A long long time ago, there once lived a Cyclops named
Polyphemus (but all of his friends and family called him Poly for short). Poly,
as well as the rest of the Cyclopes’, lived on an island far away from any
human civilization.
Since no human had ever stepped foot on this specific
island, they referred to it as the “forbidden forest.” Little did the humans
know that this “forbidden forest” bloomed with mysterious flowers, wild berries
and the friendliest creatures on earth (also known as the Cyclops).
Since humans had only heard myths of Cyclopes’, they assumed
that they were evil, disgusting creatures. In the human world, Cyclopes’ were famous
for their enormous bodies and three eyes. Although the Cyclopes’ appeared
dangerous, they were actually very gentle creatures.
I wish I could tell you that all of the Cyclopes’ didn’t
care about their sad, horrific human stereotype…but then I would be lying. This
is where our friend Poly comes into the story.
It was a beautiful night on the “Forbidden Forest.” The
entire Cyclopes’ community gathered around a bonfire to drink wild berry-martinis,
play music from tree trunks and simply enjoy each other’s company. After a few hours of pure fun (and a few too
many drinks) everyone stumbled off to his or her cave to get a good night
sleep.
What the Cyclopes’ didn’t know was that humans were watching
them! Somehow, a boat full of humans had wrecked right outside of the Forbidden
Forest. The humans noticed that the Cyclopes’ were drunk and decided to explore
their land for a night.
At first, the humans were scared and horrified of the
Forbidden Island. As the night went on and they kept exploring, they quickly
saw that the land was beautiful and very mysterious. They wandered around the
island for hours until they came upon a long row of huge caves. The humans had
never seen a cave before, so of course they agreed to split up and explore
them.
I wish I could tell you that all of the humans survived in
this story…. But then I would be lying to you again.
Two of the groups went in the Cyclopes’ cave and had an
amazing time. They explored the beautiful diamond ceilings, swam in the fresh
water rivers and became friends with the rocks (yes, the rocks could talk).
The third group of humans wasn’t so lucky. The third group
unfortunately picked Poly’s cave. Due to Poly’s excessive amount of
berry-martinis, he was having a nightmare about a mountain goat trying to kill
his family. Poly woke up sweating and saw a strange shadow. Instantly, Poly
rose from his bed and followed the silhouette.
Once he got close enough, he saw that it looked like a clan
of mountain goats. In order to protect his family, Poly instantly grabbed the
goats and ate them. Immediately after, he began to sober up and realized that
the goats tasted very nasty.
Poly spit out the creatures and noticed that they were not
goat bones… but they were human bones. Scared and confused, Poly burned the
bones and made the rocks swear to not tell his community what had happened. The
rocks kept their secret and the Forbidden Island never found out about that
horrific night.
Whenever his friends tried to convince him that humans
weren’t awful creatures he always responded with “For some reason their
stereotype about us will always leave a bad taste in my mouth.”
Author’s Note: I based my story off of Homer’s Odyssey. I
created my story off of the original version of "Prisoners of the Cyclops." This story is about when Odysseus and his crew accidentally got stuck in the
land of the Cyclops. Instead of telling it from Odysseus point of view, I chose
to tell it from the Cyclops view. I wanted to show the audience a different
side of the creature than what we originally see.
Bibliography: My story was based off of “Prisoner of the
Clops” in Homer’s Odyssey. Tony Kline translated this version of Homer’s
Odyssey into English. According to wikipedia, scholars believe that the original version was written
near the end of the 8th century BC.
I love the perspective you took on this story! It's always fun to see a popular tale told from the "villain's" point of view, or even from a secondary character's. I loved that they drank berry martinis, too... it added to their "human" nature and made them more relatable! And funny.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that distracted me slightly from the story was the part about the people who landed by the island "for some reason." I think it would have flowed better to include a short explanation, even if you didn't add much detail to it.
Overall, I thought it was great!
I enjoyed this story. It was interesting reading how Poly, after a drunken nightmare, thought the people were mountain goats that he felt he needed to protect his family from. I liked that he later realizes he was wrong and I feel like he felt remorse for what he did, even though he did end up getting scared and covering it up. Interesting story.
ReplyDeleteWow. I loved your writing. I love the pictures you used for the story. It helps me to focus reading story, and the images helps me on my imagination over the story. Not only you used a image of characters but you also used a broken ship image to assist your story. I think that was a great use of image. There are great pictures for your story. I liked how you used the bold style font to emphasize certain point of the story. I like how you wrote as a first person narration for certain point as a writer, I could focus on the story more. I was even more impressed when I realized this story was told from the view of Cyclopes. I read that original story of Odyssey as well, and I think this was so interesting. I was more excited because my story was focused on Cyclopes also! I guess we both love Cyclopes. Great story!
ReplyDeleteI loved this story! I have read the Odyssey before in high school and found it to be a very boring book and didn’t like it that much. This story was so entertaining and fun to read though! I like how you chose to write it from the perspective of the Cyclopes. I also really liked the pictures you used in your story, it helped me imagine the characters and the cave while reading the story. You are a great writer!
ReplyDelete