2020 School Year-Week 1

9/2/2020

Gabriella was kind enough to allow me to take on this week's prompt, and I thought I'd start with an excerpt on entropy by science blogger Euan Mearns:

"The universe, without exception, is moving from a state of order to disorder.
"This statement leads to confusion – our everyday experience with reality shows entropy being reversed. For example, solar energy hits the leaf of a tree, and is used to create complex carbohydrates. Using lower order energy to create greater order in the carbohydrates of a leaf seemingly violates the laws of thermodynamics.
"Except, that it doesn’t. To generate that ray of light, inside the sun, 600 million tons of hydrogen per second is converted to energy. This is a massive flow of order (the atoms) to disorder (energy). The leaf of a tree converts a tiny percentage of this disordered energy back to order. Combining the two together shows that, overall, there is still a massive flow of order to disorder.
Looking up at the night sky what you see are entropy generating machines – the stars are destroying order on a massive scale."

Have a look at the full text here.

Prompt:
Write a piece that explores this endless cycle of order and disorder.

Word Count: 110-130 words

Expectations:
-Remember that you are writing for the King's Academy community. Please be respectful of that community.
-Respect the word count
-Your work should have a title--this is not part of your word count.
-Include your full name and word count at the end of your submission.
-Have fun with this challenge.

Deadline:
22:00 Tuesday, August 18th

Photo Credit: goodluz, Shutterstock

3 Comments

Oscar Depp

9/7/2020 11:12:55 am

Filling the Morning Void of My Bedroom

Beep Beep. Fifty-Five Tickity-Tock. Beep Beep. Fifty-Six Tickity Tock.

The door clicks its tongue and out its mouth comes the old lady next door with her broom. The sunlight encroaches the window, opening my room light. Construction workers line up in a haphazard line to buy breakfast at the local deli, yelling their orders at the chef. One egg, a sausage patty, and some red onions, all sandwiched in an oversized focaccia. The smell and noise start to consume my bedroom. A wave of children chase only after the sound of the hollow air of a basketball compressing into the ground. The morning starts to get a character of its own, and I know it’s time to get breakfast and hop on the train.

124 words.
O.D.

Lina Obeidat

9/8/2020 09:27:52 am

The Laundromat

As the door to the laundromat is swung open, a bell sends a chime through the air. The sound disappears almost instantly, overwhelmed by the violent shudders of dryers upon dryers. The man who has just entered scrunches his nose in disgust as he is met with the smell of mildew. He cranes his neck to find a machine that is not occupied, before making his way towards one near the back of the room. After unloading his dirty clothes, he shuts the hatch, twisting the dial. He is startled by the sound that comes out next, toppling backwards just a bit. It is deafening at first, though after a while, it has blended in with the rest of the rumbling. He smiles at this, slowly tuning out the noise.

Word Count: 130

Chris Pultz

9/8/2020 09:47:08 pm

Two descriptive scenes that find the order in the disorder. Eggs on a griddle or clothes in a dryer. Well done by both writer's, Oscar and Lina, but in the end there can be only one. This week the laundromat piece edges out the morning routine by a smell of mildew and a smile at cacophony surrendering to sensory acclimation. Congratulations to Lina. Next prompt goes up this evening. Lina will be judging.

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