lighting; as is the oil lantern
grace carries with her down the steps to check on Franklin. Grace is a pleasant
and comforting white lady in her fifties, pretty with a calming presence wearing
her flowery nightgown of old. The dim yet crackling flames cast a shadow over
Franklin as Grace walks upside him, the fireplace revealing her preserved beauty
as her loving hand lands upon Franklin’s shoulder from behind. “Franklin, dear
you’ve fallen asleep again in front of the fireplace- drinking,” she whispers in
his ear. “We’re not getting any younger you know,” she reminds him with a loving
“hint.” “Ha,” Franklin blurts out nearly startling Grace back onto her heels,
“speak for yourself Grace“. “Come on love, up you go and leave the jar,” Grace
insists as Franklin sits up in the rocking chair. While Franklin gathers
himself, Grace picks up a small iron fireplace shovel and starts shoveling the
ashes and slow burning wood pieces toward the back of the fireplace. Meanwhile,
someone stands in the window watching as Franklin finally stands up, and Grace
is only a handful of shovels away from smoldering out the fire. Sleepily,
Franklin rounds the front of the rocking chair with a sleepy yet quick glance at
the window. “I’m supposing the snow hasn’t let up any,” he says to Grace,
awaiting confirmation. “No, not a bit and the winds been whistling something
fierce,” Grace reiterates with a nervous tone. Franklin laughs knowing that
Grace has a phobia for whistling winds and finds them spooky due to a ghost
story Franklin once told Grace when they were kids. After that day he helped her
up from her apple tree fall, they became close and would often hang out beneath
the apple tree at Grace’s. Franklin enjoyed reading her stories, but he liked
making up his own even more, especially scary ones. The last scary story he told
Grace was based on an old “Nowville legend,” about a man who was buried alive by
accident and the only thing that saved him, “was somebody walking by the
gravesite and hearing someone whistle, then scream for help.” After that story,
Franklin wasn’t allowed to tell Grace anymore stories, and he certainly wasn’t
allowed to whistle around her. Franklin turns from his window view as Grace
leans the fireplace shovel up against wall. Franklin turns out the flame in his
lantern but Grace keeps hers burning so they can see. Just as they arrive at the
first step of the staircase ready to ascend to peaceful rest- crash! A single
piece of firewood comes crashing through the window, nearly giving Franklin and
Grace a heart attack and causing Franklin to drop his mason jar shattering to
the floor; which he wasn’t supposed to take up stairs in the first place.
Quickly, Grace adjusts the flame up to the brightest setting without losing the
wick as they both stare at the broken window and piece of wood on their floor.
Silence holds their startled attention, until the whistling wind and snowflakes
blow in- followed by the sound of a baby crying outside their door.
MORE EXCERPTS COMING SOON.......
*All materials posted here and thorughout the website are registered with the WGAw and/or Copyrights by Freddy Robinson. None of he works here shall be used without written and contracted consent. Any unauthorized use of these materials or alterations of them in any way, will result in legal matters executed and uphelp in a court of law.
Freddy Robinson - Creator & Author