Hello Everyone, @kingst here with the announcement for the STACH Short Story Contest #22.
What is a Short Story.
A short story is a story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel. It makes use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components to a far greater degree than is typical of an anecdote. You can read it in less than 90 seconds.
Contest Rules:
•Write a Short Story based on the topic that will be given every week.
•Write an Original Short Story (Plagiarism will be flagged and reported).
•The Story must contain no more than 199 words.
•One entry per user.
•Story should be pasted in the comment section below, no links.
•Contestants are permitted to post their stories in an article on their blog, so they also get upvotes from the @stach trail.
Winners Selection.
Winners will be selected based on the topic, story plot, number of words and delivery as determined by the selected Judge. One word above 199, disqualifies the entry.
Contest Topic.
Write a 199 words story based on A BOTTLED MESSAGE.
PRIZE.
FIVE winners will be selected for a share of the 15SBD. The story with the most interaction gets a 1SBD prize from @ejemai.
First Prize: ----------------------4SBD
Second Prize: ------------------3.5SBD
Third Prize: ---------------------3SBD
Fourth Prize: -------------------2.5SBD
Fifth Prize: ----------------------2SBD
Good luck guys!
Sharpen your writing skills and throw in some inspiring short stories. XO!
STACH is a physical Accelerator Hub dedicated to decentralizing the offline by breaking the barriers to accessing the internet like light, internet and conducive working space.
STACH is supported by @Sndbox as a Sndcastle project.
The tattooed girl stood atop the last mountain staring at the torn sky. Up. Flip. Down. Hollow slap of the bottle solid against the meat of her palm. Freezing air, thin and sharp -- but it mattered not at the end of the world.
A thousand feet below, ravening darkness ascended, gobbling clouds in its path.
The fissure above widened. She sighed, rocked back on her heels. Held the bottle still, contemplating its contents. Green and blue danced within, swirling as if seen through dark water.
A hundred feet. The darkness boiled upward as if it had her scent.
She looked down. Sighed. Raised her face to the ravaged sky once more. Her right arm caught fire, flames tracing every tattooed line.
Forty feet.
She looked up. One more breath. Plant right foot. Lean back on it, left hand stretched languidly at the sky, as good an aiming point as any. Blazing right arm cocked back, bottle by her ear.
Ten feet.
She threw. Hard. The air split athwart it as the bottle thundered into the slashed maw of the sky. Darkness swallowed the mountaintop below but the world in the bottle escaped the end of the world.
Wow. Na the end of the world be dis na. Everywhere else don go under the shadows, na only this superhero of a girl still dey. I see wetin you put inside her message bottle ooo 😄 "green and blue" indeed hahahahahaha 🌏
The thing strange sha but e take style make sense. Wehdon!
Hehehehheheh, exactly. You don see the trick lol - as above, so below 🍾😁
Even when your story is longer than most it still make sense with a nice plot . make @africaunchained proud man .
This looks like a winner to me.
Very poetic. I loved it!
Much appreciated. So far, you and @madmaxfury are the only ones who figured out what the girl was up to 😄
What a way to go.
A very rainy day, Steban went in search of his mother's medicine, when, in the middle of the road, he was in a storm fountain, the boat was left in nothingness! steban desperate without knowing that if his mother will not have her medicines worsened! Suddenly a fisherman arrived and asked him: Hey steban, what happened to you! He answers my mother is sick and went to the city to look for medicines and the boat became nothing because of the storm. Millet do not lose faith you will see that you will have your mother's medicines. Steban turns the river down and sees a bottle of glass sending a message in the bottle !!! Well, that's how I wrote a sheet and sent the message! The next day I knocked on the door and was a doctor with the medicines Steban was happy and gave his mother's medicines thanks to the doctor!
Wish failed.
I've tried everything to get close to you, I've gone to places you go frequently, I've gone to theaters to watch movies that do not interest me, I tried to make you like the same music that you like, I even wrote a message on I dropped a bottle and threw it into the sea, wishing you were by my side.
Two years have passed since I threw the bottle with a desire that unfortunately was not fulfilled, I do not hold a grudge, I do not hate you; You were the best teaching that life has given me, thanks to your contempt I understood that my lies would never make you fall in love, you did not look for someone who was the same as you, you only looked for a girl who was honest and that girl was not me, because I lied to you Believing that in this way I would get closer to you, and what I did not know is that every time I lied, I moved further away from you.
Ahoy whoever finds this message
I 'ave been shipwrecked!!! I be th' first mate o' th' "Black Pearl" I bet ye 'ave heard a bit o' th' amazin' adventures we 'ave had. Now, it ain't jus' a plain ole ship since most o' th' crew 'ave a bit o' monster personality in them. Fer me, I 'ave always been th' family disgrace, eyes that go in th' opposite direction, long, dirty black nails, crooked teeth, these qualities made me generally unwanted fer a job. So when I was called aboard th' Black Peark, I was o'erjoyed. But now we be wrecked.
