Good morning all. I actually woke up a minute before my alarm today. I feel well rested and while I am looking forward to my coffee, it isn’t a desperate longing. I actually got enough sleep last night. It feels a little strange to be honest. Usually I am not ready to face the morning but wishing it would hold off its expectations for a few more hours. I feel slightly off balance. But nevertheless, we will go forward into the morning. Ready for the prompt? Good, then let’s see what comes out of the brain today.
Interesting. I actually have a place I can use a part of this to be honest. It will need cleaning up, and isn’t all that dramatic, but I can definitely use it. Always a plus.
Monday, July 18th: The Empire could breathe again.
The Empire could breathe again. With someplace to send their excess population, the overcrowding that was nearly their downfall had a remedy. The problem was how to convince people to go. The right people of course.
They started with those who craved adventure. Those who felt that the main body of the Empire was too stifling. Recruitment speeches featuring tales of adventure and opportunity were featured in every drawing room, salon and town lecture hall.
Many took to the speak. Second and third sons with hale and hearty parents and older siblings and those who simply had a restlessness within them soon took up the call. But it wasn’t enough. Calling on the upper classes alone would not help with clearing out the most overcrowded areas of the densely packed cities.
Those in charge switched tactics. Opportunity as well as adventure now awaited, the word foremost on the tongue of those recruiting. Opportunity for a better life, to escape the grinding poverty of their current circumstances to live as they wanted to live. It was an addictive elixir.
Ships filled with the eager began to leave the docks like flocks of birds departing for the winter. Not all of them survived the journey, but there were always more to send. Someone saw the death rate and began to have the idea of sending criminals as well as the willing. The jails were overcrowded and the scaffolds groaning,. This at least offered the opportunity of reprieve without allowing them back on the streets.
Many of them would die in transport too, but those that survive would have their labor put to good use. It turned out carving out a new life in a land so far from anything they were used to was difficult work.
Gradually the Empire began to breathe again. There was space, and many of those causing issues had simply been sent away. Then as a miracle, the opportunities they used as propaganda began to bear fruit. Amidst the hard labor and difficulties, profit was found. It flowed in a steady stream of taxes and the Empire felt pleased with itself. It had solved one of it’s greatest problems and benefited greatly in doing so.
But then things began to change. Those sent over because they wanted a different life from that found within the heart of the Empire, began crafting a different sort of life. Those who chafed at the restrictions placed upon them left those restrictions behind. Gradually those who left became something other, something new, something different than the Empire.
Ten til Midnight 