Land Of Last Names (Part 1)

The Land of Last Names.(Part 1)
My name is Charles Monk. This is my story of fighting the system. My tale takes place in the land of Bogniaz. Now Bogniaz is a place that had much trouble with an unemployment, not because there was not enough jobs to go around. No it was quite the opposite, they just didn't want to do anything and just mooched off the contributing members of society. So they established a new system where you were given your job based on your last name. This of course required new last names, so each individual was evaluated on their skills, and given their last name based on this. There are several flaws with this system, but a system became a tradition and law. The problem they did Address was the problem that new jobs were needed as society so every time this happens volunteers are evaluated on their skills and the top ten switch jobs. In any case just to clear this up in advance there are no jobs like criminal, slacker and such only jobs that contributed to society. I think that clears up most of the questions about the land of Bogniaz.

I was doing my work on a lazy Saturday morning. For most children this was a day of rest and enjoyment, but for a Monk in training this was the busiest day of the week. I was going threw my normal routine of making wine to support the church. Pick the grapes bring them in let the older monks make the wine head near the end of the assembly line, bottle it take it further down the line, put on a label and box it head back outside (note: pick up a bucket on the way.) As he walked to the buckets he saw Juniper, the monks' cat, sleeping in the warm sun and mumbled to himself “Lucky git.” “You know it.” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Daniel Monk had snuk up on me. Daniel towered over me. Daniel was still in training (in fact he was only a year older than me.) but he was very tall for his age, which was 15. He had sandy blond hair and kind warm green eyes. Now your probably thinking that I look very much the same because we are related, but that is not at all the case because biologically we are not related at all.

See when the tradition was put in monks needed to be chosen instead of just being born because monks can't have children. So every year two boys and two girls are chosen for every church (for friendship), the boys get the last name Monk and the girls Nun. Fourteen years ago It was Charles (Me) and Samuel, and Sarah and Diana. Samuel was my best friend, he died two years ago. Ever since then Daniel has acted like my big brother, because the same thing had happened to him.

As for who I am, I am Charles Gregory Monk, born to Heather Douse (Fireman or woman in this case.) and Frederic Scale (Attorney). I am 5 feet 6 inches, with light brown hair like my mother, but my fathers icy piercing eyes (Quite necessary for an attorney.) I also have a talon scar running diagonally down my back.

So back to the story. I was nearly frightened out of my skin. “Don't sneak up on me like that!” I yelled at him. “Hey, hey I'm sorry, you know how I am.” I did know, all too well. Danny can sneak up on people really easy, he was abandoned at the monastery as an infant, and made some kid his age very lucky. We think his dad is some kind of private eye. “So it's nearly break, you got plans?” “Yeah Sarah and I are going to see Virgil.” I replied. “Ah.” Daniel said sounding a little worried. “What is it?” I asked just as worried as he was (Were brothers.) “Just watch out for Sarah, don't get attached.” I understood completely. See after his Companion, we call them, died he went into a state of depression, then suddenly he perked up again and even though I didn't know him that well back then I was happy for him. It turned out later that he had been meeting someone for a while after his Companions death. Monks aren't supposed to fall in love (A sad truth.) so he was severely punished. Still when he talked about it he said it was the best part of his life, and I didn't blame him. Daniel had had terrible things happen to him, and he was a great person it just didn't feel fair. In any case I said what any little brother would say “I will.”

Me and Sarah walked to the forest (The monastery is in the middle of nowhere, by a road in the middle of a field.) Sarah was a couple of inches shorter than me, with long blond hair, and deep brown eyes. I was in my robes and Sarah was in her Nun's Outfit. We probably looked silly, but that didn't matter because we were off to see Virgil. “How do you think Virgil is doing?” Sarah asked. “He's fine.” Sarah was very worrisome about other people, it's funny when she looks at a scrape and she treats it like a Gash. Oh by the way your probably wondering who Virgil is. Well Virgil is a walking oxymoron, Virgil Falconer is the falconer who is afraid of birds. (Except his falcon Mary who saved him from pigeons.) A while back when he was a kid he was carried off by a big bird, hence the fear. But he kept it a secret from his mentor, so only Daniel, Sarah an I know about it. He's tall and scrawny, with jet black hair and stormy grey eyes. In fact you know that scar I told you about earlier that is the mark of my meeting Virgil, given to me by his falcon and only bird he could stand Mary. But that is a long and unrelated story.

We met him at the bottom of our tree house with Mary. “Your fifteen minutes late.” Virgil complained. “Sorry Mr.clumsy lost his sketch book.” “Hey you got tied up in the hall with her majesty Diana.” I retorted. “Hey cool it you two, let's get up there.” The hide away, where we were who we were. We found it a while back, it's our house of salvation. Something you should know about us is that we all hate our assigned jobs, even Daniel did but he learned not to break the rules. We didn't. We climbed the rope ladder, and I went to my homemade art table, Sarah sat in her chair and looked out the window and Virgil went to his table. I began drawing, Sarah started a poem about the beautiful day and Virgil began his gourmet snack. See when we were in our tree house we weren't Charles Monk, Sarah Nun and Virgil Falconer, we were Charles the artist, Sarah the writer and Chef Virgil. We went on doing what we loved and if you don't believe we would brake the rules, I did a drawing of the whole scene that begs to differ.