We were sailin' t' th' Island o' Ammedin, t' get some arabian hidden loot. Thar was a storm that left us shipwrecked on a large Island, good thin' be thar's a lot o' grub 'n friendly natives, bad news be no one knows how t' build a ship. Th' Island has forests 'n lots o' beautifully carved natural caves 'n thar's a rich tradition o' mummies (nah th' kind ye came from her belly). So if ye find this, try t' look fer us.
Now I shall cast this message in a bottle.
Yers in trouble
Jack Sparrow
Lol!!!! Amazing. You deserve to win!!!!
Thank you
"Hohoho, we comin' t' getcha capn." Lolest! I like it.
Thank you
Emptying bottles was to Dad what swimming is to fish. He could not function properly with a clean system but he was a damn genius when he got it in the right amount of it.
It was not a surprise to anyone even himself when he died of cirrhosis. Like he used to say "something will kill a man".
"He is dead", Ruth my sister said with best clarity she could managed. Hearing that he is gone gave me a mixed feelings. His treatment was consuming every income everyone was able to come up with...that brought relief. Loosing a father and me becoming the 'head of the house' brought a feeling of great loss and sudden heavy burden.
Getting home, i rushed to mum's room console her and my sister. After most of the sympathisers have dispersed the second day. I went to his room to see if there is no anything there is anything of note.
Expectedly there are many bottles to clear, but an empty but sealed bottle with a small paper in it stood out. I took out the paper and it reads "I AM PROUD OF YOU, SON. YOU ARE ALL I WANTED TO BE".
A BOTTLED MESSAGE
Miss Joy, unlike other times stood fearlessly before Dr James her project supervisor who had been a thorn in her flesh.
Image source
Dr James: Young lady, you have to come back next year for your project since you have refused to dance to my tune of one hour pleasure with you.
Joy laughed out so loud that even the dead could hear her laughter.
Miss Joy: And how can that be possible by a toothless lion like you?, she roared at him.
Dr James lifted his hands to slap her; she held his hands in the air and said to him
image source
I have a sex video tape of you and my friend mercy, and your secrets will be out soon if any further misbehavior from you. Dr James shivered as hot sweat immediately formed on his face and the lion in him became a gentle lamb.
This is the deal you must follow if you don’t want to lose your home and your work.
You will have to finish the project I started and grade me “A” in it, She said and walk out of his office with the smile of a victor
Uww...wow...interesting.. But how did she managed tp get the video clip . did she used her friend to set up the supervisor?
@michaeljerry There might be many sides to the story. She might have had an agreement with her friend or the hotel they went to and a camera was set or she must have known that Mercy was tired of the lecturer headache and she gave him. So Joy now trying to use boldness to get at the lecturer even if there was no video evidence.
Wow wow wow this story made me shout go girl you have got so much confidence. Wow nice story it is concise and tells a lot. This always happen to female students even my relation was a victim but all thanks to God the man died a shameful and smelling death had severe underlying infections.
I just love the boldness in Joy.
Nice one my dear.
@eunireal1 should i say thank God the man died or what ? A sad incident but it in a way serves him right. If evil people continue to live then wickedness will continue in the land.
The case of Joy are similar incidences that happen on our campuses often times. I have heard of wicked lecturers been inflicted with terrible disease until their death. Any way God will help us.
Thanks for reading and contibuting
Very interesting piece.
So sad and annoying seeing ugly incidences like this happening in our higher institutions
So sad that such sad occurrence still goes on in our campuses but God will surely aide us Amen.
This is what i so despise in men, time will come when i would fight it with all i have.
My sister sounding so annoyed but fear not. All men are not the same. There are still men who marry as virgins today and don't flirt.
My dear. Just pray to marry a good one.
Nice piece of work.
Good job.
Thank you so much friend for reading.
Blackmailing,
That's really a painful sting.
Yea but not as painful as a lecturer requesting sex from an innocent girl who might have been trying to keep herself till marriage
What??? Wisdom or smartness.
Nice script.
I think it's wisdom and smartness since the lecturer was trying to play around her future.
Smart moves i think
source
14-year-old boy sam lives with his poor sick dad, he lost his mother a year ago, sam knew he was losing his father too and he needed help.
He thought again about the project for his 3rd grade art class,Message in a bottle and was determined to send the his in the sea. He wrote a note on a simple piece of sheet and placed it in an empty bottle,begging for help and narrating his story with contacts and date, he threw it into the sea.
After two months, lora a rich business woman went for a walk on her beach when she saw something green that shone on the high tide line.
She always dreamed of discovering a message in a bottle on the beach, but she never thought she would find one. she opened it and happiness filled her heart.
few days later, lora sent an email to sam, she funded his family and Sam's dad was well again they began to live a comfortable life.
Although the bottle traveled less than a kilometer from the place where he threw it but no distance could diminish the great help he brought to his father.
The newlyweds Ana and Rafael were happy to have bought their first house on a beautiful hill surrounded by large fruit trees, however they had to do some house remodeling before they could move in, since it was an older building.
The work began and everything went according to plan, but over time the fights started to appear because the couple didn’t agree on the changes they wanted to make to the house and they were running out of money because Ana would only choose the most expensive things for her house.
