Brdn_Nkd

I was tasked with writing a story using the following criteria and this is what happened:

Place: Bethlehem
Time: 330 A.D.
Featuring: a race of plant-human hybrids




A letter from RainDrinker to Father Jerome 330 A.D.

Father Jerome,

Our situation is dire. There was a time we were able to coexist with the people in the area but now they seek to destroy us in the name of progress. It's certainly a sad state of affairs but we are nearly defenseless against it and so we plan to make our leave of this place, our home for over seven centuries.

Sincerely yours, RainDrinker
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My family has lived here for more than seven centuries and I am saddened that it is I who will now lead the exodus from this place. The human population was once much smaller than it is now and actually embraced our presence but over time their goodwill toward us has dwindled leaving us vulnerable to abuse and attack. It's hard for me to contemplate leaving this place where all that I have known in life has happened, this place where so many before me and my seedlings after me found soil and life, and prospered.

We've been driven to exile by the humans who no longer understand us, our language, and our history among them. They see us as weeds, something to be destroyed and reviled. We fight back as we can but sadly we have never fought well.
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Father Jerome's response to RainDrinker

Dearest RainDrinker,

Do not be hasty to leave. I know your kind is being persecuted but give me time. I have already solicited an audience with the Great Constantine and hope to be able to dissuade him from his latest endeavor. So many of us have forgotten how you stood with us and for us to help the child, the one who came to save us but I hope that I can change that. Just give me time.

Your brother, Jerome
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Constantine. How I wish to have never heard the name. It is his orders that drive us from our home. He's heard the story of the child and wishes to honor him by building a church but he obviously has not heard, or maybe just doesn't believe, the whole story.

My family was already here when two Nazarenes arrived, the female ripe with child. She birthed a child who sought to spread peace and love to the world and has instead often been the name in which armies have drawn swords.

My grandfather was there for the birth and was the first of our kind to greet the child. He told me the tale many many years ago and having lived where it happened all my life I know the true story to be the true story. I have little faith though that Jerome's solicitations will accomplish anything with Constantine for I have spoken to that one personally and know that he feels we no longer honor the tradition in a way that does it justice.
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a letter from RainDrinker to Father Jerome

Dear Jerome,

I know that not all of your kind have forgotten us and that some still know the old tradition but it is time for us to leave this place. I have beseeched Constantine myself and my cries fell on def ears. We talked at great length and ultimately he told me he does not believe the old stories that include our fight to protect the child. Instead he accepts only that which the scholars have found fit to include in your bible. I know your work to translate the old scripts continues but we have no more time. I saw Constantine himself ripping some of my people from the ground today and though I cried out to him he continued imploring his workers to do the same. He knows who we are and still, knowing the uneducated workers cannot understand us or see us for what we are he demands they destroy us so that he can build the church he claims will further humanities belief in the child. It is no longer our home; we will make haste to leave this place immediately. I wish you well Father and hope that perhaps one day humanity will recognize us and embrace us but for now I say goodbye.

Love and honor always, RainDrinker
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Today I started moving my family. The road is hard and our effort appears to be for nothing. Constantine's workers have returned and have found us and we are vulnerable.
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A letter from Father Jerome to Constantine the Great

I arrived too late to stop them. I got RainDrinkers letter and immediately rushed to their aid to try to help them in their exodus but I was too late. I arrived at the birth site of the child, RainDrinker's home, only in time to watch the last of his people torn from the earth and thrown on the fire. My only hope is that some of them escaped but I saw many that I knew.

And so it is now that I will tell you their tale as I found it in the old scripts. These that you destroyed were present at the birth of the child helping the mother and father and finally protecting them when Herrod ordered the killing of all boy children. It was them that concealed the site so that the troops sent to destroy the boy child could not find the home. Many of them died in sacrifice but honored the child, seeing the hope that he brought to the world. As the story is told in the script they grew themselves larger than ever before to cover the whole site until there was naught but, what appeared to Herrod's troops, plants growing up the side of the cave wall creating a barrier too dense for the troops to penetrate. Constantine, in your desire to honor the child you've destroyed a great people who did far more honor to the child than you can ever hope to. Your disregard for the stories that they and I have tried to tell you has allowed you to desecrate something far greater than your church can hope to create. I know you to be a wise man, so what is it that has allowed you to destroy the greatest friend to our faith, the greatest friend the child ever knew?

