Module #3 - "MANIFESTATIONS" - Spring 2021

[Prof. Sindor Aloyarc]

Welcome to the Module 03 "Manifestations" thread! Write some kind of a Short Story or Poem that revolves around this month's Power ("Scroll-and-a-Half" / 150 words). Let those creative juices flow! In addition to submitting via e-mail, you are encouraged to post these publicly here. While this will not effect your points, it will encourage interactions by providing additional options for people to to connect on, particularly for those who take part in the "Mingling" portion of this month's exercises if they enjoy or relate to your work and choose to talk about something you've shared.

[Carrie Warts]

Fukunori was a young boy from Japan. He grew up with a traditional family and had always had issues with his father, he wanted more freedom but his culture, tradition, and father would not give him what he wanted so he made the decision to go abroad as an exchange student to a country on the other end of the world for him.
His father and family were proud of this decision for it was going to help him get to experience a new culture and make him appreciate his own a bit more.
While on the plane to his destination he felt courageous, strong, and hopeful about this experience for he had heard so much about the culture he was going to be staying at for a year... until he arrived.
The family that hosted him was also very traditional, not serious, and had a different scheme to his own back home. He had to learn an entirely different language, learn entirely different costumes, and learn how to deal with the different emotions he was finding within himself, it was all quite the adventure and put him on the edge many times.
By the end of his experience, he was sad for he had grown a big love for this family that loved him back as their own, but it was time for him to go back.
As he was landing in the airport back home after having had some good 20 something hours of flight he came to the realization that he had not been courageous in taking the decision to go abroad. Instead, he had escaped from what he couldn't change and came to the conclusion that coming back home, facing his culture, his father, and talking to him about how he felt was going to be what would give him the push to be courageous and to be able to follow his dreams without a huge emotion weight bag on his back.

[Prof. Will Lestrange]

It had been five days since the flood ravaged the area and destroyed the bridge that used to take me from my quiet riverside home into the town. I had not left my house since the flood; however, I was beginning to run low on supplies. From my window, I could *see* life go on as usual on the other side of the bridge... but how would I get there? The stream was only about fifty paces wide, and normally it barely rose deeper than my ankle height - but would that still be the case now?

Knowing that I would eventually need to cross the stream to avoid starving to death, I mustered up all of my courage (and cunning) to come up with a plan. Stepping outside my house, I snapped a branch, approximately three feet in length, off of a nearby tree. This branch would be my guide: before I took a new step, I would hold onto the branch and use it to test the depth of the water. If I could get one end of the branch to touch the ground while the other end of the branch stuck out of the water, I knew the water was less than three feet deep and therefore safe to step on. If I could not manage this task, I would need to try a different location for the branch.

And so I set out: branch, foot, branch, foot. The first ten paces were as usual; only my feet and shoes got wet. But then, the branch warned me of a sharp slope ahead. Only an inch or two of the branch extended out of the water when I tried to make my next pace, and sure enough, when I made the step, the water went halfway up my thigh. It took me five different tries to place the branch to make my next pace, but eventually I discovered that if I made a right turn, the stream bed would slope upwards. I continued this way for a few more paces until the water receded just below my knees. At that point I turned left, directly facing the opposite bank... and the stick told me that the water would stay just below knee height for my next step. And that's exactly what happened: the riverbed stayed more or less flat for the rest of my trek! Sometimes it would go just above my knees; sometimes it would stay just below... but there was no real change in slope until I reached the opposite shore.

Having reached the shore, I noticed a crowd applauding my successful journey across. While it took courage to make it that far (and even to face that crowd wearing wet socks, shoes, and pants, and my courage was finally recognized... it did not make sense to return home until the bridge was finally repaired. Instead, I chose to stay at an inn on the busier side of the stream... and, of course, swap out my clothes for an outfit that wasn't soaked by floodwaters!

[NOTE: This story is based on a real flood that happened in the US state of Virginia almost two years ago. It took nearly half a year for all the roads involved to get rebuilt!]