With the long blast of a whistle, the battle began. Each team ran in opposite directions and
began to strategize. Capture the flag can be easy. But when your team consists of six boys between the ages of 10 and 12, and your
territory is an entire island, it isn’t
quite so easy.
I was a co-leader on a Junior Survivor trip, and this game was a thinly veild
attempt to wear out the kids before bedtime.
We had the whole island to ourselves and it transformed quickly from a
simple campsite to a battlefield.
We quickly formulated our plan.
Zach and I were the fastest, so we decided to go behind enemy lines
and play offence. We would be the ones to
find the flag and bring it home for the win.
Matt didn’t really want to play in the first place, so he became our jail-keeper. Then we set two people up as defense, to
guard our borders and protect our flag.
Zach and I walked to the border and weighed our options. Three guards were posted, ready to tag and jail
us if we dared cross the line. But the
border was pretty big, and they were only guarding the clear side. After a brief discussion, Zach agreed to
taunt them and be the distraction while I slipped across the unguarded
side. Something ate away at me though. Why was there no guard on the thickly wooded
side? I didn't have much time to worry about it though, our plan worked and I
was across.
Zach must have been a good distraction, because no one pursued me. I wondered if he was captured to give me this chance. That would leave only me all alone.
The day was waning, and the thick
trees blocked out most of my light. I couldn’t help but feel tense. Someone would be coming for me, I knew
it. Why had I worn bright blue that day? Brown would’ve been a much better choice. I crept along, choosing my footing so as not
to break a single twig. I listened as
hard as I could for anything that might alert me to a pursuer, but nothing
could be heard. Nothingness is always eerie
in a forest full of life.
I was pretty sure that they would keep their flag at their farthest edge,
so that they could catch us if we tried to pass. So I skirted the island, working my way to the
edge. Then I saw it. In a clearing, right out in the open, their
flag hung on a tree trunk.
That was too easy, too simple. Then
I saw Luke. He was patrolling around the
flag-crowned stump, building a barricade around it. His back was turned to me though, so I
decided to chance it.
Silly me, three people at the border, plus Luke, plus a jail-keeper only
accounted for five of the six people on the team. The team leader was still unaccounted
for.
Their team leader was Jacob. He was
a few years older than me and he played soccer in college.
Meaning? He could run, and fast.
I had waited too long, they would find me any minute, so I darted from my cover like a frightened bird and ran after their flag. In a moment,
Jacob materialized out of the same forest I had come from and began the chase. Luke was little, and I was able
to jump over his barricade easily. I
grabbed the flag from its podium, but neither stopped nor slowed to celebrate
my victory. The sound of Jacob’s pursuit
quickened my pace and I practically flew through the forest, not minding the
stinging branches.
Despite running as fast I possibly could, Jacob was gaining on me. So I began shouting. I called for Zach over and over. I yelled his name wildly through the woods,
thinking that maybe if he was still at the border then he could meet me. I could pass off the flag, relay style, and
he could bring it home.
I heard sounds from in front of me, someone was coming. When they broke through I only had a moment
to realize that they weren’t Zach – they were the border guards. With Jacob right behind me and the border
guards in front of me, I had only one choice.
Jump down to the beach on my right.
The group leaders had told us not to go on the beach; that the beach was
beyond our boundaries. I was supposed to
be a good example, set the standard.
But I figured, hey, who cares?
This is war.
So I jumped down from the edge of the forest and onto the beach below. I quickly found the wisdom in the leader’s
decision that we shouldn’t go down there.
The landing was a bit rocky. My
right foot slid painfully into a crack between two large rocks and was trapped
there irretrievably.
When my pursuers
saw my plight, they smiled a little. No
mercy for the wicked. I tried to force
my way out of the rocks, but they caught up with me first. Jacob walked over to me and took his flag. The shallow but long cut on his leg matched the one on my arm. "Nice try," he said with a smile before working his way back to replace the flag.
Once my foot was out of
the rocks, the border guards tied my hands with knots I had taught them, and led me away to
jail to plan my escape……
I'll comment on this later this weekend, but, given your problems defining villainy adequately, I thought this might give you some ideas:
ReplyDeletehttp://writerswrite.co.za/123-ideas-for-character-flaws
I'm actually working on my characters (for my November novel) today. Thanks, this should be helpful.
ReplyDeleteI think the prompt misled you. You saw it and immediately remembered the capture-the-flag battle and then you were off! Is that how it happened?
ReplyDeleteProblem is that a recounted series of events, even a series of events in battle, is a chronicle, not a narrative. There has to be something at stake in both a narrative and a battle. In this, no, it's a game.
Where the material starts to shade into narrative, it's too little, too late. But when I read about someone doing what has been forbidden them, we hark back to the first disobedience narrative in the Judeo-Christian tradition (and the Bible has many more!) And when we read about someone's foot being trapped as the tide rolls in, we (or, at least, I) think of stuff like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Collins
and this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2075725/Teenager-drowns-after-flash-flood-traps-him-in-submerged-drain.html
and this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182667/Mother-33-drowned-tide-came-getting-stuck-quicksand-day-fathers-wedding-Antigua.html
and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/127_Hours
And those trapped-foot scenarios could have very well led into narrative, but here that never develops.
ReplyDeleteSo winning the game isn't having enough at stake? Or what I wrote should've been the sounding board for more of a story?
ReplyDeleteWinning the game is not in itself anything--after all, it's only a game!
ReplyDeleteBut sit two people down playing cribbage. One of them has a chemo drip in her arm. She's a great player and skunks the other player regularly--and winning gives her immune system a boost, helps fight the cancer. That kind of winning is different.
What if her cribbage partner lucks into a few excellent hands--should he let her win so that her immune system gets its little boost? Will she be furious if she suspects he's holding back--that would not help her treatment! Maybe he gets bored since she always wins and doesn't want to play--should she let him win every so often just to keep him in the game?
Maybe they should be doing something a little more edifying and spiritual in this dark time of their lives than trying to get the right-jack.
And so on. It isn't that the flag couldn't be enough, couldn't be the heart of a narrative--it's that you haven't made it significant.
So we need better motivations? Or deeper reasoning? There is little to go on there. Maybe I should chuck it and start over.
ReplyDeleteI think you're coming at this wrong end around. A narrative doesn't need motivations or depth--it just needs itself, a tale needing to be told. Here, no, there is no urgency in the events. We get them laid out neatly but in the end there is no there there, no narrative arc, no we-have-to-find-our-way-to-X. So, yes, maybe this is a tale not needing to be told--unless there's something serious behind this:
ReplyDelete"When my pursuers saw my plight, they smiled a little. No mercy for the wicked. I tried to force my way out of the rocks, but they caught up with me first. Jacob walked over to me and took his flag. The shallow but long cut on his leg matched the one on my arm.... Once my foot was out of the rocks, the border guards tied my hands with knots I had taught them...."
Now that material has potential, could be seen as frightening, menacing. Words like 'wicked' and 'mercy' perk this reader up, and "knots I had taught them" plays with fear, irony, strangeness. What the heck kind of game is it requiring ropes and knots? Don't the players trust each other to be 'captured'?