One day they had a strong argument and Rafael angrily left the house, Ana was crying and to calm down she went down to the basement to fix some things, when she suddenly noticed in an old closet a bottle that seemed to contain a note, she took it out and read it: "In this home I found true happiness. I did not have many material things to offer my family, but they were not important, since we had to love and support of each other" . When reading the note Ana understood what it meant to have a home and ran to look for Rafael.
Link of my post: https://steemit.com/stach/@maeugenia/stach-short-story-contest-22-a-new-start
Charles was walking along the beach. He was going through the worst crisis of his life. His wife left him, taking away his children. His addiction to gambling and alcohol, cost him his job, and his gambling debts, led him to bankruptcy.
Charles had lost everything. Now alone, on that beach he wondered, if it was worth it to continue living ...
Charles was thinking, how to end his life, when the waves brought a bottle to his feet. He thought about kicking the bottle away, but he realized there was a note inside the bottle.
Charles picked up the bottle. He read that note. It was written by a girl named Aurora. She wrote to her father, who had died. The note said: "Dear father, I miss you, your departure has left a great void in the family. You will no longer accompany us in special moments such as: my graduation from school, you will not give me at my wedding. I would give everything because you were alive ... I love you Aurora. "
When he finished reading the message, Charles cried and changed his mind. He would fight to recover his family and his life.
A Bottle from the Interstellar Sea
In the very distant future two children play on the shore of a beach, they observe something luminous fall from the sky to the sea; they continue playing and after a while they see how the waves bring an object.
The children go in its search and when they take it they realize that it’s a golden disk, they notice that it has some printed grooves, they find it interesting and take it with them. When they got home they showed it to their mother and she took it to a university where they managed to decipher the content of the album. It became known that it was from a civilization of another world, they were not alone in the universe.
The planet where the disc came from was located, and a mission was planned in order to reach it. When the men arrived to said planet, they were completely devastated because it had been destroyed in a large-scale war.
What these children had found was a disk that carried the voyager spacecraft. The ship was like a bottle thrown into the infinite sea of space and the disc was a message inside the bottle, a message of peace.
What a bitch! Tolu almost said it loud. He must avoid this one like a snake, looking at the way she was carrying herself and finding it difficult to open her mouth to respond to peoples' greetings.
"A penny for your thought" he jerked out of his reminiscing by the sweet voice and smiling face of Sandra. But her phone ranged again before he had time to answer her. Funny how appearance and sometimes first impression can be deceptive, they are both in this case.
Their first real encounter was few days after he was employed, when she had a problem with her Laptop computer. She was so disturbed. Tolu spending 4 years as an apprentice learning computer engineering is not in vain after all.
"If I paid you a penny for your thought, I think you will be a millionaire". She said while sitting herself gracefully. Tolu could not really figure what she want from, she has a finance in America who will likely come and take her anytime according to office gossips. He wanted to express himself but would rather bottled up the message and enjoy the moment while it lasts..."You can't afford it", he replied smiling.
A one year a my dad found an extremely old brew bottle swaying around the Baltic Sea simply off the shore of Kiel. He pulled it in, opened it up and found a message wrote onto the back of a postcard, requesting that the beneficiary send it back to the sender's street number.
It was delivered to the International Maritime Museum in Hamburg and analysts quickly set to work endeavoring to discover where it originated from. They soon figured out how to set up that the note had been composed by 20-year-old Richard Platz who had hurled the container into the sea while climbing with a nature thankfulness amass in 1913. The best part is that notwithstanding, is that they additionally figured out how to find his 62-year-old granddaughter, Angela Erdmann, who lives in drama and gave the mysterious little bit of history over to her.
A BOTTLED MESSAGE.
It was raining and the whole place was wet, adejoke needs to sign her final clearance in school to feel like a graduate for the first time.
On getting to the office of the HOD who supposed to sign for her, she realized she was not with her clearance form...oh no she said, why do I forget this?
She told the HOD about it, but the man said she must bring it on time, because immediately the rain stopped, he will be traveling out of the country, and he won't be back until the end of the month
Adejoke,sent for her friend to forward the form to her, because she can't wait that long for the form to be signed
Her friend put the form in a bottle so as to protect it from rain and sent to her,she got the form and was able to sign the form long before the rain stopped.
Word count : 160 words....
The Bottled message
Laura had just arrived at the restaurant wearing the beautiful red gown mark got for her on their first date before he left the country. she sat quietly waiting for Mark to come unable to contain the excitement running through her blood stream.This was a date Laura had looked forward to all week because after so many months she gets to finally spend time with the love of her life again. A bottle of cocktail had been offered to her but laura decided to wait for Mark before she poured herself a drink, few minutes had passed and Mark still hadn't showed up and laura was becoming really bored but she didn't think twice about leaving because she had missed mark so much and was so desperate to see him again. She started to tickle the bottle with her fixed nails and just then her attention was taken to a small reflection below the bottle and when she focused her attention on what it could be she realized it was a ring, unable to control the joy she stood to her feet hands claps against her mouth as the voice came from behind.marry me laura?
