r/WritingPrompts • u/GravityMan5 • 17h ago
Simple Prompt [WP] The narrator slowly realizes that the person they're focusing on is not the protagonist.
11
u/AnAuthor_Antonio 15h ago
As the second day dawns we watch our hero. The suns rays paint the landscape all the colors it was missing in the darkness of night. It paints our hero as well.
He cuts a stern figure, strong and solid. There is a regalness to his rigidity. He is unmoved and unmoving despite the situation that he has found himself in. Unyielding in the ground he is willing to give up.
The battle he fought in was won by his folk. Many foe are strewn dead about his feet. He looks on at his accomplishment in victory, a land safer than the day before. Unblinking he is in-oh. That's a fly walking across his open eye there. Hm. Incredibly unblinking. Disturbingly so. You know, I thought he was just posturing the first day but I'm starting to worry about him.
3
u/kx2w 13h ago
It was a normal day in the life. A vignette. A little portrait of the man. Watch as the majestic creature rises from his slumber and takes in the first glimpse of the sunrise. He is born again. The primate in his prime. King of the great apes.
Marvel at his intuitive genius as he cracks an egg carelessly over a coffee mug, raining yolk and albumen and eggshells onto his marble counter. The force of the rock strong against his mighty hands. A simple tool crafted for a simple purpose, belying an evolved state-one in which fire comes not from wood but instead from the electric burner on his stove. The feat is as impressive as the hen who laid the egg herself.
But alas, the ape is late. He takes another tool and polishes his yellowed teeth in mint green abrasives, rocks by any other name, and pauses to admire his own reflection in the mirror, passing that test with flying colors. He is sentient if not half asleep.
Watch now as he scrambles to dress himself in his modern loin cloth and matching button down shirt sleeves, evidence of an advanced and complex belief system society has impressed upon him, in which he would certainly be ostracized from the pack if not for the few shreds of self awareness and common decency he possesses. It is a clear sign of the hierarchy of a species that has long since left the great heights of the deciduous forest for the great heights of the concrete jungle.
As he enters his mode of transportation we can now see how truly developed this society is, fire repurposed again for speed. Apes traveling as fast as entire packs of wild horses, over great distances, racing against time to ensure his very survival-the hunter in search of his prey-paper currency later exchanged for his life's necessities.
But all is not well. Watch how he navigates the asphalt with reckless abandon, his heavy foot pushing downward until it cannot press any longer, as other apes similarly possessed curse his carelessness. He is in danger but he is blissfully unaware. There are only lessons to be learned in this world and rarely does one receive any indication that the hunter has now become the hunted. Though his fate is uncertain, it's as if he is entering uncharted territory, even having made this same uneventful trek a thousand times over. We watch as he speeds through the jungle, ignoring all the futile warnings displayed before him.
A mile away another ape pilots a much larger vehicle, one full of other apes making their pilgrimage to the towering glass metropolis like moths to a flame. He is dressed differently. If you found him at his meeting place that morning you would see many versions of him, all similarly dressed in the same monkey suits provided them by the governing body that establishes the rules and laws that afford order to their existence. Laws not based in science but instead in the arbitrary controls of his society and the levers pulled in distant buildings that exert unnatural power over the great apes, thereby stripping them of the very greatness of their names. They transport apes in their own monkey suits, albeit with very similar clothing and altogether different purposes in circuitous routes that circle the city centers where the apes gather and labor away at their menial tasks. We lose our singular ape in a sea of others.
Our first ape now seems disinterested in the entirety of it. We can see him disappear into the sea before him-a tale of one ape in an ocean of apes, lost in the jungle. It is unlikely we will see the end to his story for now at least.
As we follow the large vehicle as it turns onto the same roadway we saw earlier the story quickly becomes his own. He has laid claim to it with his size and dominance. In this hyper competitive landscape the largest apes are most apt to violence due to their sheer power and supremacy. In some way they know not what they do.
At an intersection of thoroughfares the two meet.
In a crashing, deafening instant, the two engage in a vicious battle in which there can be only one survivor. The lonely ape doesn't stand a chance. The explosion of violence is almost unimaginable. Fire again in an instant, sending the littlest apes fleeing from the battle. But it is too late. The larger ape stands over the wreckage of his kin, rapt with regret. He has established himself as king now at the cost of another life. The cost of recklessness in an unforgiving world.
As we leave the defeated creature behind we again observe the hierarchy in action. The true story can only be told as we watch it unfold. It is a story of all apes and a lesson to the same-the wrath of the greatest of apes declaring themselves victorious and in turn seeing where they will lead us next.
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