I will tell their story as loudly as I can and for as long as I can. I suppose in the end their tale, my work, may be removed from humanities history just as you removed their kind from the face of the earth but I will do all in my power to preserve it in the hopes that some of their kind escaped your senseless massacre.

Father Jerome
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During my research I found correspondence between a Father Jerome, a Latin Father that spent thirty years translating the scriptures into Latin, and a being Named RainDrinker in 330 A.D. Father Jerome also seems to have sent correspondence to Constantine the Great and either kept drafts or regained his letters from the leader for all of it was together. My research took me to the grotto that the Father inhabited and I was permitted to go below the site into the archives. During my search for more information I found a trunk containing the translations of Jerome's detailing a whole species of beings that he claims to have been present not only during his life but at the actual birth of the Christ child. Though I doubted the words I read I continued searching the archives until I found an old metal box. When I finally gained entry to the box I found an old parchment envelope containing some seeds and one more letter.
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Father,

You have stood by us through everything and have done all in your power to try to help people remember and embrace us. You may be the last human to believe in us and understand us and so I send this correspondence with a heavy heart.

I did succeed in getting my family away from the birth site before Constantine's men arrived but I do not know if our new location can sustain us. I send to you now the last seeds I believe I and maybe the rest of my kind will be able to produce. If you find a secluded place where you think we may be able to live please plant them and tend them. These seeds may be the only hope for my race. If you cannot find such a place or a time when people might be able to embrace us then leave them, they will keep for many many centuries, perhaps someone will find them later and plant them just to see what grows. I wish you well brother and hope you find peace in your life. Thank you for all that you've done for me and my people.

RainDrinker
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I've planted the seeds. I do look forward to seeing what, if anything, grows of them. Perhaps one day, if the correspondence and stories are true, Earth's other sentient race can be restored and can live among us. Should the seeds grow I will introduce this race as Constantine's Folly in honor of those I've read about and hopefully humanity can embrace them and welcome them in this world.

WriterJohnB

I like it a lot, but. . . There's always a "but" ain't there? Should it be "Father Jerome? This sounds middle-ages, such as priests. Maybe I'm wrong, though, that's not my best-known area of history or religion.

Also there seems to be a word or two missing in the last sentence. Should the seeds grow I will this race Constantine's Folly in honor of those I've read about and hopefully humanity can embrace them and welcome them in this world.

But those are minor nits and I think you've got a great, unique tale here.

JohnB

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http://www.johnbushore.com

Brdn_Nkd

I guess I don't really know what their titles were in 330 a.d. i guess I assumed a preist was still called father then especially when I found this while looking for inspiration to work with:

from Wikipedia:

The Church of the Nativity, built by Constantine the Great in 330, stands in the centre of Bethlehem over a grotto or cave called the Holy Crypt, which according to Christian tradition is the place where Jesus was born. This is perhaps the oldest existing Christian church in the world. Close to it is another grotto, where Jerome the Latin father spent thirty years of his life in translating the Scriptures into Latin (see Vulgate).


finding this tiny piece of history gave me something to work with that I hope was entertaining or at least somewhat interesting conceptually. I wrote this within the confines of the title, the timframe, and the "feature".


and..... saldy yes I forgot a few words there. not even sure what was supposed to go there but if i can edit the story like I can this review I'll fill in the blank

shraga

Very interesting. I enjoyed how the correspondence between the two connected to modern times. I particulary like the part about Bethlehem because i live not far from there (I actuakky overlook it from my apartment)
I understood that these were some kind of plant creatures.

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Shraga Y. Weissmann
Israel
Please comment on my humorous short story Chompers Thanks!