And Boogie Too!
06/07/2005

My sons, Mad and the Pootle, recently forced their way into this blog through their escapades (both are doing fine, by the way) and it seems only fair that my daughter, Boogie, should have her moment in the sun too. This morning we were discussing things and I had occasion to ask her if she would show me some of her writing.

Boogie is very shy and self-effacing, especially as regards her short stories, so I was particularly pleased when she agreed to let me see a fairy tale she had written some time ago. Having read the story now, I felt that it was of high quality for her age (she is 16) and asked if I might post just the first part of it to my blog. She has given the nod and so I have a guest blogger! Here is the excerpt, a description of a forgotten city:

Burnt Sienna

The Edge of the World

There is a little known place that had once done much. Dry broken roots hung off crumbling buildings and pathways; this was a city that had fallen into slumber. In the air hung the magic of the past, a thick atmosphere of invisible dust, coating everything in city. Settling and swirling in hidey holes, in the fine linings of the smallest mouse's ear, and resting on the most delicate branches of spindly saplings. It was this dust that made the occupants drowsy and the character of the city seem eerie and uncaring. To outsiders who stumbled upon this place it felt strangely isolated and the inhabitants made them feel uneasy. Very few stayed for long if they could help it. Visitors did not understand the city, they did not understand how the past had made the present. They had not been raised with the dust sifting through the backdrop.

Maybe the inhabitants did not understand either. They failed to notice the symbols scratched onto statues and building's walls by ghosts. It could have been because no one had told them, but the dust was part of them, collecting in their lungs, resting on their sleeping faces, part of the very fibre of their beings, an invisible education.

Outside the city, tree roots twisted tightly together, sealing in the enchanted metropolis; inside, shadows grew and unknown things drifted through the nights. The outside forgot about their deeds, the inside forgot who had built the buildings and statues, who the ghosts were; essentially they forgot what had made them. This was the forgotten city.

Boogie

Clive

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