This week's writing exercise is about a Shougi (Japanese chess) proverb. It is right up my alley because I have a fanfiction series about Shougi proverbs going on on AO3. If you're interested you can read it
here.
Moreover I wanted to try some contemporary fiction. So I chose to settle this writing exercise in the same world as the WIP I talked about in my vlog
Contemporary Coincidents. The exercise is written from a different POV though, but it lets you catch a glimpse at what I'm doing there with my WIP.
Here it is:
2016/03/07 – Start the fight with
a pawn sacrifice. (Japanese Proverb)
At the end of the century things
were bound to happen.
The federal state of Dimmucria had
always had very terse relationships with their Upsurdistanian
neighbours. Both states were part of a confederation, the League of
Lumberjia, and yet in parliament they liked to oppose each other on a
regular basis. Their political squabbling rooted in centuries old
traditions, it seemed, when the nations had not yet been founded and
native tribes had roamed the lands. To the present day Upsurdistan
and Dimmucria were rivals and disagreed in every which way.
The other member states of the
League of Lumberjia were used to their antics and sidled with either
of them depending on the issue at hand. None took their spats
seriously.
It wasn't until the financial crisis
in Upsurdistan and Dimmucria's refusal to shoulder their neighbour's
debts that the League stirred in fear of being swept by the crisis.
They had to react fast. Many emergency meetings of the governments
were held; hard debates about the responsibilities of the
confederation for their member states' well-being were fought,
embargoes and bailout packages were granted, then denied and again
considered.
Every day the media reported new
incidents now.
In Dimmucria people marched against
those packages while the Kingdom of Upsurdistan faced protests by the
unemployed masses against the embargoes. Workers were migrating to
the economically thriving Dimmucria while Upsurdistan's banks were
sliding into bankruptcy. Upsurdistanian oil prices drowned like a
sinking ship. The League of Lumberjia stayed indecisive and struggled
for unity. Dimmucria's chancellor Boyana Firfeller and Upsurdistan's
prime minister Jie Song met time and again to try and mend the
differences, but parted offended.
Solutions
to the crisis were
yet to be found.
A
radical nationalist party, the “Beagles”, formed in Dimmucria and
shocked the nation during the Easter elections by gaining those
fifteen percent of the votes which both major parties, the
conservative “Bears” and the labour party “Wolfs”, had lost.
The
financial minister of Upsurdistan resigned on short notice and all
but fled the country. The
summer was heated by minor riots in Upsurdistan's streets, mostly
cars and shops were damaged. Then around Halloween a
group of Dimmucrian tourists were insulted and assaulted in
Upsurdistan's capital Allnear.
Fires
were started at a bi-national steel manufacturing firm near the
Dimmucrian borders on Christmas. There
was a huge commotion in both countries.
Finally on the
last day of the century all of Lumberjia was shocked by the
pictures of blown and burning skyscrapers, screaming people jumping
out of windows and droning rescue helicopters flooding
the TV screens; the financial district of Riverdale, the capital of
Dimmucria, was attacked by a bomb. Hundreds of people died, and even
more were injured. A country was in mourning.
It was then, when
the financial motor of the League of Lumberjia was targeted and many
people lost their lives in blood and fire, that the nations snapped
out of it and all eyes turned to the Federation of Maddaloon. There
the civil war and military regimen had finally bared their ugly fangs
to all of what the League stood for. Freedom, human rights and
liberty. And suddenly there was unity, suddenly the crisis became
secondary to the imminent events. Sometimes all it needed for
differences to be temporarily overcome were a common purpose, a
threat to life or principles, and a sudden impact you couldn't
ignore; all it needed was to start
the fight with a pawn sacrifice to
unite what used to be fractured.
And
so all of Lumberjia suddenly was at war.
