Summer Learning
Last week I went to writopia. Writopia is a writing camp. In the morning you write for a few hours, and in the afternoon you pick an elective. The topics where play writing, screen writing, world building, film making, song writing, and graphic novelizing. I picked film making, because I really like making films. The same thing kept happening every day until wednesday. On wednesday I was walking back to the camp from central park when I tripped. As soon as I hit the ground I felt an exrutiating pain in my left elbow. I immediately thought”tick.” I rushed back to the campus. When I got there I told them what had happened and they called my parents. My dad picked me up and said it was probably best if we go to the doctor. Just in case the tick had lime desise. So we went to the doctor and at this point my arm was very swollen. The doctor concluded that it was not a tick bite and just a strong bug. He said to ice it and take a benadadril. He did note that the swelling was quite big for a bug bite. Later that night I took the benadril and I fell asleep emediatly. In the morning the bug bite wasn’t much better. But I coincidentally had a yearly annual at the doctor. After camp the bite was much more swollen and we swiftly moved to the doctors. As soon as we got in the doctors room he said I would have to go to the hospital, and we could re schedule the annual. While we where going to the hospital I assumed this whole thing was a waist of time, and the doctor could have just subscribed me some antibiotics. When we got into the hospital the doctor immediately said that I would have to stay the night. I was in the emergency room for 4 hours, and then they admitted me to my own room. In the emergency room they gave me antibiotics through the arm. the antibiotics were beginning to put into me for 10 hours. I watched a lot of TV and movies and it was actually very fun. after I got out of the hospital I listened and read my work from writopia at barnes and noble. The whole experience was wonderful.
here is my story from the camp.
PS its a short story, and not that good.
The Nimbles
I’m running down an echoey hall I can hear the shouts of people getting slaughtered by the gruesome Nimble. Their attacks have been getting worse. In the olden days there would be one or two attacks every few years. But thanks to my dad, the Nimbles had been increasing.My dad had been killed by the Nmbles 2 years ago.He was a hunter, and as he stepped over the borders following a deer they killed him. Let me explain what’s going on. I live in the one and only town that has been hidden from the rest of the world for over 2 thousand years. The town is called Snowy Banks. It’s never been put on a map and it’s impossible to find.If you’re wondering how my family found it, we were planning to go on a road trip from Idaho to NYC. I was 6 years old when we went. We lost our way at 2 am and decided to spend the night in the car. While we were sleeping my baby sister, Ann got kidnapped. As soon as we woke up we followed the mud prints to a beautiful waterfall, and swimming in the water was Ann.We thought it was weird that she was swimming since she had never been in any big body of water in her life. But my parents overlooked it, just happy to see their daughter alive. We ran to the lake and my father picked her up. As soon as he picked her up she started crying. My dad was startled at this because she always was calm when he held her. As soon as he picked her up I felt a overwhelming pain in my heart.
My mother saw a town a little bit away. So we slowly walked there. We asked an old man if they had a doctor,he replied in a shaky voice, “we don’t have a doctor, but we have a healer a few blocks away.” We didn’t know what a healer was but we didn’t think their was any harm in seeing.We walked into a dim lit room with shiny gadgets strewn around the small room. I smelled strong incense. a woman in a silk white nightgown voluptuously drifted into the room. She immediately started talking in a poem like rhythm. She said, “please come closer, oh please. Come see my collection of beads. All heal your soul from the nimble trolls so please come closer oh please.”She broke out of her strange toon and pointed towards my sister. She said, “you are the one who needs to be healed.” My father opened his mouth to protest that I was the one with the heart problem, but the woman quickly sat Ann down in the big fur chair. She sat across from her and just stared at her for a long time. Ann stopped crying and the woman finally concluded that anns soul had been captured by a nimble. Obviously she was insane so my mother picked up ann and we quickly left the small store.
