Friday 7 May 2010

The Architect

A Writer's Extreme Creativity Challenge: Write a story a day, in May. That's it: http://storyaday.org/. Thanks to Ian Mayor for the words 'architect,light,obsession'

#7 : The Architect

The Tower was destroyed and the people scattered. In less than a generation the One Language had fallen out of use, those who had made their living as speakers and translators had been forbidden from its use, the people believing it cursed.

Without the Tower, they had nothing to unite them.


While many of the Builders and Slaves had been killed where they stood, the King and the Architect had survived, and lived alone in the ruins of the Tower. It would be the last place HE would think to look, and if they had learned one thing, it was that not only did HE exist, but HE jealously guarded the skies.

The two of them became increasingly insane. Their only contact with the outside world was to attack the children who occasionally crept into the ruins from those few families who still lived in what remained of the Old City.

The Architect had been blinded, he had been closest to the light and the wind when HE had struck. The Architect believed that in the split second before he lost his sight, he had seen heaven, and had seen a way to get there. The structure of Light itself was the clue.

Over the years, The Architect lost his memory of the nature of Light, and became obsessed by the notion that it could be a material, which, distilled into solid form, might form the building blocks of a new tower, which HE would not destroy.


Being made of the same material as Heaven, the angels would not identify an intruder explained the Architect to the King.

He further theorised that since light was their material, the Tower could be expanded rapidly and exponentially by the use of cunningly placed mirrors.

This construction would not be rejected by heaven, no Angels, no Un-Bodies would be raised, and using this tower, they would create a needle, stretching not just to the boundaries of heaven, but into the palaces and gardens at the very centre of the city of heaven where they would hide in his many corridors and hallways, multiply and grow, free from the corrupting influences of Earth bound materials.

Once heaven was infiltrated, the Angels could be studied from up close, their sciences and knowledge put to the use of Mankind.

The King, for he too had lost his mind, set out with the Architect to find a Scientist able make Light Solid. Neither had any illusions that they would see this project completed, but they would set events in motion that would free Mankind and remake Heaven in their own image.

2 comments:

  1. Ooo, I like this.

    Must share it with my laser-physicist friend...

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  2. I really like this one, I know you are a talented artist Paul but this piece was particularly brilliant. Was the tower supposed to be the tower of Babel by the way? The combination of translators and the use of a jealous diety gave me that impression.

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