Coming Soon, Fictional Fridays

COMING THIS FRIDAY:
Fictional Fridays occur on the Horseback Writing Blog every fourth Friday of the month. The idea is to fill your feed with a horse-related short-story or chapter of a larger novel.  These stories are entirely made up, and the direction of next month’s tale is often determined by YOU – the reader.  So, share your comments, plot twist, and character suggestions and more below.

JUNE, 23 | Sneak Peak

Reconstruction of the capital of Atlantis according to Plato's description, drawn by Walter Heiland in Albert Herrmann's Unsere Ahnen und Atlantis (1934

“The records speak of a vast power that your city once brought to a halt in its insolent march against the whole of Europe and Asia at once - a power that sprang forth from beyond, from the Atlantic Ocean. For at that time this ocean was passable, since it had an island in it in the front of the strait that you people say you call the ‘Pillars of Hercules.’  This island was larger than Libya and Asia combined, and it provided passage to the other islands for people who travelled in those days. From those islands, one could then travel to the entire continent on the other side, which surrounds that real sea beyond. Everything here inside the strait we’re talking about seems nothing but a harbor with a narrow entrance, whereas that really is an ocean out there and the land that embraces it all the way around truly deserves to be called a continent. Now on this Isle of Atlantis a great and marvelous royal power established itself, and ruled not the whole island, but many of the other islands and parts of the continent as well.

What’s more, their rule extended even inside the strait, over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. Now, one day this power gathered all of itself together, and set out to enslave all of the territory inside the strait, including your region and ours, in one fell swoop. Then it was, Solon, that your city’s might shone bright with excellence and strength, for all humankind to see. Preeminent among all others in the nobility of her spirit and in her use of all the arts of war she first rose to the leadership of the Greek cause. Later, forced to stand alone, deserted by her allies, she reached a point of extreme peril. Nevertheless, she overcame the invaders and erected her monument of victory. She prevented the enslavement of those not yet enslaved, and generously freed all the rest of us who lived within the boundaries of Hercules. Sometime later excessively violent earthquakes and floods occurred, and after the onset of an unbearable day and a night, your entire warrior force sank below the earth all at once, and the Isle of Atlantis likewise sank below the sea and disappeared. That is how the ocean in that region has come to be even now unnavigable and unexplorable, obstructed as it is by a layer of mud at a shallow depth.” (Plato’s Timaeus, 24e-25e, Translated by D.J.Zeyl)

CHAPTER I –

My name, is Solon.  Theories of the city of Atlantis have graced the lips of those intrigued for centuries. Few were ever made privy to the truth of her vast secrets.  I hesitate to share that I am one of those few.  I bore witness to those truths.  I know of what happened within the glorious structures on the eighth continent between the seas.  I have seen the civilization unlike any before nor ever after.   And I know why she fell. 
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Long have held these secrets.  Long have I crossed the plans of existence, listing to the few who do little more than guess at her tragedy. However, the time has come.  A shadow may no longer be allowed to besmirch her legacy.  The task now falls to me to unlock the door and share with you the tale of her demise, for the city was real.  The city did exist. And her name was Atlantis.

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Athanasius Kircher's map of Atlantis, placing it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. From Mundus Subterraneus 1669, published in Amsterdam. The map is oriented with south at the top.