Warning!
This is not a winning entry to the challenge. Reasons are several:
The author of the story does not belong to marginalized groups recognized by Associated Press and its affiliates, followers.
The author refuses to be victimized.
The author does not belong to any winning races or the races preferred to the winning races for further wining or the nexus between the two.
The author disavows ongoing race and gender politics and ECONOMICS of it.
The author is not a faminazi. Her female characters are never frail victims. They are all crafty, having their respective ways in good, bad and ugly manners, knowing, “Nice gals never get their ways’. They do not blame misogyny, patriarchy, systematic systemic oppressions, institutional injustice, lack of equality and equity and other ways to ignore individual responsibility.
The author does not hold the above criteria with greater importance than research and study (sometimes spanning over decades), plotting, narration, choice of words and other literary crafts for creating her fictions.
The author does not care much about winning any challenge, especially subjective ones like literary or artistic challenges, though the author appreciates critique. Because, the author could barely understand that the existence is transient.
Hence, Have Fun.
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I have first seen the painting, "The Great Wave of the Coast of Kanagua" by Katsushika Hokusai, shared along with the prompt of June 2021 by WEP, “The Great Wave”, in my undergraduate Physical Geology text book of my Geology (Major) curriculum. It was associated with the lessons on Tsunami.
Later as a postgraduate student of Disaster Mitigation, I learnt a story about disaster preparedness and mitigation in the time of Tsunami. I am sharing the story next.
The Japanese Old Man Who Saved the Village by Burning the Harvest
In a Japanese villages, the villagers used to lay their crops on the hillock for drying. An old man of the village used to be in charge of safekeeping of the crops on the hill, while other villagers used to be busy in preparing themselves for upcoming harvest and crop seasons.
One afternoon the old man on the hillock, while taking care of the harvest thereof, saw that the ocean was receding. Wasting no time, he started a fire on the hillock peak. Seeing the fumes, the villagers from all directions rushed to douse the fire and save their harvest. As soon as the entire village climbed the hillock a tsunami smashed on the village, drowned it and washed it away to the ocean.
The villagers were alive on the hillock. They rebuilt the village. Part of the harvests, too, were saved.
All of it was possible, because of the old man’s experience of receding ocean. The lives saved by the old man at the cost of a little of the harvest, brought many prosperous years to the village. The village remembered the old man’s presence of mind.
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Next is my story on the prompt “The Great Wave”.
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Swept Away
In our archipelago, Ignatio, in North to South lying four Eastern islands, people were purple during the day and red during the night. They were called Ds. In the nine islands, from North to South, along Western flank, people were pink during the day and silver during the night. They were Cs. In between these islands were eight islands populated with people who were always grey and called Gs.
Scientists from continents collected DNA samples from the entire archipelago and analyzed. Later, they reported that Ds people had different ions in analogous positions of their DNA compared to Gs and Cs. These ions belonged to a continent afar suggesting a continental drift during geological past.
In Cs DNA those ions were substituted by the ions of similar sizes found commonly in the minerals of Western boundary of Ignatio. In Gs, those ions were absent.
Years ago, Ignatio believed that the mixing between Ds and Cs created Gs. This notion was proven wrong by the anthropologists studying birth records of people born out of the union of Ds and Cs. The offspring of mingling of Ds, Cs and Gs were either like Ds, Cs, Gs or peculiar.
Some peculiar, called Ts, used to exude pink in day and red in night. Zs used to radiate purple in day and silver in night. Some used to have no change of color but remained always mauve or teal or saffron. Others emanated green in day and yellow in night. Initially, they were grouped respectively as Ps, Bs, Es and Vs.
With passing generations, as more variations of colors cropped out by random union of all groups, it was difficult to mark them with letters of the alphabet. Hence, they all were grouped together as Qs.
Ignatio’s human history comprised lots of political fancy and bureaucratic whim over bestowing privileges to the people of different colors. Ds was the most populated and the poorest. They had the lowest per capita wealth. Cs were the richest people. They were the meanest, too, according to Gs. Because Cs always favored the Ds. Citing poverty, population size and their colors, Ds were given opportunities which were not available for Gs and some of which were available to Qs.
Obviously, Some Ds were among the richest people in the world. Some Cs were found begging on the streets of Ignatio. Gs were hard working farmers, builders, grocers, manufacturers, distributors of products and major service providers. Their businesses largely depended on bulk investment by Cs, rarely by Ds and Gs too.
In the entire archipelago there was always hostility towards Cs. They were often attacked and hacked to death by gangs of Qs, Ds and Gs. Those killings usually revealed that the killed Cs was a thief or counterfeiter of currencies. Mob violence in our archipelago had always been justified.
Properties belonging to all people were targeted and destroyed, in the name destroying Cs who reportedly profited by enslaving Ds, Gs and Qs, hence, must be avenged. Though it was always kept under the rug that Ds kept on enslaving Gs, Cs, Qs and Ds until now.
I was studying our geologic past. I did not learn much, but got an idea that this archipelago and the whole Earth has never been static. These were always changing, not only in terms of people and power, riches and destitution, but also, with respect to mountains and oceans.
Occasional tremor in Ignatio taught us that all these islands were borne of igneous activities of Earth. Then, continental people published that the tremor patterns of Ds were different compared to the rest of Ignatio. It was established knowledge that mineral chemistry of Ds were different compared to the rest of Ignatio. Intrigued by these facts, my research guide suggested a study along Western shore of Ds.
Our study revealed that Ds were separated from the rest of Ignatio by an unfathomable trench. Probably, the oceanic plate beneath Ds was sliding beneath one lighter plate to its West and melted in Earth’s mantle, consequently, oozing out on Western oceanic plate the rest of Ignatio.
The anthropologists taking cue from our studies started trying to prove that the Ds were the most ancient people on Ignatio. Some political groups started voicing for more privileges for this most ancient population on Ignatio.
Once, the never ending tremors beneath my feet, for over a month, told me that some devastating changes could be on the way. Either the Ds will cease to exist and will be drowned beneath the rest of Ignatio, into the Earth’s mantle. Or, the entire archipelago would cease to exist, probably by being blown to pieces by a huge igneous explosion, with ashes, bombs and other rock fragments of the explosion completely covering Ds.
Anyway, we needed evacuation to continents. Richest ones fled by private aircrafts. Some rented airplanes. Those who depended on the Government were boarded on a ship along with convicts and patients of mental asylums. Doctors and health workers had separate flights. So patients on the ships remained unattended. Law enforcement officials were evacuating people. So there were no guards to control the convicts.
From my research copter, one morning, I saw that the ocean was receding East of Ds. I alerted the control copter for final evacuation. They remotely turn on a siren to alert if anyone still remaining in Ignatio. My thermal images pointed out many people in the Ds, a few in the Cs and some in the Gs. I informed their locations to rescue copters. Those people were identified to be convicts scavenging on assets and fighting among themselves over the shares.
Before all of them could be rescued, most of Ds was submerged under a giant wave as high as hundred and twenty feet. Half of Gs was flooded. Cs suffered some damages.
The ship returned.
When half a decade later the entire archipelago burst into an igneous heap, people of Ignatio got the colors of continents along with its history, culture and politics.
