Writing Exercise 013

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.