"Its been 3 years... " Teyona thought as she sat sipping her drink waiting for her date to arrive
They had graduated college together, he was sensitive and caring and she loved that about him.
"The things you love about him now you will hate later, we are more alike than you'd admit" her mother always said. Oh how she hated to hear but deep down she knew and eventually she broke up with him. It had ripped him apart but "its been 3 years now. Surely the wound had healed"
Her marriage was a mess and she was starting to regret leaving him
She had been there for 2 hours now and randall still hadn't showed, maybe she was wrong, maybe he hadn't healed. She had called him and they had set a date. But maybe..... It was a bottled message... One she dreaded to open....
We weren't all that rich but we were living quite all right. Until my father annoyed the wrong people.
They were really raged with anger and they took the law into their hands. They burnt our house and destroyed all our belongings. We were left with nothing.....
After the fire that decimated our tattered house, my family was placed in ruin. My father who was the bread winner of the family didn't see any bread to win for us. We were always hungry, my stomach forever sounding like a distuned French horn. Then things grew worse when I got separated from my pack, my kinsmen my family. I don't know how I wandered into a stingy neighborhood like this one where every kiosk owner owns a big knife and eyes at the back of their head. I haven't eaten anything since then and I know I would have broken the Guinness world record of most days scaled through without eating. Then I saw a piece of bread with a weakling boy such as my self. "This is my chance" I said. After some minutes of tug of war the piece of bread was finally mine.Though I never saw my family again.. I survived but before my life was taken by death, I wrote a message in a piece of paper and put it in a bottle and off to the sea it went. To remind whoever finds it of my pathetic existence.
A BOTTLED MESSAGE.
Life wasn't that fear for Rolake, she did all she could to change the story of her family which went from bad to worse after the death of her father.
She was deep in thought one day, trying to remember all those beautiful moments she had with her late father.
She remembered how her father used to love and care for her, all of a sudden her father final word flashed through her mind.
Where is the bottle my father used to keep by his bed side? She screamed
Her mother was wondering why she was so curious to see the bottle after five years of her father's death,their is a message left for me in the bottle by my father.
The whole family started searching for the common bottle which become so precious for the message it carries
Not too long before they find the bottle, on opening it,they find a pure gold her father spent all his life savings to purchase
They took it to the market, they were all rendered speechless when they got 38 million in exchange for the gold.
That was enough to turn the story of the family around.
"SOS, 18.98°S, 32.177°E"
Ebuka's heart pounded as he read the message on the parchment he'd just pulled out of a wine bottle he saw floating close to the shore.
He ran as fast as he could to the Lifeguard Post. The first lifeguard took a look at the message and waved him off.
"We get hundreds of these every month, many people like to play sick jokes".
The next few he approached gave similar response. The sixth lifeguard seemed touched by his persistence and took him to meet the Superintendent.
"We get many messages like this every week boy, 99 percent are pranks."
"But Sir..."
"But, the local diving team is taking a practice session close to that location, I'll send a unit with them to make sure" the Superintendent ended patting Ebuka on the head.
"Go home and rest now son".
Four hours later, the news announced that a ship carrying 642 people was rescued. Their turbines had blown and communications fried.
As Ebuka and his family watched the television, they heard a knock on the door.
Ebuka's father opened the door and was instantly blinded by flashes from the paparazzi.
"Mr Nnamdi, may we speak to your son?"
Nice work bro
This is a beautiful construction for me. I love the plot.
Here's my entry
As the alarm clock blared, Kate reached out instinctively to switch it off. She didn't need it anymore, since she was always awake before 6am anyways. She walked to the bathroom, washed her face, and In minutes, she was heading for the beach.
As she ran, the events of yesterday flashed across her mind, She'd walked in and seen them in bed. She loved Mark with her whole being, why were men so wicked and deceitful? She'd thought they had a future together, and he cheated on her. By now the tears were blinding her, so she stopped and sat close to the water. Just looking at it, had a calming effect, the way the waves came and went, just like the men in her life.
As the sun came up, she could see a bottle floating towards her, she grabbed it as it got near, it had a note in it, a message. She read the letter addressed to a lover from another, the words had her crying again, the writer had described the most beautiful love. Why couldn't Mark love her like this?
A BOTTLED MESSAGE.by @isteemithard
~
Walking across the beach, the morning sun, rises along the seas horizon. The wind blows, the waves flow, sand is moved by both. Ocean, this body of saline water, moves men and swallows mountains with both beauty and danger. Looking across the vast salty seascape may appear endless, but land can always be reached. Ocean currents, primarily horizontal water movements that influence temperatures of the regions through which they travel. They stretch and reach all parts of the globe, not a continent goes untouched.
The pen touches paper, or at least it did, now keys are pressed and ink is electronically printed to stacks of sheets. A message is created but what is it really? A written communication sent to or left for a recipient who cannot be contacted directly.
A bottle, the container with a neck that is narrower than the body and the opening mouth. Typically made of glass, clay, plastic, aluminum or other impervious materials meant to keep contents contained and protected.
