Name: Adon Ewing
Class: Advanced Writing I, XJS Coaching School
Writing style: Creative Writing
Teacher: Mr Johnson
The three iron figures stared blankly across Swanston Street. Their erect bodies radiated heat from the mid-afternoon Melbourne summer sun. Delicious scents wafted from cafés lining the streets, as people went about their daily business. A ding, ding, ding! heralded the arrival of a tram, crammed with passengers. Its doors opened and a flood of people poured out. Cyclists whizzed past and trees’ leaves rustled in the light breeze. Shoppers browsed from shop to shop, searching for the perfect Christmas gift, as it was nearly Christmas. Decorative Christmas stars hung above the streets.
It had not always been like that. The three figures were once alive and ecstatic. It all started like this:
In a distant land, far from where any humans lived, was a paradise; a utopia. Gypsies and animals lived in perfect harmony. Blue skies and vast savannahs, crystal lakes and leafy forests, lush meadows and fertile soil, pristine beaches and gentle waves lapping up, snowy white peaks enveloped by gentle, soft, fluffy clouds…this was the paradise.
***
The roar of machines emitting plumes of black smoke. The crash of the trees as they smash to the ground. The hot, fiery sun beating down on previously dark areas of rainforest. The humans were here. Gypsies and animals alike fled south, but the plants were trapped where they stood. The humans relentlessly pushing south, ripping down trees, slaughtering animals, murdering plants, massacring gypsies. Mines spring up on clear land. Machines and factories pouring out thick, heavy smoke into the smoggy air.
Chaos. Havoc. Carnage.
The gypsies and animals fled, to the last island. They thought they would be safe. The humans did not know of the island.
Year after year, the island grew warmer. Glaciers of immeasurable beauty cracked and bled rivers of water. Every year less and less snow fell. One year, no snow fell.
Rubbish started washing up on beaches. At first it was the odd can or plastic bottle. Later, more things washed up, strewing the beaches with rubbish.
The number of fish declined. Sometimes, on a fishing trip, no fish were caught. Not one.
Rainfall grew more and more erratic. The ground became parched and dry. But when the rain came, it came in flooding downpours, raining heavily for weeks on end. Gentle streams turned into rapid, fast-flowing torrents.
Food sources for the gypsies died or disappeared. One by one they fell. The last one died. Slow horrible deaths.
Brutal agony.
Millenniums later, the island was discovered. Again, plant life flourished and the few animals had mu
However, somehow, the gypsies could still think, and they wondered:ltiplied and abounded. Fossilized gypsies were found in the mud. They had turned to iron. Three were recovered. They were placed on Swanston Street, Melbourne.
Which path will humanity take this time?