Week 6 Story: The Bad Batch
There once was a street doctor who was known around town as the Miracle-Man. Miracle-Man was viewed as the fixer-upper of problems whether it would be just giving regular advice to children or providing potions and serums to people who are in need of them to cure their illnesses or to relieve wounds/scars if suffered. There was never a problem that was too big for him because he had all the answers to peoples' problems...except his own.
One day while coming back home from a long day at work, Miracle-Man encountered his two young and attractive wives having an argument. His two wives, Jasmine and Chrissy, are very confrontational to the point where they are always bickering and fighting over who is the most gorgeous wife between the two of them and will nearly come to blows about the whole ordeal whenever Miracle-Man says Jasmine is "pretty" and Chrissy is "gorgeous". Jasmine boasts to Chrissy about how she has prettier eyes and luscious locks of golden brown hair that will have Miracle-Man in her clutches for as long as she lives. Chrissy than in turn boasts about not only her big beautiful hazel eyes and her award-winning smile.
"Ladies Ladies, you are both very beautiful but please I do not need this type of bickering to continue into the night I have a lot to work on" said Miracle-Man
After the verbal smackdown, the two ladies prepared dinner for the trio and then went there separate ways. Miracle-Man stumbled down into his home lab to work on a new potion that could make ugly people attractive. After stirring up the ingredients and pouring it into the flask, Jasmine walks into the lab and notices his hard working demeanor. being curious, she asks miracle-man what he is up to and he tells her about the new potion and how this could be the answer to the citizen's problems.
Intrigued, Jasmine asks "So how does this work? a person just drinks it and they will become beautiful?"
"Correct." replied Miracle-Man
"this potion is to be taken at night and then in about six or seven hours you will see results but I am going to alter the potion in the morning because I think it needs quite a few more things".
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| (photo: Beautiful Juice) |
As soon as he puts away the potion in a cooler, they both leave the lab to go to bed but Jasmine tells him that she forgot something down in the lab and will go back down to get it. She returns to the lab and heads straight to the cooler to retrieve the potion. Desperate for Miracle-Man's full undivided attention and bragging rights to rub in Chrissy's face, Jasmine then drinks the potion down to the last drop and replaces it with another one of Miracle's test potions and heads back upstairs feeling confident that he will for sure love her more than Chrissy.
Morning rolls around and Miracle-Man wakes up to go greet his wives in their rooms. He enters Chrissy's room to find her brushing her hair and freshening up. Miracle-Man greets her and informs her of having breakfast with him downstairs. she happily agrees and starts heading to Jasmine's room to tell her about the invitation. When they enter her room, they find a woman who looks very old and haggard with only a few strands of hair left on her head. Not knowing who it is, Chrissy then asks her about the whereabouts of Jasmine and Jasmine responds that it is indeed Jasmine herself.
Chrissy astonished and shocked starts laughing hysterically to the point where Jasmine is as confused as to why she is on the verge of her lungs collapsing. Jasmine moves her away from her path to see the results of her new and improved look but to her dismay is shown the reflection of an elderly lady. Jasmine then starts screaming and crying remorsefully about drinking the potion and not listening to Miracle. Miracle-Man enters the room and is shocked to see the effect that the potion had on a person.
"I told you that I still needed to alter the potion and you did not listen." said Miracle-Man
"I know but I wanted to look more attractive and beautiful like you promised this potion would make me become" remarked Jasmine
"That was my only bottled and you drank it, you will be stuck like this forever" said Miracle-Man
Jasmine then began to realize that she could have lost him forever so she puts on a hat and takes a stroll. People in the city would hide their faces from her at how hideous she looked and that made her even more sad. on her journey, she comes across a pond where she relaxes for a bit. she begins to reflect on her choices and when she is ready to leave, a big gust of wind blows and knocks her into the cold pond.
Completely soaked, Jasmine rises up from the pond looking even more gorgeous than her original appearance was. Her hair was back more luscious than ever, her eyes were stunning, the award-winning smile, etc. When she gets home, she is met by Chrissy who looks in astonishment at how beautiful she has become. she further enraged when Miracle-Man enters the room and notices her drastic change and is drooling profusely. As she starts to wonder why he is drooling she turns to see herself in the mirror and realizes the drastic change and begins to cry tears of joy.
"Jasmine you truly look beautiful, may I take you out tonight?" offered Miracle-Man
"Yes you may" replied Jasmine who was smiling uncontrollably
As the two walked away, Chrissy begins to formulate how she could make her own batch of potion.
Bibliography: The Bald Wife by Rev. Lal Behari Day Web Source
Author's Note: The story was inspired by The Bald Wife in the Bengali Unit of the stories. Instead of hair, I added in an element (the potion) that could help Jasmine (who is intended to be the elder lady) appeal more to Miracle-Man just like in the story and eventually ends up becoming more attractive than the other wife.
This was pretty cool to read! There were times when the sentences suffered a bit from an overuse of passive voice and there are a few odd punctual choices but overall I really enjoyed this and I think that your retelling of the Bald Wife story is both faithful and intriguingly experimental. I like the cliffhanger style ending a lot. I am all about the writing philosophy of saying as much as you can with as little as possible and cliffhangers always spark imagination in an exciting way. Thanks for the story!
ReplyDeleteHi, Charlton! First off, I really liked the picture you chose for this post, and I found myself looking at it for a while thinking about what potion it could be from your story. I also really liked reading your story and I think you did a great job with the writing. I do agree with Daegan that there were a few times where the passive voice was overused and the punctuation was a little off, but other than that I think it was a really well written and interesting story. I do like the cliffhanger, and I hope that there is a continuation of this story later on in the semester! Overall, I really enjoyed reading this post and I hope you have a great semester!
ReplyDeleteInteresting story. I think you did a good job at formulating your characters. I haven't read the original story so I can't say much about your process of adaptation. Maybe give a little more detail in your author's note. Overall, nice job!
ReplyDeleteHey Charlton! I enjoyed how captivating your story was, as I was excited to see what would happen every step of the way. One question I do have as a reader though is "Is there a moral or a lesson in the story?". It would be interesting to see how the experience of taking the potion and becoming "ugly" for a moment changed her as a person and her relationship with her husband. I really assumed that at the end, she would end up rejected Miracle-Man because he didn't support her after she had taken the potion!
ReplyDelete