A click, a clank, as it taps along the seashore. A bottle washes up, it’s been some time since it was once tossed in. What a vast journey that it must have traveled.
~
In the sea of silence
Every day I wrote the same words with a special dedication. The calligraphy neat and adorned with the patience that the years grant, the paper without wrinkles and foldable, the empty bottle and the crystal clean. The composition was perfect, each element was part of the whole, but that didn't matter, for Elisha none of that had any meaning.
Every day, after depositing the message in the bottle, I was going to Main Avenue, crossed the second alley, deposited the bottle on the floor, and gave three soft touches on the door. Then I returned after my steps, and in the trash, I contemplated the bottle of the previous day.
Every day was the same.
The work that I dedicated to that messaging was my way of apologizing to her, but it didn't seem to work. I felt like a castaway in the solitude of her silence. I wonder if this is her punishment, I wonder if she forgot me, or if she even remembers me. I don't know. I don't care. I can only write this message on the bottle and send it until one day she comes to rescue me.
Somewhere in Africa, deep in the valley of Kiraju was a small peaceful village called Faku known for its riches in gold, agriculture you name it. Its people lived in peace with one another, women so beautiful and men so strong. Faku had lots of enemies that it will always defeat but none like the yellow haired men, skin so fair it almost looked transclucent who raided the village on a peaceful summer night. The people of Faku had heard of the strange looking men, but never believed the stories..
"Don't leave me mama!" Little Tamayu cried as one of the strange men pulled her mother away, they rounded up the grownups and dragged them to their boats at the river bank. Her father had been hit with one of their magic weapons which emitted fire and a very loud noise and was now bloody and motionless alongside the other village warriors. “Do not forget the daughter of whom you are Tamayu!” her mother yelled back “like a message in a bottle keep safe all that you have been taught!” And with that she was dragged away.
Little Tamayu was now left in the cold world on her own.
The Wife's Message
Segun stared at the wall in despair. His 4-year marriage was crumbling before his eyes.
It had begun slowly. First, his wife started complaining he faulted her over everything. Then she refused to cook, saying he thought her food wasn’t good enough for him. Like he could ever harbour such thoughts! Now, she could hardly bear to stay in the same room with him.
There was a knock on the door. It was his elder sister, Funke.
“Okay,” she said, stalking into the room. “Tell me everything.”
He started, letting it all pour out. He was almost in tears at the end.
Funke’s eyes were full of pity. “I see,” she said. “Little brother, marriage is never easy, but you have missed your wife’s message. It’s a message in a bottle –you must look within her behaviours to find it.”
Suddenly, Segun understood. He had subtly blamed his wife for their lack of children. She had taken that and put it into all the other parts of their lives. To save his marriage, he must stop the blame and love her fully again.
He looked up at Funke. “Thank you, sister.” He said fervently. “I know what to do.”
This one is my favorite!
Thanks very much! :)
His Bottled Message
My sister and her fiance has been dated for seven years and she's been waiting for him to propose.
One faithful evening, he calls her for a dinner. She feels excited and expectant that her need will be met that evening, but also, she was angry that on previous occasions like this, he had said nothing.
Half way through the dinner, her fiance says he had something special to tell her, so this made her anxiety and expectation level to grow higher then he pulls the trigger by saying that he's going on a one year business trip to take pictures of frogs. This made her so angry and irritated (cause she assumed he was leaving her for frogs), so she stood up and left.
She was so furious that she didn't even notice the waiter coming with a wine bottle her fiance ordered with a message on it "WILL YOU BE MY WIFE".
My sister feels so depressed up on till today cos she missed his bottled message.
A BOTTLED MESSAGE
But that is God's plan and his time is perfect.
Part of his life he had in the sea and his ashes rested on it.
A BOTTLED MESSAGE
My son, If you are reading this, then I am probably dead or in prison.
I told my lawyer to give you the keys to the safe on the day you can't reach me .
I am sorry I'm leaving you all alone; it's solely my fault and the crooked life I was living.
It was never my intention to leave you so little to believe in.
I know you came in that night and saw your mother bleeding.
It was a little fight, but before I knew it, she was on the floor and was barely breathing.
I was drunk that night, like most other nights, and I acted without clear reasoning.
I am sorry for the pain I caused you, and also for making you lie to the police so they could believe me.
I'm very sorry and I wish you could forgive me.
I decided to leave this message in a green bottle to remind you not to live like I did.
I know you love to write, so I told my friend Stach about you.
And He said he would be there to help you whenever you need him.
To you, my son
Ayo Bamidele
Image Source: Wattpad
Ogbanje
Tega would go the ends of the earth to keep her rocky secret a secret. The Iyi-uwa, it might very well look like a tired talus, an appendage that she had to drag with her alongside her heavy cast of bones and flesh. But still, it served as her only chance back Home, back to the freeing she craved for. If the Iyi-uwa was crushed, she would be caught between nowhere and everywhere.
