Volcano story part 1

Once upon a time there was a town terrorized by a volcano. The volcano’s name was Stratossal, but the villagers cursed his name as Strats. Strats lived on the east side of the village, blocking out the morning sun with his enormous figure. He was a pyromaniac and relinquished fire-balls on the village without warning. His temper wasn’t kept in check, leading to violent eruptions of searing gas and suffocating waves of ash. Periodically, he caused the earth to shake and buildings to crumble. Consequently, it was difficult to sell real estate on the east-side.

The village was named Lowly. The latest census reported a total of 1000 men, 1000 women, and 1500 children. This story takes place in an age with primitive technology, so think mud huts, animal-skin clothing, and spears. Life was simple. In the morning you’d tend to your crops and livestock, in the afternoon you’d re-build your crumbled home, and in the evening you’d bury your dead family members. Life wasn’t good, but at least it was consistent.

One day, a group of 12 angry men was helping to rebuild the recently destroyed Hut Depot. 
“You know what makes me mad?” said Angry Man #1.
“Racial inequality?” guessed Angry Man #2.
“No. That b**ch volcano over there.” fumed Angry Man #1. Multiple angry men chimed in their agreement.
Angry Man #2 nodded his head, “Yeah, I guess it really has destroyed our quality of life and made it impossible to climb the hierarchy of needs.”
The group gave Angry Man #2 a blank stare before Angry Man #1 shouted, “We need to take action. The volcano needs to be dealt with now.” 
“We could all move,” offered Angry Man #2, but no one heard him.
The rest of the group was overcome in a crazy-eyed, mob mentality. They started to shout and smash the nearby environment. Suddenly, the 11 angry men were garbed in their fighting tunics with spears in hand. They charged the volcano. “Death to the ogre!”
Angry Man #2, now Confused Man #1, watched as his friends sprinted up the mountain.

Their adrenaline carried the angry men to the rim of the volcano. If it wasn’t a story, the journey from the village to the volcano would have taken an entire day, but since it is, it only took them one transitional sentence. The volcano was asleep when they arrived.
“Look,” said Angry Man #3 pointing to something floating within the steaming volcano. The something floating was a fiery orb, roughly the size of a toaster.
“That’s the heart. If we destroy it, the volcano will die.” said Angry Man #4.
“How do you know that?” asked Angry Man #5. “And what’s a toaster?”
Angry Man #4, for a brief moment, looked at the fourth wall. He put down his lines, which contained the expositional dialogue. “Uh… I just know. You’ve got to trust me.”
“Ok sure,” said Angry Man #5. “We’ve got to be strategic about this - we’ve got one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. All we have is the element of surprise. No one make any rash decisions.”
Suddenly, Angry Man #1 made a rash decision. He hurled his spear at the volcano’s heart. The smart approach would have been for all the men to throw their spears together. The spear grazed the outside of the heart and Strats woke.

If you’ve never had your heart grazed by a spear, it’s painful. Like, life and death type of pain.  Strats exploded. Faster than the speed of sound, a thick barrel of lava shot into the sky. The fury of the blast leveled the top of the volcano as the funnel of fire expanded. When the sound caught up with the blast, it shook the earth among other planets. It was the most violent eruption in the last 100 years. The eyebrows of the 11 angry men were burnt off. And the rest of the hair on their body was burnt off. Their skin. Their muscles. Their skeletons. Their future life expectancy dropped from 10 years to 0 years (i.e., they died).

At a leisurely pace, the villagers started to jog for their lives.
“Dad, I think we need to evacuate,” said a child, aware of the severity of the problem.
“No sweetie, it’s probably a drill,” said a dad, unaware.
“It’s raining lava though.”
“Look on the bright side, it could be magma.”
“By definition, it can only be lava. Magma is on the inside of the earth… The entire city is crumbling.”
“I’ll concede it’s not ideal, but there’s no need to panic.”
“Dad.”
“Yeah Sweetie.”
“Your arm is melting off.”
The dad sighed, before putting his foot down, which at this point was just a stub. “The body regrows, but home is forever. We’re not leaving.”
The child’s eyes teared up. She loved her dad. “Ok. I trust you. What’s that in the distance?” 
The what in the distance was a wave of suffocating ash and poisonous gas. It killed the dad and the child as it engulfed the village. All those that hadn’t evacuated were killed.

Insert line that signifies the passage of time.

A diminished community sat around a campfire. The population consisted of: 100 men, 100 women, and 200 children. The camp was leagues away from the ruins of a past life; however, the volcano could still be seen on the horizon. The meeting had been called to discuss the next course of action. 

The leader of the group stood up. With authority, he began to slowly speak, "I look around this group and see a bunch of losers. I see people who have lost limbs. I see people who have lost family. Collectively we have lost our home. For many of us, we have nothing left to lose. Not even our lives are counted as valuable. But this makes us dangerous." The leader emphatically pointed at the volcano. "Our enemy will fight for what he has taken, but we, we will never stop fighting. Today marks the beginning of his end. We are coming for our revenge. We are going to war." 

Begin training montage. Every man, woman, and child was given a spear. The game plan: one of those spears would pierce the heart of Strats. The group trained for the length of one upbeat song. The song itself lasted for 3 minutes which equated to 3 months of actual training. By the end of the song, all 300 spears had transitioned from pointy sticks to lethal weapons. 

‘Isn’t that 100 spears short?’ you (the reader) may be asking yourself because you’re good with math (100 men + 100 women + 200 children = 400 spears). Yes, that is 100 short. Some members of the group had a falling out. They argued that the group had neither the manpower nor fighting expertise to take on a volcano. ‘Wouldn’t it just be easier to move somewhere far away?’ ‘Plus we dislike the idea of little Suzie as a child soldier.’

To these nay-sayers, the leader of the group said, “There’s the door. You can leave.”
“You’re saying you’ll let us leave peacefully and not have to go to war against an immovable, all-powerful, inanimate object?”
The leader frowned. “No. You know what. You weaklings are all banished. Get out of my sight.”
“Ok, cool…” said the minority group. “I think we’re all on different pages, maybe different books, but good luck with your war.”

After the 100 left, the remaining 300 gathered for a last hurrah. Some motivational words were said. Along the lines of “Tonight we dine in hell” or “But they will never take our freedom” or how about “Today we celebrate our independence day.” The last one didn’t quite apply, but d**n it sounded good. Suddenly where once stood 300 survivors, now stood 300 fighters, spears in hand. They charged the volcano. “Nothing to lose!”

To be continued…

(because sleep is important and I have to clean beforehand. My friend is staying for the week, so I figure I should clean the moldy dishes before he arrives. 

You know you’re a messy person when “dirty dishes” is an improvement to the current situation.

You know you’re a messy person when you arrive home and initially think someone ransacked the apartment, but then remember it was just you and your bad habits.

You know you’re a messy person when your trash can has a 32-gallon capacity.

Anyways, I’m going to finish the volcano story later. A little foreshadowing, the volcano is going to win.)