It was starting to get late so my parents decided to to spend the night at a hotel. We walked into a fluorescently lit old motel with old crippled wallpaper and a rough frayed carpet. We walked down a small claustrophobic corridor to are small dingy room, with 2 small beds and dirty yellow sheets struined neatly on the half deflated mattress. We all hadn’t washed in a few days so we all took showers. The shower seemed normal but who knows if it was actually water we were bathing in.That night I slept restlessly. Mostly because I had to sleep with my sister, and she cried all night. In the morning I woke to a loud banging at the door. I looked in the peephole and saw a short asian lady wearing a white costume, next to her was a big cart stacked with toilet paper, towels, and cleaning spray. I yelled at my parents to ask if I could answer the door. They were in the shower and I heard a muffled reply. “Yes”
I slowly opened the door to the lady who pushed past me immediately cleaning our room. We quickly got out of the room to let her clean.
We went to the lobby and read the hotel pamphlet. It showed a beautiful hotel with shiny wood floors and a beautiful clear pool. having zero resemblance to the old ratty hotel that we had been stayed in as soon as Ann saw the pool she started yelling, “,can we go to the pool. PLEASE!!!!!”
she swiftly spinned her head around searching for a hotel employee to ask if they still had the pool. Her eyes locked with an old large woman with lipstick smeared over her face and too much eyeliner. she was wearing a similar costume as the cleaning lady except she had a small badge that said, Hotel Manager. Ann quickly yelled out, “do you have a pool miss hotel manager”.
The woman rolled her eyes and replied gloomily “yes. Go straight outside to our court yard and turn left.”
We all followed her directions and found ourselves staring at a old blow up pool riddled with moss and vermin. We all just stared at it for a moment and then walked back to the lobby. Stunned at how effortless that pool was.
We decided to see if the lady was done cleaning are room. We opened the door and she seemed to be gone. The room didn’t look much different than it did when we left but we didn’t really care. We were just glad that we could leave that weird place. We packed up our bags and left the hotel.
I think all of us were relieved when we got out of that place. It was one of the strangest places I had ever been I thought to myself at the time. Little did I know that that would be the most normal day I would ever have again.
We walked in excruciating heat out of the town and headed towards the big waterfall. As soon as we got back there I felt that exact same pain in my heart that I had felt before, also Ann started crying again. My mother said it was just heartburn and Ann just couldn’t handle the loud sounds of the water hitting the rocks at the waterfall. We all kept walking towards our car in extreme hell!! We went to the exact place where our car was only yesterday and it was gone. We started looking for the car and it was nowhere. My parents thought it would be good to split up. I was with dad and Ann was with mom. We went right and Ann and mom went left as we walked ahead I could see the two silhouette of my mom and Ann both drift away.
The Circle Of Snowy Banks
As my dad was complaining about how this was the worst road trip of his life. I started to space out and go in my own world I imagined myself swimming in the cool hudson river. Evan though the Hudson river is known for being dirty I once fell into it and It was great. The warm water rushing against my body. The rug like moss spilling over the rocks, and the Now every time i go to NY I swim in the Hudson river. As I slowly came back to my senses I saw a waterfall ahead. I saw 2 silhouettes staring at something in the distance. I pointed it out to my dad and we started walking towards them. As we got closer I saw Ann and mom staring at the waterfall I yelled to them and they turned their heads to face us. I jogged towards them. wondering how we both went in different directions still met up. Also I thought it was weird that we ended up at the same waterfall. We all discussed this and they agreed with me. As we were debating how this could have happened I noticed that it was already getting dark. It seemed weird since we had just left the hotel an hour or two ago. I commented on this and we all had a vote to see if we stay back in snowy banks or look for the car all night. We decided to go back to snowy falls and see if they had another hotel. The same old man was standing in the same place and again we asked him if he knew any other hotels he replied,” ask the healer, she will know.” As we were very