So, as she journeyed, for the fifth time, through the Road leading up to her mother's womb, her spirit mates tugged at her. They feared that like the rest of them, she would be incised and branded on the chest, till her only escape was to betray out the Iyi-uwa.
But, Tega knew where to keep her secret safe. Rather than hide it under trees, she would grind her iyi-uwa into powder, sift it into the bottle of alcohol her soon-to-be father would drink till he gulped down every bit of it. So that to find her, they would, first, have to kill him.
She was an Ogbanje, after all, and with that, came the power to unfurl a secret and stash it into a bottle.
A brilliant extrapolation of the Ogbanje myth. We Africans don't need dragons and Game of Thrones all the time; we have our own mythologies, our own spirits and powers and mystical traditions that can be mined for some really original fiction.
The gangster's debt
It's the eighties and modernity is at its height in New York. Large and ostentatious buildings are everywhere. The demolitions of old buildings occur almost daily. In an old house in New York, some workers were preparing the house to be demolished. In the basement, it was noticeable that the floor was irregular, indicating that something had been buried. When digging, they found a pit filled with 30 sealed wooden boxes, with a printed symbol that read "Demerara rum." When taking out the first box and opening it, there were many bills and a large transparent bottle, inside which was a paper.
The foreman took out the paper and read it: "Dear Capone, I am sending you 29 boxes of the best Caribbean rum. In this box is the payment of the $ 200,000 that I owed you... the debt is paid ". The message was signed by "Lucky". The foreman realized that in his hands had a document that implicated the mobsters Al Capone and Charly "Lucky" Luciano and dated from the 1920s, the era of alcohol prohibition in the United States.
Shipwreck in the Mediterranean
I am a sad and aimless boatwoman alone in the confines of the world . In this desert island I found this bottle and graphite;I was on a journey through the middle of the Mediterranean because I could not bear living in a country at war, but the boat sank; thankfully fate helped me survive. I really prefer the silence of this island , only the birds are heard, the wind swirls with the trees and the noise of the waves which, in addition to this beautiful sky in which the stars shine with an unimaginable brightness that inspire me to continue living. I eat fruits, fish and drink water from the springs, this island is a paradise.
If you find this letter, please come save me, so I can get to tell the world the fateful thing about living in war and the wonderfulness of peace that this discovered nature brings, without any more,
Amira
The grandfather’s gift
In my grandfather’s house was a liquor bar, it was the most complete that I had seen. The day of my 12th birthday, he told me: "This bottle of 1980 wine is yours; you’ll drink it in my memory the day of my death". It was a very sad gift for what it meant, and he told me that I should be happy, because with that gift I would always remember him.
One winter Sunday, I received the news of my grandfather's death. The rain and my tears were one. When I arrived at the grandfather's house, I remembered the gift he had left me. I went to the bar and took the bottle of wine. I noticed that the bottle was very light, and I realized that it had already been opened and inside the bottle there was a paper. I pulled the paper out and as I read it, the tears kept rolling down my cheeks. My grandfather wrote: "Dear grandson, my soul is still alive in the Chevrolet Bel Air 1958 that is now yours ... I love you".
That coastal city, had been hit several times in the last century by earthquakes and tsunamis, however, the mayor had decided to move the center of climate research to a much more modest headquarters to build on that land, a shopping center.
In the work of earthworks, the workers found an old bottle of Orange Crush that contained a kind of papyrus, which they decided to keep to try to sell it to a collector. At noon, they told the supervisor of the work that the sheet of paper they had taken from the bottle had a series of dates and times, that he would check them when he could to determine if they had any meaning.
The supervisor left at noon to his home to help his eldest son with a task about earthquakes in the area. That afternoon there was a tsunami that devastated more than a third of the city, including the construction area. The supervisor surprised by his good luck remembered the papyrus he had in his pocket reading with panic, next to the date of the day that was about to end, a sadly famous hour for the city and the country, 2:19 p.m.
I’m a young woman lost on a desert island, I arrived here by swimming after the ship that was supposed to take me on a journey from South America to Norway sank. I’m the only survivor.
I thank god that I arrived to this beautiful island in the middle of nowhere, I ignore its location, the only thing I’m sure of is that the ship was navigating the North Sea but due to the cold waters and the electric storm it sank. I had bought a third class ticket to see my beloved Froilan that now lives in Norway to seek for a better life for the both of us.
I write this letter in the hopes that the one who finds it makes it public so it can reach to you, my dear Froilan. My heart and mind are with you always. I wake up every morning and I’m reminded of you by watching the wonderful waters and splendid blue sky. I miss you.
I hope that you can find me, I know you will. I know you will cross lands and seas to make our love come true once again.
Source of Image: http://people.com/celebrity/14-year-old-maine-teen-gets-message-in-a-bottle-from-spain/
https://steemit.com/contest/@karinanunez/stach-short-story-contest-22-i-wait-for-you-my-dear-froilan
Hope alive
Looking away from the horizon a beautiful sunset on the beach, with fragile feelings to flower of skin, a tender look of girl in me, feeling the soft breeze brush my skin as the sweetest of kisses , my mind embodied the memory of that being beloved whom I miss so much. I write my feelings through a few lines and seal their destination in a bottle that navigates the corners of the seas with the hope of being found by I that person I who yearns to see again
My tears come from the depths of my heart, cleaning my cheeks and venting all the pains of my cruel destiny that separated me from you that morning when you you went from this same place with a smile that illuminated your face and with a warm kiss you i showed my soul. I remember your lips like it was yesterday when you promised me you would come back.
