The following story was written by Francesco Elviretti with the help of Sophia Corsini, Isabel Baiocchi, Danylo Valleri and Federico Mosetti. It is set in a post apolyptic future, the protagonists are Benedictine monks, who were among the few survivors to a nuclear explosion. They have been turned into warriors with very little patience who have to cope with the stubborness of nuns. Scroll down and enjoy reading!
A catastrophic, post apocalyptic tale
After
WWIII a nuclear explosion destroyed most of the world. Subiaco is the only town
still surviving, but now it’s ruled by St Benedict’s Monastery. We are in 2673
AD. This city only managed to survive thanks to the monks, who are the only
ones that have been able to find a cure to the consequences of the nuclear
radiation. Anyhow, that tragic event radically changed their lifestyle and now
they aren’t the monks they used to be anymore
Once
the monks used to live a life of prayer and work, often manual, but with
variations of great importance depending on the historical period, the order
and the rule of reference. For example, the two monasteries in Subiaco, St
Benedict’s and St Scholastica’s, used to follow the Benedictine rule which says
“Ora et Labora” meaning “Pray and work”. But, now, everything has changed.
At present they live in anarchy, with a precarious lifestyle. They don’t follow any rule anymore, they can be compared to bandits. In order to survive, they try to keep on with few cultures in the greenhouses, so they’re safe from many diseases, and they try to make the few animals they own survive, hoping that one day they’ll be able to return to a normal life. The most important place of the monastery is now the Herbalist’s shop, where they obtain medicine and even drugs from herbs and plants. Another very important place is the monastery library and you’re going to discover why if you patiently go on reading.
One
day the monks finally realized they couldn’t keep living like that even for
religious reasons. So they made a plan: they were going to leave the Earth and
move to the moon. They are now willing to give up the land to live a holy life
again. They’ve chosen the moon as their destination because it seemed to be the
most hospitable and the closest.
The
plan includes taking St. Scholastica’s monastery nuns with them, but there’s a problem. The nuns won’t give up
on their monastery. They are extremely attached to it because they think it is their refuge, it is
the place that has protected them from war, it is a gift from God. The
monastery looks like a complex of buildings built in different periods and
styles: an entrance, bearing the inscription "Ora et Labora", leads
into the first Renaissance cloister, through which you get to a second, more
ancient, Gothic cloister and, finally, a third one, called Cosmatesque Cloister.
Before
leaving, they have to persuade the nuns, nothing has worked so far. They must find
something more effective. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so they’ve made up their minds to kidnap the nuns
and raze the monastery to the ground and once completed their mission, they’ll keep
the material to use it to build their new monastery on the moon.
Now,
another problem has shown up. They don’t know how to get to the moon. Thanks to
their knowledge about astronomy and engineering, obtained in centuries spent
studying in the library, they are able
to design a spaceship. All they need is the necessary materials.
Their search all around
Subiaco is taking them months, they have explored all the safe areas and they have
actually found both useful materials and food. Inter alia they have discovered
a spaceship wreck near the Braschi - Quarenghi Institute. Their perseverance in
their studies and their dedication to their task has led them to accurately
know how to build a sophisticated spaceship.
******
The year 2687 A.D. has
come, ten years later the beginning of their desperate mission to leave planet
Earth, and they’ve completed the
Spaceship. It looks like a rod and its tank is filled with fuel: they’re ready to go. They don't know what they're
getting into so they’re very nervous, but determined to make it.
*****
It
has been a long voyage, but they’ve
finally made it. On the moon they have
met other living beings escaped from other planets. The monks have immediately
thought about teaching them about their religion and their God. As soon as they
landed, they rebuilt St Scholastica’s
monastery right away and waited for those strange creatures to come and visit
them.They’ve rebuilt it exactly as it was on Earth, but added another cloister,
named “Future Cloister”.
*****
Unfortunately,
happily ever after doesn’t exist in every story, especially not in this one. Our
terrestrial friends were not seen positively by an extraterrestrial population,
called Ymirians after their leader’s name,Ymir. The Ymirians, as they listened
to the Abbot’s words, considered the Catholic faith heretical, because they only believe in their leader.
Furthermore, they couldn’t accept that there may be such a cult in their world,
so they started a war.
They
slaughtered all the monks and, now, turned
the lunar St Scholastica’s monastery into a place for their entertainment, the
closest thing we can relate it to is a strip club. They’ve added a led light
sign on the entrance ironically saying, “Ora et Labora”.
Our
story ends here. No human being is left
on the Earth anymore, St Scholastica’s Nuns are held captives by mysterious
creatures and it seems there’s no longer hope for humanity. No happy ending for
human kind, only a huge catastrophe.
(Francesco Elviretti, Isabel Baiocchi, Sophia Corsini Consuelo,
Danylo Valleri, Federico Mosetti , 2sc)
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