Any genre and time period is okay for your story, but the setting must be Renaissance. (Change in setting will deduct points during judging rounds.)

This cycle of boredom and fear had been festering for three years now, but Rei told no one about it. After all, there was nothing that could justify her feelings. She ran possibly the most interesting store in Renaissance – Magic Moments, a specialty spell shop her mother, Edith, had set up 33 years ago. It was a meaningful job, but she was getting tired of the same old spells she had to cast for people.

For example, during the annual Renaissance Matchmaking Ball, all the eligible women would come flocking to her with the request to look beautiful with the RazzleDazzle spell. In the end, it was still fair game as the men would end up enchanted by all of them, and had no choice but to get their mothers to choose their wives. There were also the more insidious requests to bring temporary humiliation to others. Rei was more careful with these requests, and only agreed if there was truly a justified reason. Little Billy had come crying to her last week about his classmates stuffing him into the toilet bowl during recess. She used the PoopMe spell on those bullies so they would have excrement oozing out of their schoolbags for the next three days. Self-glorification or revenge. It was one or the other and Rei was getting increasingly stifled with the narrowness of human nature.

The store door opened and broke Rei out of her thoughts. It was Emily Hyde, the mayor’s daughter. Now why would she need a spell, Rei thought to herself, Emily was beautiful, rich, came from a loving family and was adored by the people of Renaissance. Rei made it a point to sit up a little straighter and gave a polite smile. “Good afternoon Miss Hyde, how can I help you today?”

Emily took a deep breath while twirling her red locks, as if she was psyching herself up to answer the question. “Good afternoon Miss Rei. I was just wondering, by any chance, do you happen to have a spell to make me fall in love?”

Rei jolted up from her seat. She had never received such a spell request. In the past, she had a few weeping housewives who would ask her to use the FallBack Spell on their husbands so their marriages could be saved. “Miss Emily, your request is rather unusual. If anything, most people don’t need help falling in love.”

Emily sighed. “Just let me know if you can do this? My father wants me to marry Constable Stuart in three months’ time and well, you know, I don’t feel anything for Stuart even though I know he is a good man. But I know this marriage would be good for the family and the town and I just don’t want to fight Daddy on this. I figure the only way to make this work is if I could fall in love with Stuart. Then, everyone would be happy.”

Rei took out a dusty tome from under the cashier. Her mother’s spell book, the Sunn family treasure that had been passed down for three hundred years. “Let me see what I can do,” she replied as she began flipping the pages.

The Prompts:
You have to dream up the first part of the story which should be based on one or more of the following prompts:

There is an argument
There is fear of an impending misfortune
There is a humorous circumstance
Someone might fall in love

General Storyline: The Town of Renaissance
Renaissance is an outpost town in the middle of nowhere, but many routes pass through or beside it. The desert is encroaching on one side (to the West), a once-lush forest lies to the East and South. A large river runs through the forest, but it is not close to the town. Mountains are to the North, far, far away, and when you look towards them you don’t know if they are an illusion or real. Closer by are the smaller hill chains that fed the mining, creating caverns and passages underground.

The town has had a number of identities throughout its history: A trading post; a mining town; a ghost town until it was rediscovered; a thriving community; the scene of a number of great battles; the scene of one great tragedy (that led to its Ghost Town standing); a town of great joys and celebrations, and so much more.
At this point in time, there is a general population of 333. A mixture of a community. It boasts families that have lived there for generations upon generations, but they are in the minority, and are not in positions of power. There are traders who have come back here, at the end of their many travails, to settle in. The new families and power-players have taken this as a last refuge for themselves, hoping to rebuild lives torn apart on the way here.

Reminder to self: Get the 1st part of the story published on 5th Oct.

I used to come back home from school with holey shorts. My mother said it was “shame, shame” I had to go through at least 15 shorts per semester and that I perpetually seemed to be showing off bits of panties. The reason for tattered PE shorts: everyday, while waiting for assigned carpool parent to pick us up, my friends and I would take great delight in sliding down this seemingly adventurous cement slope (see above) over and over and over again. It’s funny how the slope seems so tiny now. I’m amazed at how something so insipid as slanted cement to improve drainage could provide endless hours of fun and fond childhood memories. I long for that child-like resourcefulness to experience wonder in any kind of surroundings.

Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong
Whether I find a place in this world or never belong
I gotta be me, I’ve gotta be me
What else can I be but what I am

I want to live, not merely survive
And I won’t give up this dream
Of life that keeps me alive
I gotta be me, I gotta be me
The dream that I see makes me what I am

That far-away prize, a world of success
Is waiting for me if I heed the call
I won’t settle down, won’t settle for less
As long as there’s a chance that I can have it all

I’ll go it alone, that’s how it must be
I can’t be right for somebody else
If I’m not right for me
I gotta be free, I’ve gotta be free
Daring to try, to do it or die
I’ve gotta be me

I’ll go it alone, that’s how it must be
I can’t be right for somebody else
If I’m not right for me
I gotta be free, I just gotta be free
Daring to try, to do it or die
I gotta be me

I woke up early one morning and sat outside the balcony, curled up in a blanket. All of nature’s elements were in place – the waves were crashing, the wind was blowing, the leaves were rustling and the sun was slowly making its way up in the sky. Everything behaving the way as they ought to; the natural order of things.

Shivering, I asked God in my noisy head, so what is this “natural me” I see so little of? There are so many distractions and choices and expectations and conventions and benchmarks and hurts and superficialities and regrets in my life that I no longer know who I am anymore. I began resenting all the times I’ve been told to hold back, behave differently, “give face”, “let things be” in the name of “maintaining the status quo” (the stupidest term ever invented – life never, ever stays the same).

“Why is the human race so full of bullshit? Why can’t people just be?” I ranted internally to Him.

“Why can’t you just be?” came the wise reply.

And then, I fell asleep.

Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true, but the deeper truth is that the situation which brought about your pain was simply the form in which you came in touch with the human condition of suffering. Your pain is the concrete way in which you participate in the pain of humanity.

Paradoxically, therefore, healing means moving from your pain to the pain. When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclined to do something about the externals of your pain in order to relieve it; this explains why you often seek revenge. But real healing comes from realizing that your own particular pain is a share in humanity’s pain. That realization allows you to forgive your enemies and enter into a truly compassionate life. That is the way of Jesus, who prayed on the cross: “Father forgive them; they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23: 34). Jesus’ suffering, concrete as it was, was the suffering of all humanity. His pain was the pain.

Every time you can shift your attention away from the external situation that caused your pain and focus on the pain of humanity in which you participate, your suffering becomes easier to bear. It becomes a “light burden” and an “easy yoke” (Matthew 11:30). Once you discover that you are called to live in solidarity with the hungry, the homeless, the prisoners, the refugees, the sick, and the dying, your very personal pain begins to be converted into the pain and you find new strength to live it. Herein lies the hope of all Christians.

- Henri Nouwen

I can understand why Stevie Nicks was so inspired to write this song while at a ski lodge in Aspen. I love snow.

“I took my love and I took it down, which really meant I took my ego and I took it off the mantle. That trophy ego that we all have, you know, and I took that ego down and decided was it selfish to walk away?  And I think that I understood that somewhere I felt something big coming…in other words, I stood back and I saw the future.”  

LANDSLIDE

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Mmm, mmm, mmm

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older and I’m getting older too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older and I’m getting older too
Oh, I’m getting older too

Awh, take my love, take it down
Awh, climb a mountain and turn around
And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well, the landslide bring it down

And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well, the landslide bring it down
Oh, the landslide bring it down