Very Brief Backstory

Way back when I was about 15 or 16 years old, and I first started reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, I wrote a piece of fan fiction set in this strange, hilarious world.

Back then, I had no aspirations of becoming a novelist, neither did I have anything more than a vague recollection of GCSE English to guide me technically, so this isn’t going to set the literary world alight. I wrote about 600 words of story at first, and just never finished it. I held on to it because I figured I’d finish it someday, but I never did.

Now, I am trying to become a writer in my own right, with my own worlds and my own ideas, which leaves little time to write fan fiction. So, I figured I’d post it to my blog, so the world (or the 5 people who check my blog) could see it.

The Story

If you look beyond the ancient city walls of Ankh-Morpork you may find many things. But the first and most obvious thing you’ll find, however, is cabbage. Lots of cabbage. Cabbage as far as the eye (and nose) can see (and smell). Among the cabbages are the many roads that lead to Ankh-Morpork* and if you travelled along the road to Genua for a few hundred miles, you’d pass through the small rural town of Shrock, although you’d miss it if you weren’t paying close enough attention. Shrock covers a quarter mile of the road and is made up of a few shacks, a couple of shops, and an inn – and a lot of Cabbages.

Roughly a mile or so out from the village there’s a small wood made up mainly of oak tree’s clustered together like a group of thin dark men with messy green afros in a very suspect sea of browny-green water, and just now, one of them has fallen over.

Shappa, the town’s blacksmith, had once heard that philosophers had debated that if a tree should fall in a isolated spot, far from the ears of anyone who could hear it, does it actually make a sound? And he’d thought it was a load of rubbish. ‘Its sound!’ he’d said, one night in the midst of a deeply intellectual discussion at the tale end of five hour drinking session in the Dog and Duck. ‘Its not as if the individual noises called a meeting earlier in the day and the crashing sound said to the rustling sound, “You know what, there’s no-one around to hear this one, and it’s been a long day, what say with have the afternoon off, ay?”’

This, while relevant to the Shappa’s current situation, was now a mute point. He was there to witness the tree fall, and he did hear it make a sound. Albeit briefly, and a little late – just before it landed on his head.

‘What the… How… That tree was two foot wide! How can it just fall. Damn near killed me it did!’ He babbled excitedly. It was at this point that he noticed the figure stood leaning on a tree to his right.

‘Did you see that?’ he said to the figure, which he couldn’t quite make out. He put this down to shock.

YES, ACTUALLY, I DID. The figure replied, standing up straight and walking over to Shappa.

‘I aint seen you round here before,’ he said, and after noticing the scythe in the strangers hand added, ‘are you here for the harvest?’

YOU COULD SAY THAT, YES.

Shappa stood for a moment, feeling that he was missing something.

SORRY, BIT OF AN IN-JOKE THERE, YOU SEE.

He shook his head slowly, ‘No I…’ he looked down at the fallen tree, a leg and an arm were sticking out from either side in a kind of terminal act of tree affection, and then realisation struck him. ‘I’m dead aren’t I? The tree did land on me didn’t it?’

UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS THE CASE.

‘But I can’t be dead. Who’ll look after Shelro? Who’ll look after my shop?’ he said, but as he said it he felt the urgency of the situation fading away.

PERHAPS YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE LET THINGS GET ON TOP OF YOU,

‘That was not in very good taste!’ said the spectre of Shappa accusingly, just before he faded away.

Death sighed. SORRY. He said to the air in general, and then left.

It was three o’ clock and Shrock was at its busiest. All the towns’ people that weren’t out working the cabbage fields were usually out on the main street or working away in one of the shops. Old Ed Birren was already making his complicated dance towards the Dog and Duck Inn, having primed his liver on his own special moonshine, he was now ready for some serious socializing, or more accurately, drunkenly rambling at anyone who stays still long enough or doesn’t see him coming.