Short story 2

My feet were deep in the mud, but the wings of my family me was so overwhelmingly powerful I could feel the vibration in my whole body. With my hands against my head, I calmed my thoughts and felt my leather bomber jacket crease as I concentrated. It was time to make my wings flap, it had to work this time. Far above me, my friends, who had hundreds of golden medals strapped to their chest, laughed at me. “Look at Gregory,” squawked Roary, “we shall not wait for you this time.” A thunderous cracking of the Windsor dam revealed hundreds of thousands of litres of water. My legs were stuck in the mud. Gregory grinned. Teeth clenched, I pulled my feet out of the mud and onto the dusty bank of the long gone river, which was soon to return.

Long ago, there was an evil, uncaring merchant who went from poverty to riches by selling expensive, used toothbrushes from sewers. While he was a poor peasant, he read an ancient chinese parchment, which taught him how to make these used toothbrushes golden. However this parchment included a terrible curse.