It’s day 9 of the #TopsyTurvyBookTour over on Instagram! Yesterday Door to Door’s Templeton landed smack dab in the middle of a scene from Oliver Twist. Today I’m taking him into Mark Twain’s great work, Letters from the Earth. Here we go…
(This is a derivative work based on the original story by Mark Twain.)
Templeton stepped through the door and found he indeed had traveled – but was still far from home.
He stood in a bright room with glass doors opening to a large terrace. He strolled into the fresh air. Intriguing. He’d been plunked down in a stuccoed villa in the middle of a deep green lawn with views extending across a lush forest. This was not Tuscany.
To his right, a paperweight squatted on a messy pile of papers left at a breakfast table. A fountain pen, its nib pointing skyward, poked up from an empty coffee cup. Since he appeared to be the only soul at home, Templeton made himself comfortable in the abandoned chair. He pushed a dirty plate to the side and helped himself to the first paper in the pile.
Handwriting spread across the page –the letters short with words pulled long. He read:
“This is a strange place, an extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home…”
Templeton’s lips curled into a rare smile. Satan’s Letter. His attention returned to his surroundings. Yes, this was the Stormfield mansion. Twain. Much better.
“Man is a marvelous curiosity…”
Templeton reached for the pen. Self-filling – good fortune! He began to write.
“…it is true, but what is more extraordinary to my brain is how easily man has turned his back on being curious. He no longer examines what is held out as truth, content to celebrate known falsehoods, cheering on ignorance, listening only to that which supports what he ‘believes to be true’ while blessing it with a stamp of divinity. And what of the divine? The idea of a benevolent creator bending toward the Earth to proclaim this one a mouthpiece and that one a liar is preposterous. No, the divine has no such concerns. Man stands on the globe alone. The marvel is at the mess he has made.”
Templeton raised the pen and enjoyed an unusual rush of pleasure at seeing his handwriting next to the great author’s. Whoever designed this literary ramble he was caught in just might escape retribution.
…stay tuned as tomorrow two Door to Door characters will find themselves running through the forest. Who will be Little Red? And who is the Big Bad Wolf? (Update: Find out in this post!) 😀
Are you a writer? Please join us! Drop your characters into Letters from the Earth and post it on Instagram! Use the hashtag #TopsyTurvyBookTour & tag hosts @saffron.amatti, @elenchase, and @writertracybrown so we can see your characters in Mark Twain’s work!
What’s this about?
In August 2021, I co-hosted a writing challenge on Instagram and dropped Emily Swift and crew into a story, a scene, a situation, etc. matching the “book of the day” prompt. In these posts you can read about Door to Door Paranormal Mystery Characters trying to make it through stories like: Dracula, Harry Potter, MacBeth, Murder on the Orient Express, Winnie the Pooh, Sherlock Holmes, Little Red Riding Hood, Jurassic Park, and many more!
If you ARE on Instagram, make sure you’re following me at https://www.instagram.com/WriterTracyBrown/. But if you’re not using Instagram, no worries, you can read all the posts on my blog list starting here with Alice in Wonderland, or on Facebook at Writer Tracy Brown. 🙂
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