reluctant to go to the healer again we thought she could tell us i snowy banks had another hotel. We entered the same dim room with the same strong incense and the same old woman sitting at the table. As soon as we came in she she gave an exuberant cry of joy joy started her rittle immediately.” I see you have come back for me. You have found the circle and you will never be free. When you try to leave the waterfall it brings you back like an invisible wall.” She broke out of her lyrical rhythm and started talking normally. “ What i’m saying is the only way out of snowy banks is through the stone arch that attaches snowy banks to the outside world. everywhere around the stone arch has a magical border that will circle you back to the place you started.” As crazy as this woman sounded, we decided to listen to her because we had experienced what she had just said. We started asking her questions and she yelled,” shut up. You dont talk. I talk. The arch is 2 miles long it is guarded by the nimbles. The nimbles are creatures that guard the arch. They will kill you if you try to leave snowy banks. The first nimble was named gunther snow. He found snowy banks 2 thousand years ago. He was searching for any inhabitants of life when something attacked him. He died and became a nimble. For many hundreds of years he would kill anybody who entered snowy banks. After 1 thousand years of the nimbles increasing there were over 400 nimbles. Finally a man called Robert hills came to snowy banks. He found the nimbles hiding spot and was able to track where they where. Whenever the nimbles tried to attack Robert he was able to escape right in time. He eventually decided to build the arch and trap the nimbles inside of it. It took him 3 years to build the arch. He built it with a magical stone that acts as a barrier when constructed. he loored all of the nimbles inside and trapped them in the wall. The nimbles can leave the wall when ever they want but they can never kill. The nimbles lure you into the town. Thats what they did to your daughter, and sometimes they steal part of your soul. they also did that to her. The nimbles feed off soles but they can only take the full sole if you deliberately walk into the border. Once they steal your soul you turn into a nimble and you have to guard the border for ever.” This was a lot to take in, and I think we all kind of half believed what she said. We all were silent for a moment and then my mom said in a stuttered voice, uh, ok, well thank you.
So Thats What A Nimble Looks Like.
As my family and I were wandering around trying to find another hotel I was thinking about what the healer had just said. When I saw a tall blurry figure run into a nearby tree patch. I pointed the figure out to my parents and they remarked at it. My dad said, “yeah I think I saw it.” my mom agreed to. My dad offered to follow it and my mom said,”no!” My dad ignored her and said,” it’s fine. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I let him go. Knowing that he would go even if I protested. I watched him sprint into the patch of trees. After a few minutes my mom complained,”why isn’t he back.” How could it take him so long.” right that second my dad ran up to us out of breath and said,”I found something. Come on.” As Ann tried to wiggle out of my mother’s arms I was following my dad, and my mom was trying to hold everybody back. Finally she gave in and we all followed my dad into the tree group of trees. we followed my dad for a few minutes and then saw a tall skinny white creature.” So thats what a nimble looks like.” I said. All of us looked at it for a while and then it started to scream. It was a high pitch scream and the whole family basically had a coronary. It screamed for about 30 seconds and then just stopped. My and my dad dragged it onto a rock.
“so what should we do with it.” My dad said
“ are you crazy,” my mom yelled. “We are not going to do anything with this thing.”
“but it’s a nimble.” My dad pleaded
“No” my mom snaped.
Ann finally squirmed out moms arms a grabbed a sharp rock. She quickly plunged it into the nimble’s heart. The Nimble started spewing blood.
“What did you just do?!”yelled mom.
Ann started to cry and ran behind me. I just looked at the blood spurting from the dead nimble. Finally I started yelling at Ann “Why did you kill it?”
While all this havoc was going on there was a half dead skinny creature spilling blood out of it’s heart. My dad quickly dragged the dead creature out a little further through the trees, and then buried it. He called all of us over to have a quick ceremony. He took a stick and engraved the world ‘Nimble’ in the wet dirt Then we all left in silence. Surprised at how much stuff had happened in the past 4 days.