The Watching Preacher

Everybody that's been reading this blog knows that I am called WatchingPreacher. But recently, on a trip to Prague, I had three marvelous ideas; To write an apocalyptic story set in the last hour of mankind, where the readers where supposed to think that the man telling the story was mankinds saviour, but in reality, he was just writing the full story, adapting the story of mankinds saviour along the way, to explain everything. This was originally thought to be a long short-story, where you would have to find out much of the answers yourself.As I said, I had three ideas. The second idea was to make a story about The Watcher, a preacher leading a group of people in an apocalyptic future. The short-story was going to be about The Watcher preaching to the group about the world that soon would be better. The Watcher would promise that a better world would, and had to come, and that would be all. It was going to begin like this; «Everyone, till silence you will now fall, as The Watcher is Preaching» It was going to end with the Watcher speaking to a priest, asking him if he believed a word he had said. The priest would answer the question honestly, telling the Watched that he did not. And then, The Watcher would agree with him.

The third idea I had in Prague wasn't exactly an idea. It was more me wanting to write something about Golems. And today, these ideas smashed together in my head, and it all became one story, about a vast Golem-attack, an apocalyptic future, and humanity's last hope. It has gone from being two short-stories, and a wish to be one fantasy apocalyptic novel named

The Watching Preacher

And here, on the same day as I have come up with this idea, I intend to give you a taste of what's to come. I have written the complete outline of the story, but I'm not going to give up this yet. There are two reasons for this; The first one being that my computer is about to lose its battery life, and I'm at a place without electicity, and the second reason is that my plot outline is written in Norwegian. In other words, my battery won't stretch long enough for me to translate the plot outline to English. I will write the Plot Outline here in English when I have enough time. This will probably be on Monday ;) In the meantime, here's what I've written of the book. It's not final, but it's a beginning ;)

The Watching Preacher

Chapter One

I remember when the world was good. Before they arrived. Back then, everybody complained. But that’s a long time ago. These days, there isn’t everyone left to complain. They came from everywhere at once. Brawling, bashing, attacking, killing. They were heartless, merciless killing machines. It wasn’t until recently that we understood that they too were mindless and idiotic, not even able to plan a succesfull attack. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Perhaps it is wise to start at the beginning...

«The world discovered me just in time. Another day, and it would all be lost. Well, atleast that’s what we thought... I was born in Etiopia. I’ve never known who my parents are.  My mother was probably a hooker. Not that it matters anymore. I was left to die, on the streets, screaming my guts off. I can’t remember it, of course, but I have heard stories, told by my adoptive parents, an English couple. They found me, on vacation, screaming in the streets, no more than three days old. What were they to do? Walk by and ignore the little screaming baby that didn’t know a soul on this Earth? Of course, that was what an Etiopian would have done, knowing that this happened everyday. It was a hard and cruel world, and they knew this. But the Brits didn’t know this, and they couldn’t bear to see a lone crying baby, without anyone to care for him. Therefore, they picked me up and comforted me till I finally stopped crying.

The British couple that found me had been trying to have a baby for some time. They did not know what was wrong, and neither did the doctors. They had tried everything and anything but now they didn’t need to try anymore; they had me. The mysterious, dark, Etiopian boy that was left screaming in the street. They knew nothing about me, and it was a living hell making me a British Citizen, and adopting a boy with no name. The story ended happily, and by the end of the month I was a British Citizen, bearing the name of Neil.

From that day, I grew, and I grew, and I grew. There wasn’t much interesting that happened, other than me growing up. Or perhaps it was the only thing I cared about. Either way, it doesn’t make any difference, because the most important thing of my life so far happened on my 15th birthday. That was the first time I met a God.

His name wasn’t any different than that of you and me. In fact, he was named something so dull, indifferent and boring as Stephen. And he was indeed one of the greatest Gods I have ever seen. He could do anything he wanted to, yet he did not. He showed me around the town, telling me about the dark times that was coming, about the merciless killing machines, about the dangerous games of hide-and-seek, which would always go in the favour of the killers. He told me that within three years, there would be a mighty war, with man vs. monsters. He did not yet know which side I would stand on. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even know which side he would be on. He just knew that this would happen. And we would lose the first round.»

The world is already lost; it has been eight years. Humanity is singing on its last verse. We are dying out. We are desperate. And here I am, writing these words, in humanity’s last hour.