Thanks Filled Cheers

By Sadie Mae 

3-20-11

Finding out how to live forever would be King Gilgamesh’s last quest. Searching became tedious. After searching in many musty mountains and desolate deserts, small towns and powerful cities, he found the one man who survived the great flood.

          Gilgamesh had always wondered how the great flood came about and saw this as the perfect opportunity to find out. So he asked the man. The man told Gilgamesh, “There was a place where a striped rock plugged the fountains of the deep. This rock was also magic so that if it was removed, the flood waters of the sky would also come. Now one day a woman walked by and saw the rock and realized it was the most beautiful thing she ever seen so she reached down and pulled it from the ground. She had not gotten two feet before the water had surrounded her and she could go no further. God had warned me beforehand and had saved me, my wife, and all the animals in a massive boat. ”Gilgamesh’s curiosity still had not been satisfied so he asked another question. The one he had set out from his castle to learn. “What about the plant of life?”

          “Ahh, the plant that restores youth.” Said the man before he continued, “The plant that restores youth, or the plant of life as you call it, resides in the sea. The sea is that one to the south that is created where three rivers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Jordan, meet. Be very careful, if you fail, there will be no telling what will happen to you.”

          After hearing this, Gilgamesh was just about to set out, but realized what a big favor the man had given him. So he said, “If there is ever anything you need, come to my castle in the city of Urek and say, ‘I have the King’s blessing.’ If they refuse you, show them this.” As he said that, he reached into the pack on his back and pulled out a very fancy paper with the most elaborate gold seal. When the man’s eyes grew wide, Gilgamesh told the man, “This is called the dazzler. This will validate the fact I indeed sent you, because they will recognize my gold seal and give you anything your heart desires.” With that, Gilgamesh headed directly to the Euphrates River, because he knew it would take him there. As soon as Gilgamesh arrived at the river, he tied rocks to his ankles and jumped in. He was traveling at a rate that would alarm most people but Gilgamesh, even with his lack of breath, was really quite calm. Very quickly a strange glow came into view, and just moments after that, he realized that the radiant thing was actually the plant of life. He instantly knew he would only have one small chance to grab the plant. The plant was covered in piercing thorns that made his whole arm throb, but he did not consider letting go for even a moment. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but probably was only a couple of seconds, the plant loosed. With very little effort, Gilgamesh cut the heavy rocks from his ankles and shot up to the surface. Breathing heavily, Gilgamesh thanked God and bellowed out a loud cheer.

This is an example of not following the outline exactly. The original outline was about seven sentences long. As you can tell, this is not. I added little snippets of stuff I heard from miscellaneous places into my story.