“Upon completion of you journey you will be faced with a decision”, the grand master proclaimed, “ and your choice will either set you free or … not…”
“But how will I know which one will set me free?” I asked with a slight hesitation. This was not what I expected when I signed up for an evening class in Mandarin.
“The four elements will be your friend or foe during these trials and ..” the grand master continued before I once again raised my voice, “ trials you say… exactly who is on trial here? I came here to learn Mandarin…”
“THE TRIALS WILL COMMENCE IN FIVE MINUTES. YOU WILL FACE EARTH, WATER, AIR AND FIRE OR A COMBINATION THEREOF”, he announced in his louder than necessary high pitch voice, his face now a radiating reddish tomato.
“I’d like to be excused, this not what I signed up for”, I tried, knowing full well what the answer would be.
“Not a chance, we have waited a long time for you to arrive” he answered.
“But I just signed up, I came in from the street just 10 minutes ago!” I said with a growing feeling of discomfort.
“Nevermind, it is done, the trial commences” , he struck the bell three times and disappeared, leaving me alone in the room with four closed doors.
Each of the doors carried a plaque, the top half consisted of a symbol and a four letter word. The bottom half was empty as far as I could tell, although there was a slight vibration emanating from the dent in the lower left hand corner of the plaques.
“Now what?” I thought having no plan on what to do next. It was obvious that this was some kind of test, I was being tested. But for what, and why me?
I opened the first door and stepped through. I must have been transported somewhere else as when I looked back I could not see a door, there were fields in all directions., as far as the eye could see.
When I looked down I noticed that I was standing on a path, or at least someone had walked enough times in the same direction to make a difference that was noticeable. I decided to follow the path.
About 2o minutes into my walk I came upon a river, and in the distance I saw a bridge crossing over to the other side. I proceeded towards it. There was a sign post warning anyone crossing the bridge that there were no second chances once the bridge had been entered. ^second chance for what?“ I thought to myself as I eyed the bridge and the Hut on the other side of the river.
As I put my right foot down on the bridge a humming began, followed shortly after by mechanical swirling sound like nothing I had heard before. The sounds stopped as continued up along the bridge. As I reached the top of the bridge I stopped for a rest and viewing the scenery. The river below was semi hidden under a veil of fog which seemed to drift between the two shores. There was a red lever located nearby, the warning sign read “make no mistake”.
“To pull or not to pull, that is the question…” I said out loud as I pulled the red lever. At first nothing happened, or so it seemed. But gradually the bridge appeared to be sinking closer to the river. The sinking stopped as the bridge levelled with the river. Then a voice appeared out of nowhere, “I am the troubled waters, make no mistake”, the thundering voice proclaimed.
“Hello there Mr Waters ” I said with as cheerful a voice I could manage under the circumstances, “what’s this make no mistake all about?”
“Who goes there?”
“I am Nevyn, a Mandarin student on trial”
“On trial for what?”
“I don’t know”
“You don’t know?”
“No”
“That seems to be you first mistake…”
“Well he never said why…”
“Who?”
“the teacher, calling himself grand master”
“Never heard of him”
“Well, I don’t…” I said before it interrupted me
“THAT IS YOUR SECOND MISTAKE!!”
“Uhm can you explain the mistake statement you made earlier, ‘make no mistake’, sounds a bit ominous now as apparently I’ve done two already”
“Yes you should be worried”
“Explain, please”
“Do you have the password?”
“Open sesame?”
“Wrong password”
“How many attempts do I get?”
“Three, two to go”
“Uhm, roses are red. Violets are blue?”
“Nope, last chance”
“Jaysome!!”
“Correct, I can now tell you that if you make a mistake you will be terminated”
“Terminated?”
“Yes I will devour your guts after slow cooking your… you”
“Oh, that was unexpected…”
“Well what do expect from a prompt like that?”
Prompted by a @poetryriot prompt
