Give me Space

A story that takes place in 17th century about the first ever telescope being delivered to a curious boy.

Venice had always been an autarky. It's culture bearing an oceanic flourish. Italy in itself was like Mother Earth's still-packaged and most-adored porcelain doll. It was until the black death--or plague as they call it, cleaved it's way through this country, leaving the doll's clothes torn off and it's face battered. Amidst the chaos, among the doll can be found coin-sized pieces from it's face that remained precious and poised. With about 2/3 of Italy in turmoil and in absolute tatter, Venice held stoic like a statue faced with an earthquake of acute strength. It's culture both impeccable and uncommon, was considered the beacon of hope to all of Europe--the lifeguard to a pool of drowning infants--the alpha male to a starving pack of wolves. There was a growing distaste for the Pope and bulk of power the Catholics had been accumulating, but my Father and Mother were set on faith and closed off their senses when I'd begin to combat their beliefs. A rebellion was building, yet longed for a size capable of defeating the gargantuan Vatican force.

We were headed home now, our place of refuge. A place we all pitched into no matter our stance on politics, religion, and other cultural conflicts. The wagon that pulled up to bring us home was precariously worn -- faded, old, and soon to be rubble. I began to imagine how many families that looked like us had rode upon it. I began to imagine how many sons had pondered the same thing as I. 

"Did you have a good time?" Dad interrupted.

"Yes" I replied, as my mind raced itself a couple marathons.

I fell back into my thought. It being a place to hide. A place for warmth. "How many others? How many...seconds...how infinite..." I pondered further. The Moon, our timekeeper, waning and waxing..waning and waxing. I had personified an image of the moon in my head as a man rocking back and forth. His snowy white beard stretching itself along the Milky Way. Then suddenly I realized we were home. Time had apparently changed it's rate of change on this wagon ride. I must have been the only one to have noticed.

"What a ride" I thought to myself.

"Ye ready to feast? For dinner approaches." Mom said.

"Aye, for I hunger for thine meal." I responded.

"Thou hast a package. " Dad said.

When we arrived at home, my attention shot at the way of the package. It was concealed in a wrap as dark as night. I brought it up to my bedroom and began opening it up. I began to furiously open up this package, keen as ever, as though I was being timed by a higher power of some sort.  When I had finally opened this resilient package, I couldn't believe what I had set my eyes on. It was the first ever model of a telescope. "Who sent this to me?" I pondered, considering the possibility of divine intervention. But I had seen enough weird things in my life to know that sometimes it's better just to flow the way of the river instead of questioning it's path. I then proceeded to grab the package, jolting to my bedroom to set it up. But before I made it all the way there, my Father had something to say.

"Art thou fain? For the package that hath come unto you?" Father inquired.

"Yea, I hath received a gift, yea by the light of God it came. A heyday he spawned: a touch of heaven I felt." I declared.

"His bestowal but a dove, or an angel - fallen from his pantheon of heavenly light." I added

I finally made it to my bedroom, and right away, I began earnestly setting up this complex contraption. My devotion unmatched by anything I had previously set my mind upon. This was my calling. This was my drive. As I kept myself busy piecing together this telescope, I simultaneously started imagining how delighted God must have been seeing me this excited for something. I had always felt like a misfitted being without any set direction. But now, the bounds of reality had been stretched much further than I had ever perceived; anything felt possible at this point. I began to imagine what I would see in the sky. Heaven? The Gods? Star children? It was like an esoteric force had pried it's way into my mind that had been crying out for answers to my honest questions. He had supplemented me with an awe-inspiring monolith that I would devote fully toward discovering the next one. The one he had set in place.