My gray hair and my wrinkles are proof that I'm still waiting for your return, The sun shine every morning, is the hope to find you and hug you once more
The top of success.
On the top of a mountain was a treasure, all those who dared to go for it ended up failing, since they all trusted what the story written by their ancestors said. They wrote that those who follow their steps would reach the top of the top and get the treasure that hid a very valuable secret, the secret to success and be happy.
One day a boy with a different ideology arrived, he started the trip without saying anything, and without getting carried away by the story. They spent sunny days and very cold nights. One morning the boy arrived in the village, very serene, quite cheerful and his energy was incredible. I look for a speaker and shouted calling everyone. Once gathered, he said: The treasure most sought by all of us has been achieved, it is not as they painted it in history; It is a pot with a paper inside that says the following: To be successful, believe in yourself. Create your way and just enough to really enjoy each experience to be happy. Sincerely: A divergent.
Words:181
The Lost Soul
Dwayne lived in Florence, he was vast in all skills. He was an engineer, a writer, a physician, an artist...name it! He was skilled. One morning, he peeped out his window and just next to his, he saw the most beautiful being on earth. He was amazed at such beauty and at once, he rushed to make a painting of this ravishing soul. So he did a quickie and with the painting was a message...
Hoping to give it to her the next day, he made his move. When he got to the so called apartment he taught she stayed in, he was told she had left just some minutes before he came and they told him that she was heading towards a certain location. At once, he ran after her. He boarded a ship to the location. While on the ship, he bottled the message and cased the painting.
At night, the tide became intensed and wrecked the ship and everyone died on the ship that day, leaving the message bottled and forever lost on the sea.
Nathaniel,
I know I haven't been the best of persons lately with all that has happened. However, if I tell you what has happened to me, you will be shocked.
I decided to take a trip round the world to see countries with rich cultural heritage. Do not get me started on the food, it was amazeballs. The aesthetics were unlike what we are used to and I must say, I don't plan on returning to where I call home.
But, as I passed the island of Fiji, a terrible storm started and wrecked my ship. Luckily for us, we were able to take refuge on the island. In the past 3 months, I've become built, killed a snake, killed a boar (though the boar almost killed me too), learnt survival skills to last a lifetime, and, have had no human interaction.
I send this to you in a bottle in the hopes that it reaches you and you send help to get me off this goddamn island.
Samuel.
The bottle was intercepted by a seagull and Samuel was never saved
BOTTLED MESSAGE
Remmy had become a major part of tatiana's life, her best friend forever, he was always there when she needed him, in times of happiness and in times of sorrow, she had gone through countless failed relationships, she had bad luck with men, she was done with men, she needed another companion, a true one, that's when she found remmy, yes remmy was a cat.
But recently remmy had been behaving strange, he kept hopping onto her breast whenever they were together, and she kept wondering what would make her cat behave so immoral. She was sitting with remmy on the couch today when he suddenly hopped onto her breast and bit her so hard that she cried in pain.
She immediately went to the hospital to treat the injury, seeing the wound, the doctor decided they do a scan to see how far his teeth went. When the results came, they saw the depth of remmy's teeth (it did no damage) but they also found a tumor, tatiana had early stage breast cancer.
She was shocked, then she understood everything, remmy was a special cat, it was his way of sending her a message, he saved her life.
New communication system.
These were two islands far from the urbanization, where there was no type of satellite signal, could not communicate by cell phones, or via internet. One of the islands (LocoLand) was quite populated and many families were separated in that environment, since due to the lack of housing they were in need and enabled a new call "Soledad". Many families, friendships, were divided and with the passing of time one of those inhabitants had a great idea. He created his own work to cover expenses, tried to be the messenger of these two islands and although he did not have a boat or lanhcas for his poverty, he decided to be the one that crossed swimming from one island to another, carrying the messages of his clients. So that the letters do not get wet I look for containers or bottles of plastics and thus to reuse those materials. He was the creator of that communication system called Bottled Message.
"Do you have the money?"
I replied, my voice shaking
"I need to know she's with you. Give me something. Let me know that you have her", I replied as the Cops had instructed me.
"No questions if you want your wife back alive"
"I need to know she's with you and she's alive. I want proof".
The voice chuckled.
"Very well then, I will send you a message, a message that can only come from your wife. Come to your junction in 30 minutes".
I rebuffed the questioning glances of the cops quietly. At precisely 30 minutes, a bike drove up and dropped a package. I was out the door and racing to the junction. I saw the package and tore it open to find a clear bottle. I took one look at the contents and threw myself to the right, hurling the contents of my stomach.
