Creative Challenge 3: Robots

Forest Life

1. __X__ Do not use the word or any derivative of the word “robots” anywhere in your paper.

2. _X___ Primarily present tense narration

3. _X___ Addresses the concept of creation (CREATION)

4. _X___ Addresses the concept of intelligence (INTELLIGENCE)

5. _X__ An emotion must be projected onto an inanimate object (OBJ)

6. _X___ The inanimate object must cause the main character to experience a problem (PROB)

7. _X__ Defines what it means to be human (HUMAN)

8. _X___ Makes reference to a war (WAR)

9. _X___ three references to law (LAW 1-3)

10. _X___ Features a debate (DEBATE)

11. _X___ Addresses bigotry (BIGOT)

12. _X___ Two warnings (WARNING 1-2)

13. _X___ Provides your readers with a brief history of the human world (HIST)

14. _X___ Contains a machine that malfunctions (MACHINE)

15. _X___ An ambitious character (AMB)

16. _X___ A nervous character (NERV)

17. _X___ A detailed description of something naturally beautiful (BEAUTY)

18. _X___ Begins and end with the same question. (QUESTION 1-2)

19. _X___ a detailed description of a robot (DESCRIPTION)

20. _X___ translation (TRANSLATION)

21. _X___ a lapse in time (LAPSE)

22. _X___ engages concept of autonomy (AUTO)

Details

23. 5 L/ 5W 5 references to lighting or weather (L/W 1-5)

24. _X__ a detailed description of someone’s hands (HANDS)

25. _5__ 5 references to smell (SMELL 1-5)

26. _6__ 5 references to sound (SOUND 1-5)

27. _6__ 5 references to a texture (TEXT 1-5)

Everything that goes up must come back down. (LAW 1) The silence of the forest is interrupted as I fall to the earth with a heavy plop, and bounce slightly atop the cushy bed of leaves (TEXT 1). Once I have landed, the forest is again silent. (SOUND 1). This fall was in the workings for a long time now, it's the most excitement I’ve had in years. Now I have reached the ground, I will remain here until I grow into a magnificent oak tree whose limbs will shade the forest (L 1).

Autumn continues and soft vibrant red and yellow leaves layer on top of me. (TEXT 2) Soon they turn crunchy and brown then begin to decompose, creating a squishy bed around me. (TEXT 3-4) The air gets cooler each day and the breeze sounds like sandpaper blowing through the dried leaves. (W 1/SOUND 2) The breeze is fresh and smells of wild apples. (SMELL 1) Autumn is often seen as the beginning of winter when life ceases, but little do humans realize all that takes place underneath the brilliant sea of colorful mountains. (INTELLIGENCE/ W 2)

Rain turns to snow and the ground hardens making crystal caverns around me. (W 3/ TEXT 5). The snow is beginning to layer on top of the leaves that hide me from the squirrels scrounging for last minute winter preparations. Even they have a purpose in the food chain. (LAW 2) The forest is quiet and peaceful, and smells fresh. (SMELL 2) The only sounds are of birds bouncing from tree limb to limb and the occasional drip of a melting icicle. (SOUND 3-4) Yet it is cold out, I keep cozy with the insulation the leaves provide. (W 4)

I wake from my winter slumber to the sounds of muffled bird songs. (SOUND 5) As I struggle to get closer to the familiar sound, I pop straight out of the dark ground to the forest floor in the form of a little green sprout. (L 2) Springtime has arrived. (W 5) I observe the season change around me as the other trees gain their fresh, soft green leaves, the wildflowers open up and the sunlight sprinkle on my face. (TEXT 6/ L 3) The air is sweet with the fragrance of new flowers and bees dash all around to keep the magic working. (SMELL 3) I grow tall so quickly that I am soon able to see the beauty of the forest from the birds’ perspective. (BEAUTY)

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It was decades ago that I began my life as fragile sapling. (LAPSE/ CREATION) I am now a tall, strong oak with tough bark and long limbs. (TEXT 7) I know every inch of the forest. The animals that take refuge under my shade, the plants of the forest floor, the patterns of the season changes, and even the insects living in my bark. I know what each season feels like, smells like, and looks like. Some days I wonder if life will ever change? (QUESTION 1)

Crunch, crunch, crunch. (SOUND 6) I hear a new sound I have never heard before. Louder than a rabbit’s bounce but not as loud as a bear’s walk. At my trunk, there are creatures standing below me. They are rather white but wear bright colors on them. I hear sounds but I do not know what they are saying. (WARNING 1) They walk around for a bit, just looking, then I listen to their crunching footsteps leave the forest.

The next week I hear the same footsteps tramping around. (WARNING 2) I have no idea where these things have come from and I do no not want them here.

I am startled when Owl lands on my branch. “Those ‘things’ are humans, Oak” Owl says. “They dominate the world and have now reached us. It was inevitable they would come.” (LAW 2)

“What do they want with us?” I ask.

“I can hear them talking, they want to cut us down and build here.” (TRANSLATION).

“But they can’t do that” I refuse. “Look at how small they are, they could never move me.” (DEBATE)

“Yes, they are small, but they have friends who are much stronger than us. When they make up their minds, there’s no changing them. That’s just the way humans are.” Owl tells me. (HUMAN) “When humans came into the world, the first two took fruit from a tree that they were not allowed to eat from, ever since then, they have taken what they want from nature with no concern.” (HISTORY)

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Owl had given me much to ponder. How could I stop the humans from destroying my home? I must fight back! (WAR) If humans must live here, here in nature, they must give it the same respect the rest of the forest animals do. (BIGOTRY)

Suddenly, a cloud casts a dark shadow over me and an excruciating sound echoes through the forest. (L 4) An angry machine bulldozes over the young saplings and flings earth over its head. (OBJ). Birds, rabbits, and deer scatter in every direction to flee the battlefield. (NERV) This “thing” looks nothing like I could have imagined. It’s made from shiny materials I have never seen and has a claw one hundred times larger than a bear’s. (DESCRIPTION). A human rides inside it and looks strangely at peace, given the destruction that it is causing. Not a care in the world for the feelings of the plants that it is smashing into the ground. His rough, dirty hands tightly grip the controls, for he is on a mission. (AMB/ HANDS)

I suddenly feel a pain that shoots up from my roots into my trunk. The machine is scraping at my distal roots and there is nothing I can do to move out of the path of destruction. (PROB/ AUTO) The machine keeps ploughing forward, puffing out stinky exhaust, and it is soon beneath my branches. (SMELL 4) With the next gust of wind I let a limb fall, crashing onto the monster beneath me. It lands with a loud thud, and the machine shutters tying to continue on, but it falls silent. The humans swarm around the machine like bees to sweet nectar, trying to make it work again. (SMELL 5) After several hours, they give up, load it back onto the truck, and drive away leaving a scar in the forest. The sky darkens and opens up. Rain leads a trail of mud through the forest, just like a bleeding wound. (L 5)

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It took a few years, but eventually the scar left in the forest was covered by new growth. Various humans come back from time to time with clipboards and talk about they want to do with the land. Will life never change? (QUESTION 2)

Nothing happened until one day, a woman in a business suit came a propped up a sign that said: Forest Preserve Project: Do not pick the flowers. (LAW 3) Luckily, for the forest, life may not need to change.