For this creative writing assignment, we had to create a response to the following prompt and picture: Assuming the dog in your story is named Barder, and the orange turban gives him the power of flight...

Below is the story that I thought of in the time that I had (note that this is fiction, and I hope not to convince anyone of any crazy conspiracy theories):

"Let me give you some background, as I see that you seem to be a cosmopolitan fellow, and despite your youth, already jaded by the ways of stories and this world. But let me warn you: I speak the truth, and will not hide uncomfortable fact from you, as you see, I have nothing left to lose.

Near the end of the cold war, the US began a project to completely overwhelm the USSR in terms of military spending. New projects were begun, new technologies were looked for to find a secret weapon that could garuntee US military dominance, no matter how strong the adversary. 'Star Wars' was but the most visible of programs, to distract the public and the world from our more clandistine activites. Listen! You see, teh CIA had been hearing rumors of waht were called 'djinns' for years. Military records had mentioned reports of their magic since the seige of Tripoli. Listen: you may find this as a bunch of hocus-pocus, but so did everyone at the time. The CIA had thought of this as nothing more than local superstition, but that was before we found him. August 17th, 1987, our operatives 'retreived' some information from the Russian embassy in Yemen. There was a box, inside of which-let me go on-we found golden cloth, ancient diagrams...-listen- and a golden orange turban. Our translators told us the documents were in old Arabic, written circa 900 AD. They told us that they were the work of a djinn.

Now-hold on-we still wre not convinced that these documents were real. Why should we? I personally was more inclined to think that the KGB was getting a little desperate, or that our whole effort to get these documents was a joke. But... you can never be careful, I suppose. We asked-much to my chagrin-to be shown to a 'djinn'.

Now, to spare you the details (I'm not much of a details person), I'll just say that finding a 'legitimate' djinn is no easy task. There are a lot of fakers out there. Lets just say that I was really ready to quit when our team came upon a boy who was known as 'The Maja'. He had a dog, a 'familiar' they called it, called Barder. Now-wait-this is where things go odd. This is when we went through the Rabbit Hole, so to speak. We take this kid to our compound, you know, top secret-to code. I felt like this was nuts. But-man-we were in for a surprise."

This was a timed write, so I was unable to write any more of my story.

Anyways, if you would like to read my classmates responses to this prompt, please go to http://hthi-govsoc.blogspot.com/.

We had to write an imaginary story based around one of Bill Sullivan’s Turnstile Photography Project pictures. (You can see more of his works at http://www.3situations.com/BillSullivanWorks/MT%20MASTER%20pre%20.html). Below is the picture I chose and the short story I wrote to accompany it. (Note: all names and places are fictional).

Subway Story
Justin Ripley

It was a less than pleasant start for a Monday morning for M. Stanislaus, as he was not accustomed to buying groceries. But, alas, he had forgotten that his son had his birthday that night and his wife had already left early for a meeting, leaving M. with a small post-it on the kitchen table that specified his specific duties: 10 cupcakes and a stack of paper paper plates and napkins. This aggravated M., as he was a traditional man, a man of business, and did not want to be even around a grocery store. Picking up a cloth sack on the way out with a "Paper or Plastic? Neither" written on it, he headed out with a long inward breath.

M. Stanislaus was the chief accountant for the New York division of Hanly and Sons, an insurance company. He had been working in the firm for over 20 years, slowly working his way up the accountants carrier ladder, until he had reached the highest position he could without having to move from New York. M. liked money, and incidentally enough, he had a lot of it. From 8 AM to 6 PM, five days a week, 46 weeks a year, he worked with, in, around, and for money. M. could not escape from thinking about money, and his mind always seemed to wander to the topic as he daydreamed. As M. slided through the subway terminal, he realized that he still had his wallet in his left hand, and had been holding it since he left the store. Quietly reprimanding himself for his absent-mindedness, he put if back into his pocket.

M. didn't know why he took the subway. As he wedged himself into the subway car, he wondered, for the second time that day why he didn't just take a cab. Subways were more greasy and less dignified than the I, M. thought. Subways did not fit into the aura he wanted to create around himself. They did not fit into the picture of who he was. He sighed. It was less than a pleasant Monday morning for M. Stanislaus.

Hello,

I am a senior at High Tech High International, and this is my blog for my Government and Sociology class. I will be posting some of the writing and projects that I did for this class. Please feel free to read about what I am learning about in the soon to be coming posts.