I finally set it up facing out of the right side of the mullion that divided the window. I brought forth a wooden chair to rest myself upon, comfortably, as I struck agaze. My view was blurry. Each celestial body I'd fixate my attention towards had colored haloes around them and the color was afixed with a green tint, but it was more than I had ever seen before. There was a focus toggle present on this perspicillum that I'd have to master before getting a clear view of what I was looking at. It seemed like forever until I alleviated the distortion of view, but I had finally done it. I had put myself in position to see a crisp view of the stars that looked down upon me, like birds in the sky, or angels of the night. So finally, I mounted my eye to the telescope. I saw a brawny man adorned with a white beard and long white hair to match. He was fully nude and armed with a duo of gorgeous brown-haired nymphs, with glowing eyes and bodies exposed. It immediately became clear to me that it was Zeus, the king of gods. Sovereign to the pantheon of gods and goddesses. This vision had only lasted about 5 seconds before a white light overtook my whole field of vision, blinding me completely.

When I woke up, I was located in the middle of a chapel. There was a man standing next to me with a bible in hand. I recognized him as being a priest, made clear by the white robe he wore. On the other side of my bed stood my Mom and Dad. Their faces still marked with the lines that tears had previously trailed down.

"This man revived you." Father told me.

"It was a miracle. You poisoned yourself. Why'd you poison yourself?!" Mother yelped as tears shot out from both of her eyes.

I was found on the ground with a cup in hand that apparently contained poison. My skin was tinted gray in discoloration, my clothes were off. I was bare and vulnerable, like a flower grown on an open road, likely to be trampled. After this experience, I knew of my true God. The one and only. It wasn't Zeus, the man marked with regretful affairs and accused of raping his wife. This God was perfect. This God was pure. This God was powerful. I didn't ponder much about how exactly I had poisoned and declothed, all that I knew was that it happened and that it was God. From that day forward, I was a saint of the local church. In full support of the Vatican, I was in absolute communion with Pope Paul V, the holy one. What a journey, what a joy. When I got home I began to ponder how to improve this telescope that was now locally recognized as a holy object of faith.

Author's Note

I'm gonna edit the heck out of it. There are things that need fixing still. You'll notice them, lol.

Reviews

[Meeks]

I'm going to give an honest critique of your piece of writing, and in no way am trying to offend you. These are simply my thoughts on the style of this piece.

The dialogue is messed up. First the people seem to speak modern English, when they get home they embroider their speech with all the vast decorations of Shakespearen English, and then the mother goes back to modern.
The boy's enternal voice is simply an embroidered modern, meaning that it is a formal, modern voice with a bit of big descriptions. Try transferring that style to the dialogue, see if it fits.

Indent for every new paragraph. Which means indent for whenever someone new begins to talk as well. I think you missed some indentations someplace. Also, you don't necessarily need a new paragraph if it's one person talking the whole time. Middle dialogue, problems with that there.

First and second sentence of whole story should probably be combined.

Small thing, try not to put numbers into a story, but spell it out if you have to have them. Doesn't break the paragraph.

Don't say 'as my mind raced a couple marathons' (approximate quote), because that is telling the reader the story, when you should be showing. Try to describe his thoughts, which you are doing quite well in the paragraph before.

Now that I look through this a second time, I can see that several sentences aren't actually complete. Ex. You say 'My devotion [was] unmatched by anything I had previously set my mind upon." While I technically understand this type of sentence, most would benifit from being melted into the sentences around them, or being expanded and given a verb.

I don't have the opportunity to often read this style of writing, yet somehow the tempo seems off to me. Maybe you should try for welding some descriptive sentences together, or just getting rid of some and making the remainder longer? To me it seems like there is too much imagery, but the sentences get cut off before being fully developed. Just me?

The plot is a little screwy. Is he thinking about the Christian God or the pagan gods? Which does he actually believe in, if any? Kind of seems like this should be a conversion experience, in which case he should be identifying himself more with pagan gods in the beginning.

Some advanced pacing technique: Try making sentences in scenes right before a climax much longer, and sentences at the climax shorter. This works because each reader subconsciously takes breaths at each period (and sometimes comma), so the further apart they are, the more the reader holds his breath. Or you could make choppy sentences (not this style), and have the reader pant.

After experience, narrator calls father and mother 'mom' and 'dad'. Little quirks in style like that everywhere.


Overall, and interesting short piece. Are you going to write anything around it, or will this just stand alone?

[jake nice]

such a calming dream scene, as the dream moves forwards past creation of what it/was made, all ready for dinner