One boring day in class at the University of Oklahoma, a student was daydreaming about the possibilities of the world ending due to nuclear warfare. The thought scared him - he has so many plans for the future - and the thought of it all just suddenly ending due to a conflict between two countries, per se, made the thought unfair. Suddenly, there was a crash, a flash, and a shake.
"Oh no, there's been a nuclear attack This can't be happening now, I still need to graduate, to get married, and have kids!" screamed the now fully awake student. The first thought that came to his mind following his cry was to run, to run as far away as he could away from campus, a place where he dreaded being, and to get back home to say a final goodbye to his family and friends.
"What are you running from?" exclaimed another student on south oval as he ran past. "There's a nuclear attack happening, we have to get out of here!" he yelled back at him.
The now frightened student followed - he, too, needed to say a final goodbye to all who he loved, and began running behind him. This lead to another student asking a similar question, then another, and another, until there were so many students running off campus that not even Dale 211 could fit them in to be counted. This alerted a tour group full of parents and their aspiring children.
"What is going on? What is the matter?" yelled the tour guide. "We have to run, there's been a nuclear attack!" said one of the plethora of students
The crowd of people grew - as the entire tour joined the group to get off campus. In the blink of an eye, faculty members, residents of Norman, and even the squirrels on campus followed the group. The thought of dying on campus scared them more than the thought of dying at all, they had to get home to say their finals goodbyes.
"Stop!" yelled a professor. "Why is everyone trying to leave campus, what happened?" interrogated the erudite professor. He knew understood a lot of things: nuclear physics, organic chemistry, how to start his own business, the cure to cancer; his graduate program had taught him everything, everything except why these students were running off campus.
"One of the faculty members said there was a nuclear bomb that hit campus," said a squirrel. "Don't look at me," said a faculty member, "a tour guide told me it happened," said the faculty member. "Don't look at me either, a student told me we were under nuclear threat," replied the tour guide.
After pinpointing the original, daydreaming student for starting the chaos, the professor asked: "What in the world makes you think there is a nuclear threat on campus right now? How is that even possible?" asked the professor. The student explained he had heard a loud crash back in his lecture hall. The professor asked to take him to the area at which it happened.
It was pouring as they arrived, and lightning filled the air. "Oh... it must have just been some thunder, but I had heard we were under threat for World War III in light of recent news, I read it on Twitter!" the student remarked, in an attempt to defend himself. "Just because it was posted on social media, does not mean it is true; the chances of that happening are much lower than you think", said the professor.
And the professor continued on to his staff meeting to tell the great tale of what had just happened. If he had not fallen into the misinformation like the crowd - they may have still been running.
---- Author's Note ----
This story is based on The Foolish, Timid Rabbit which has essentially the same plot - but a rabbit runs from a coconut after thinking the world is ending, where several animals begin to follow the rabbit after hearing of what was happening. They were eventually stopped by the King Lion who, like the professor, demanded to know why the rabbit thought what he did, which he then resolved.
I chose to target a very important topic that his prevalent today: misinformation. Anyone can fall into the pit of misinformation by using poor sources, or just being easily influenced. I took this to campus as it could possible relate to the students, as false information can spread easily in places such as a college campus.
Bibliography. "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit" from Jataka Tales by Ellen. C. Babbitt. Web Source.
Hi Z,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you targeted social media as the underlying issue that spurred on this situation. It gives validity to the story if people are responding to the original student because they were also influenced by this information instead of just blindly following a panicky student.
I also loved that you included the campus squirrels. Personally, I would have made them the original culprits, because I don't trust our squirrels. They're shady. However, adding talking squirrels to the panicked mob added the little bit of ludicrous to the story that every fable needs to truly be a fable.
I also loved how you built up the professor that challenged the crowd. We're stuck without a King Lion on campus right now, so I'm impressed with how you built up the character and I wish he wasn't imaginary so he could apply for the president position.
You did an excellent job paralleling the daydreaming student with the neurotic rabbit. In the Jataka Tale, the author states where the big sound came from in the first paragraph. What if you carried this over to your own story? It could help set the scene as everyone is running outside, you could use the coming storm to ramp up the fear and anxiety factor. It would also help your audience. I automatically pictured a sunny day so I had to pause to reset the scene when the story said it was pouring when everyone got back to the class building.
I'm also wondering if you mean Dale Hall when you mention Dale 211. How could you clarify that for someone reading that doesn't go to school at OU, or who hasn't had the pleasure of attending a class in the poop-smelling building?
Your punctuation looks great on your quotations. Just remember that each time the speaker changes, it is the beginning of a new paragraph. Double check your tenses. You're past tense narrating, and present tense quoting, so make sure your verbs are matching appropriately.
My final suggestion is to run your story through Grammarly to check your comma placements and missed punctuation.
Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed this adventure.
-Eden
Hey Z!
ReplyDeleteI think you tackled a very important topic – misinterpretation. Especially with fast communication, due to social media, being so prevalent, there is so much information out there that is easily not true, but people are so easy to believe everything they hear. For instance, when Kobe died, there were multiple reports put out about his death that turned out to be false. However, people didn't know any better but to believe the news outlets. Therefore, people should be more weary of the information they put out and more weary of the information they hear.