Sam the Author

I'm making a quick appearance to brag about my 10 year-old brother.  I convinced my dad to send me these two samples of Sam's writing. (When you read this, keep in mind that he's 10.)

(He was at a coffee shop, waiting for his mom and her friend to finish up their drinks.  He entertained himself by writing about what was going on around him.)

The Coffee Shop
The air rung with the dusty taste of coffee.   The maroon tables were spotted with sugary orange specks.   The empty ashtrays stood like rooks on a chessboard; unmoving and imposing.   A field of white dust spilled on the corner of one ashtray, an orange cigarette and a white one sharing the ashtray with their burned tips.   A brown paper towel lay r/5 under the left ashtray.   Beside it was a tall metal pole with lines of material ridging out.   2/8 of the way up was a thick ring of white plastic, a hook hanging out. When the hook is lifted, the pole will come crashing down on the table.   Dirty straws hang menacingly beside the saucers holding scalding cups of coffee with a white rose in the middle.   Columns of silver screws guard the boards with flat heads and inviting spaces.   Droning voices argue monotonously, smiling and nodding with flat, unshaved faces.   Women smile and approve in both sincere and false optimism, changing quickly with the first litter of pessimism.   Pens quiver in wavering hands,unused ink drying up in the sun.   It is lifted up and tapped on blue lines of paper.   Squares are drawn and speckled on this sheet of snow.   The metaphors switch to physical as high hands and pained fingers dance around in the language of emotion.   Stern faces replace the exaggerated happy ones.   A lone laugh creeps in before it is smothered by the pained atmosphere.   Pats of hair and wiggling fingers show the tension and nervousness of the conversation.   Straight lines of sound cut through gibbering voices.   The table acts as a stage for the fingertappings of buildings, plans, and life-changing ideas.   Strained smiles and polite shields of gratitude disguise the battlefield as a royal tea party.   The world awakes as bikes and cars pile up at lights and whiz past statues, the humans pasted to their spot.   The people clatter on, moving the conversation forward but staying still.   The buzz of silence is shooed awy, the talkers determined not to let their mouths close.   The buzz of silence hovers around the bystanders feeding on the fertilizer of boredom.   Quiet sips of coffee approach the mouth but never make it in.   The pencil stops and drops on the table as this writer goes to sleep.

(The first chapter of a book that he started.)

CHAPTER ONE
        As the orange sun set over the ravaged, broken sand pillars of the
desert, the Rashniki scuffled in the dirt. They were the size of the
mouse, but life depended on them, and many stages of glory had taken
place on their soiled homeland. This would be their downfall, as the
blood of the fallen contaminated the water. Once the gods of the
heaven, the dust on Faral Plain was their hearth and brethren. They
never wondered about the world miles away from them, but kept to their
universe of destruction, and lingered in its aftereffects.
***
        The bushes on the palace wall were empty, hollowing and decaying on
their narrow stumps. The windows on the palace shone with the elegancy
of sawdusty boards. Its doors were lined with wriggling termites. The
steel tiles of the castle had crumbled into dirt. The inside of the
castle, however was as neat as a diamond ring, perfectly carved with
miniature sapphires arranged within half a millimeter of each other.
The chairs of the palace all faced northwest, and the beds had not had
a wrinkle on them for 7 years. The castle was under siege. Castle
Rashniki had been the most powerful of its kind, the Durnaiya, but its
legacy was withering away as its dependent creature was scuffling in
sand and dying of thirst. The prince of Rashniki, Yu Kretti, was
slipping into a trance. Within a year of this trance, he vanished, and
items started disappearing. It was immediately understood that Kretti
was now a ghost, and King Rin took over the castle. It has been 6
years since that happened. The clouds of dust around the palace door
are gone. Rin has finally dared to step out.
***
        Rin stopped momentarily at a village tavern.
        “Eh, man, ye got 9 silvs? Oth’wise ye can’t step a wav’rin’ foot ‘to
dis tavehn. Well, ya gots ‘dem, ya rich drunk? Eh?” The man’s speech
was so drawn out it sounded like ‘duuuunkk’.
        “Leave me be, you vulgar, misbegotten foe of our land!” The men
laughed like hyenas.
        “’O ya dink ya are, a durn noblesm’n, tossed ‘pon our f’ne flurr l’k
a k’dnipped pr’nce? Eh?” The king ignored him.
        “Those who talk the most have the least to say,”Rin muttered.
        “Kya-aaa-aaa-aaa-haaa!” The bartender chuckled. “Put down you, Bart
E.” Bart whipped the bartender with one finger, sending him flying
into his own barrel of whiskey. It pummeled the bartender as if
avenging themselves for being locked up in a dark cellar. Bart turned
back and glared at Rin.
        “A Gehehara,” Rin breathed. “Superhuman strength, feeds off addiction
to one thing. Perfect place for one.” Rin however, was not very
concerned. This gehehara did not look very intelligent, and Rin
whipped him straight in the belly with the flat of his sword. Bart lay
out of breath on the ground. Rin marched out of the tavern, head held
low, but with the apparent posture of a king.
***
        In Yenta City, a white palace stood in the middle of a grand lawn.
500 slaves could be seen marching up to that palace, surrounded by 1
guard for each of them. No chain was tied to their ankles, but the
guards were Tenharkanas, and used telekinesis to bind the slaves
together.
        “My king!” a guard yelled to King Harn. Beside Harn stood a tall
elegant lady, whose black hair hid her face. Her name was Hakke. She
blew the guard up from the inside out. He had made the fatal mistake
of not bowing. Yenta had no prisons, as Hakke pierced the evildoers
(to her) with daggers of hot flame before wiping them out from memory
instead of killing them.
***
        Rin traveled around, defeating various geheharas and tenharkanas (the
most common types of creatures around his area). One day Rin traveled
to Faral Plain. As he climbed onto Ranka Pillar, the highest sand
pillar in the plain, he noticed a deep gorge in the rocks. Rin jumped
into the gorge. He flashed his blade, stuck it into the rock, and
pulled it out. The rocks were soft, as if someone was playing with
them. He noticed a small spring bubbling up, some rodents, and a small
tree that had olives growing on it. The gorge could sustain life for
centuries, as long as the livers were small creatures. Rin saw one of
the rodents fly up and play with lightning. Rin gulped. These were the
animals that his castle depended on to soar high and live low. They
were the Rashniki, and they were inviting him to their home.