If you don’t know what story cubes are, see the introduction to the story cubes series.
To see the original roll of the story cubes, see yesterday’s post.
A long time ago, in an enchanted land far, far away, a sort of unexplained magic caused by random mutations eventually led fish to leave the sea and walk. Knights from the castles of old became scientists in ivory towers and slowly, the magic became science. They researched and researched and finally, after lifetimes of study, discovered a process they called “evolution.” The magic had left the land as logic moved in.
As people lost their reverence for magic, they lost reverence for the commonplace as well. Scientists were not immune to this ennui and they broke into factions to fight paper wars in journals about whose view of evolution was correct. People who didn’t follow science instead followed the leaders who insisted that magic had never died and that the scientists were conspiring to hide it from them. Real wars broke out: people killed other people, people killed scientists, scientists invented bigger weapons to kill people…
On and on raged the wars until one day, a team of researchers announced that they had found an unmistakable signature in every living creature. They could trace this signature quite clearly through and in anything that had DNA. The world stopped fighting as they realized that there was an unmistakable creator and science had helped them find it. Finally, they were both on the same side.
Peace reigned until scientists discovered the same signature in everything else in the world. Buildings, mountains, clouds, the sea: everything in the world had the creator’s signature. New wars flared up immediately as the people who believed in magic thought the scientists were arrogant and mocking them.
The land burned, the seas boiled, creatures great and small killed one another until one day, shortly after noon on a Tuesday (because nothing good ever happens on a Tuesday), Larry with the Big L for a signature said while chewing his sandwich, “Okay, back into the box with all of you. Storytime’s over.”
Unfortunately, this week’s story doesn’t really become a piece of fiction until the last sentence. This one was a lot more fun to write than last week’s, though. Last week had a turtle I had a hard time coming up with even one use for, but I liked the way I was able to use the castle tower for two purposes this week.
If you didn’t notice it the first time, go back up and look where I placed the “L” cube. He’s got the Mark of the Creator in his hand (an appropriate tribute for a giant like Neil Gaiman), but it also sets it apart from the action, detached until it’s time for it to come in and end things. Pay attention to little details like that in your own writing when you’re playing creator.
The comments section is the perfect place for what you came up with. I’m sure you did better than I did this week!
I'd love to hear from you!