A Royal Family
Five princes and their mother, the queen, were looking for a new palace, and the royal real estate agent had found a great deal for them. The king and other princes had already checked it out for them, and so they went ahead and moved into their new home. It was a lovely palace: it had high ceilings, was open-concept, and had shiplap walls throughout.While hanging out with his friend, one of the princes saw a commercial on television that made him think. The commercial had a fearsome tone, and talked about how you can get mesothelioma from being exposed to asbestos, a common building material in old houses and other structures. After watching this, the prince went to his new home and set about investigating the walls and ceilings of the palace. One of the planks of shiplap was a bit loose, and when he peeked under the crack it left between the exposed wall, he saw a lot of small fibers that looked a lot like the asbestos in the commercial he watched earlier that day. The prince went to his trusted aide, and discussed what he had seen.
The asbestos the prince may have seen, Source: Wikimedia
The aide and the prince suspected that the palace had not been inspected before the royal family had purchased it. Normally, a lot more due diligence would have been put into such a purchase, as the royal family had a lot of power and wanted to protect their interests. The prince decided that the King and the princes who stayed at the original palace must have been trying to attack their health, but very slowly over time so they would not be found out. To avoid raising suspicion, the prince instructed that he wanted to build a rocket launch pad outside, but to keep it discreet so nobody would find out. The best rocket scientists in the land came to the prince's aid, and they worked nights to make sure the rocket and the launch pad were built to specification. They built all of this in a forest behind the palace as it provided enough cover to protect the project from the eyes of the evil king and his sons.
Finally, after a year of working on the rocketry project it was ready for launch. At night all five princes and the queen got in the rocket and then it blasted off into the night sky, scorching the surrounding forested area in the process and leveling the house to dust. The rocket was not designed to reach orbit, but was rather pointed so it could land in a far away land where the queen and her princes could be safe. While the princes and the queen lived happily ever after, the evil king and his sons were embarrassed when facing the press, as they had to explain why the princes and the queen found it necessary to go to such lengths to escape the family.
The gang blasts off to escape their situation. Source: NASA
Author's Note
My inspiration for this story was in part B of the Mahabharata, where the Pandavas and Queen Kunti move into a palace that is highly flammable. In that story they hired a miner who dug a tunnel to get out of their house. I thought that was over-the-top, so I figured why not double down and make it even more over-the-top by adding a rocket. I wanted to comment on the current state of the British Royal family, with the asbestos being the toxicity of the tabloids. It isn't important to the story if that reference is missed though, as I want my readers to enjoy the content.
Source:
PDE Mahabharata (Arnold, Besant, Devee, Dutt, Ganguli, Kincaid, Macfie, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Seeger, and Tagore.)
Source:
PDE Mahabharata (Arnold, Besant, Devee, Dutt, Ganguli, Kincaid, Macfie, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Seeger, and Tagore.)
Hi Justin!
ReplyDeleteI really like the amount of detail you were able to create within this story! For example I like how you explained what exactly the palace looked like such as with this sentence, "It was a lovely palace: it had high ceilings, was open-concept, and had shiplap walls throughout". I love a good story that uses every opportunity to provide the story with little details. I wonder what would have happened in the Prince would have never seen the commercial?? My one suggestion for your story would be to explain why they need a rocket to escape before the rocket scientist come over to help build it. I felt a little lost with this transition. Overall I love the was you changes your story and brought in modern times within it!
Hey Justin!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your version of retelling your story! It was a much more modern approach which I really appreciate and liked. Your detail in wording and overall vocabulary made it really smooth and helped me appreciate your plot and setting a lot more than just getting stuck up on the details. I also liked the imagery you included, by means of image, as it helped me understand a little more about what was going on. I appreciate your "over-the-top" method of adding a rocket to spice things up! Great job.
Hi Justin,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your story, it was written a lot of imagery which helped me picture what I was reading especially when you described how the building looked because of asbestos. The incorporation of the rocket was also pretty cool, The only advice I have is maybe to add more detail for explaining why did the evil King and his sons want to hurt their health and more on the process of the rocket being created.
Hi Justin!
ReplyDeleteYou definitely succeed in making this story even more over the top than in the original. I loved kind of how ridiculous it felt. I will say I missed the reference to the British royal family and asbestos but I think it be even more interesting if you put in the names of the royal family to make this a more overt theme and this would make the story even more over the top. I found myself asking while reading, "wait so did they just live in the house with asbestos for a year?" so it might also make sense if the asbestos is a more active threat. You could say something like "the family suffered with the asbestos constantly invading their personal space" or "the asbestos just would not leave the princes and their mother alone and there was nothing they could do" to talk about the danger/inability to leave immeadiately in a funny way.