RSSA Short Story: My First Attempt
Jul 02
Lately, I’ve been very very frustrated. I initially understood my emotion as depression then I realized I’m not as sluggish as I used to be which means this must be a different emotion. I also realized I’ve been a lot more impatient than usual.
So now, to release my inner frustrations I shall make a short story with a similar feel of what the Grimm Brothers did.
Title: Johedry and his Identity
There was a couple who had no child. The father was a respected Alchemist and the mother a clever woman who knew how to do things in a more… well, clever way.
They were both happy and successful but woe to the woman as she had no child. So she prayed to the heavens that she may have a child saying, “I mind not what he is or what he looks like so long as he be given to me.”
An enchantress who was moved by the woman’s prayer, decided to grant her wish but with a catch. The child to be born was not to have an identity. He was nothing anything ever seen in creation. He wasn’t ugly or handsome, he just was, well, we can’t really give him a description. To make it simple, he was everyone. When someone looked at him, he was everyone and nobody at the same time.
They named the child Johedry. He grew up to have the cleverness of his mother and the intelligence of his father. Yet despite these characteristics, he had no identity to distinguish him.
Over the years he grew unhappy and frustrated with his lack of identity. So he asked permission from his parents to go forth and seek his fortune elsewhere.
“Mother, father. You have given me the best comforts of life and the important education that I must retain to survive the great world! Pray that you allow me to seek my identity and seek my fortune elsewhere.”
His mother replied,“My dear child, you have given a mother the best gift of all: a loving son. And although I am saddened with the thought of you leaving you dear parents, it is best you sought your identity lest you be nobody and everybody at the same time. Now that would be a terrible thing wouldn’t it? Now give me your hands and so I may give thee my blessings. ”
And so Johedry received his parents’ blessings and went off to seek his identity.
When he was walking along a narrow path he came across an old woman with a velvet shawl stuck in a rose thorn bush. He quickly helped the old woman get off from the bush and she thanked him profusely.
She suddenly transformed into a beautiful enchantress who answered the prayer of the mother and she said, “My dear Johedry, product of my magic, you indeed have grown worthy of an identity but I fear it is beyond my powers to give you such. However, I can show you the way to having your own identity.”
“Pray you tell me oh beautiful enchantress where I may seek my identity!”, was Jahedry’s cry.
“After this path, there be a kingdom terrorized by a shadow. He goes in many forms and he knows everyone that crosses his path. Every king crowned in that kingdom is killed by the shadow. He kills each king by calling his name three times until the soul of that king is consumed by the shadow. If you win against this shadow, there lies a crown that names all. The very crown that named every creature in the beginning of the earth. There you will have the identity that you seek.”
At the end of her last word, she vanished and left Johedry pondering on this message very carefully.
He continued on his way until he came across the kingdom where everyone was filled with gloom an despair. They have had no order for several years and everyone was afraid to try to be king.
So Johedry went forward and declared himself to be king, to which the people did not mind for the men who came in here were after wealth and power, and they have grown weary of seeing all of those who attempted, die.
Johedry entered the great castle door and presented himself to the court.
“Behold! I be next to wear the crown as your new king.”
No sooner had he said these words, the floor rumbled, the windows darkened and the castle grew colder. Then out of nowhere a cold voice sang,
“Many have come, many have gone.
A king I say, this place has none.
Risk your soul, to a fate the same
Let me look now, and call your name.”
The shadow looked hard on Johedry, and looked even more. Then the shadow grew furious as he could not name Johedry for he knew not who Johedry was.
He took his great book of existence and read from it, calling Johedry, every name in creation with face and an indentity.
“Art thou John, Jake, or Jonathan James?
Or Mark, or Luke, or Jonah of Dames?
Which is your name, do you have one?
I’ve tried and guessed, and you respond to none.”
At this point the shadow couldn’t bear it no more. He dissipated and no longer bothered the kingdom ever again.
From then on Johedry lived as a king and he finally had an identity when he was crowned king of the kingdom: the man who was nobody, and everybody, and is now Johedry.
The End
(Okay I admit this story basically has no real moral, I was just writing it to channel some of my frustration. Feeling rather emo so I guess this is one way to channel it 
)