I walked back to the house crying as the cops picked up the bottle with the proof inside. On the body of the bottle was a glued note with the words hastily scrawled:
"You wanted proof, here's one"
He sent me a message alright, my wife's middle finger.
[196 Words]
Nice one, sounds like a snippet from Hollywood 😁
A renowed pirate named xaxo marpho found a map that would lead him to treasures unimaginable;on one of his escapades. So he steeled himself to embark on a long perilous journey across the sea. He chose the best of his crew to take on the task. He chose sorcerers ,skilled fighters,path finders and other formidable individuals. The best and swiftest of his ship was selected to sail them across the red narrow sea. They were met with a succession of obstacles and challenges. They encountered phantoms,
sea monsters and goblins. And they defeated them all. They were very close to getting their prize when even the sea became an enemy. The sea reared up and transformed into different shapes and forms.They were surrounded on all sides. The evil before them;proved great and mighty,too mighty for even great Xaxo marpho and his formidable crew. Xaxo marpho had the premonition that the end was near. He could feel it in his guts. The ship was breaking into splinters;sinking rapidly. His crew members were being swallowed whole by the sea before his very eyes.In the teeth of despair;He bottled up the map, with a message written upon it, saying:"finder... Keeper".
A Mad Man Trapped on an Island
He said
"I talked to the trees, the bushes, the lizard that was eating the dragon fly. Even the dragon fly before it died said the samething. That I should let everyone feel my rap!! I was stock in this island for close to what seemed like three weeks but it had one thousand and ninety five days. What am I say? That's about three years to be exact, stock here in this island. Ever since I landed in the backyard of Wakanda no one has come to find me, cause they know I'll be up to some revolutionary lines. Just wait for me to write them down and they thought I was supposed to be a doctor because of small distinction in all the courses. Don't worry I'll bottle my rap as a message and throw into the high sea. It will make more money than any Igbo man's container."
Then he quickly wrote thre words down put it in a coca cola bottle and threw it at the psychiatrist.
They knocked on her door a couple of times, nor did the insistent call make her get out of the bed in which she had buried her dreams several weeks ago, she felt like a forgotten old rag doll, forgotten by the world and forgotten by God.
Everything had changed for her the day when she received "the message" in a small shiny glass bottle.
He was so small, so helpless... at night she still heard his laughter trapped in the walls and that killed her slowly. It was still October, the bitter autumn that took away everything she loved.
For her the obsession that he had with pirates, ships and shipwrecked was always a bit theatrical. Finding that bottle on his bed with his suicide letter left her adrift, lost in the middle of an island of pain, depression and loneliness.
She got out of bed, took a deep breath and broke the bottle that she kept like a treasure; the letter fell to the ground along with the pieces of glass. She pressed vertically on her wrists the sharp tips and she let the blood begin to come out, waiting anxiously to reunite with her son.
Fuente
El mensaje de las 8 botellas
Diana como siempre. Dispuesta a continuar con su aventura de conseguir la respuesta sobre cómo llegar a ser una maestra de luz.
Pasaba de un grupo a otro, y así hasta que, un día, como cualquier día, se encontró con Merquisedec, un angel de Dios:
Ve a Canaima, Venezuela y busca entre las tribus las ocho botellas, cada una tiene un mensaje.
Reinició su aventura. Fue de tribu en tribu: Kanwaripa, Kavac, Wareipa, La Maloca, Santa Cruz de Apauken y otros. En cada uno se quedó para conocer su cultura y así averiguar la existencia de las bolletas.
Por fin, reunió las ocho botellas, cada una enumerada y con su color muy particular. Ninguna era igual. Por lo tanto, se fue al Salto Angel, considerado por sus maestros un vórtice de energía.
Botella Mensaje
1 Irradia: amor, ecuanimidad, compasión y gozo
2 Busca la unidad del todo
3 Prepárate para recibir conocimiento
4 Ten pensamientos de esperanza
5 Déjate llevar a los cielos
6 Reconcíliate con la familia espiritual
7 Regocíjate por nuestros logros
8 Permite la transformación
Diana fue pensando en cada mensaje sintiendo una paz, que la llevó a ser parte del uno y del todo.
hello friends all! where ever you are. I will tell you my experience at school. I went to school wearing my school distance of 3 km. just 2 weeks i school. my bike is stolen
LOVE ENDURES.
It was the 25th of December in year 2017, and we were all on the beach having a good time, when my mother dragged I and my younger sister to where used to be her private spot with her husband(my dad) before they divorced. It wasn't long before we started playing with the sand from the beach when my hand came in contact with a solid material. Out of curiosity, I brought it up, lo and behold! It was a bottle, with a note in it.
It reads:
" Dear Eunice,
I have loved you all my life, and why would I stop now? You are the mother of my kids, the dawn when I wake, and the twilight of my life.
I will always love you, and I never cheated on you. I know one day you will find this letter, and you would realise I would love you even to my grave.
Love, Ben "
It was my dad's letter to my mom. A message in a Bottle hidden in the sand for sixteen years. When I was through reading it, my mom could not hold back her tears.