The leader of the most successful mafia in town, Ron had almost everything he wanted. Power, money, women… and if he didn’t have it, there was almost always some way to get it. He ran a network of crime throughout the city, just under the grid of law enforcement (at least the ones he couldn’t pay off in the first place). His members were all loyal to him and specialized in the best of mafia-related skills - weapons, computer hacking, internet security breaching, counterfeit money, etc. The citizens might not realize it, but Ron was king of the city.
But little did he know, one of his subjects was not as loyal as he would like to have believed. Her name was Islene, a dusky arabian beauty specializing in espionage. She had gotten into the business with a lust for gold and no glory and had risen in the ranks to be in Ron’s inner circle. She was in direct contact with him and was one of his most trusted partners in crime.
Ron divided the mafia’s earnings fairly, but kept the bulk of their gains locked away in a vault with a passcode that only he knew the key to. He didn’t trust anyone else with the passcode and kept it’s openings and closings tightly guarded.
Islene was as beautiful as she was crafty. Her loyalty was only to herself and she craved the money and power that lay within the vault. She vowed to get it by any means necessary - even if it meant putting other lives in danger.
She came up with a devious plan and put it into action on a day when she knew nobody else was going to be around the vault save for the guards. It was cunning and diabolical and she grinned at her own evil genius.
The original mob boss, Joe Mantegna
Image: Wikipedia
One day while Ron was out of the country in Italy visiting family, she called him saying it was something urgent. Annoyed, he went out onto the terrace and opened his phone.
“I told you to only call me in emergencies,” he hissed into the phone, irritated.
“This IS an emergency!” Islene yelled, panic rising in her voice. “I’ll explain quickly - I came in to check on everything and I heard a commotion coming from the vault room. I went in and the guards were dead and two men were in there with a bomb. I managed to take both of them out but the bomb is still going and I don’t know how to disable it!”
Ron processed this a moment, taking a deep breath. He exhaled slowly, rage and fear rushing through his body.
“How much time is left on the bomb?” Ron asked, keeping his voice steady.
“I-I don’t know… I think only a few minutes, maybe five at best.” Islene said quickly.
Ron swore and slammed his fist down on the balcony ridge. “Dammit, Islene, is nobody else there?”
“No, I checked, and there’s not enough time to call anyone. Ron, you know I would never ask this of you unless the situation was dire. I need your passcode so I can take as much as I can out of the safe.”
Automatically, “No. Absolutely not.”
“Please, Ron. I would never ask this of you, I swear it!” Islene pleaded desperately.
Ron swore again and, gritting his teeth, knew he had no other choice. “Fine. I’ll give you my passcode. Take as much as you can, but for God’s sake, get out of there alive.”
He told her the passcode and she hung up without even saying goodbye.
Ron called Islene a few minutes later and received no answer. Minutes turned to hours, hours to days, and days to weeks. Islene had tricked him. There had been no bomb, robbers, or dead guards (though she had incapacitated them when she went to go collect the vault money). She had taken away his power by fooling him with her cunning scheme.
Author's Note: This was a story from Egyptian mythology. In the original story, Ra's true name is known to only himself and it is the source of great power. Isis, desiring to know his name and thus the source of such power, tricks him and poisons him. Since she's the best healer out of all the deities, she tends to Ra and tells him the only way she can save him is if he tells her his true name. Ra resists at first, reluctant to have anyone else have access to such power. However, having no other choice but death, Ra tells her his true name and she restores him back to full health. Isis doesn't abuse the power of having his name like Islene does with the passcode, but I figure the retelling would be a little bit more realistic. Perhaps I could have drawn out the story a bit more and had Islene wait until a later date to take the money and run, but I felt the story made more sense this way.
Bibliography:
Title: The Secret Name of Ra
Book: Egyptian Myth and Legend
Author: Donald Mackenzie
Year: 1907
Read the story here!
Danni: The picture of the Joe Mantegna is an attention-getter from the very start, and sets the tone for the rest of the story.
ReplyDeleteOne critique I have is that the story was written as one very long paragraph; as the reader, it was difficult to keep track of where I was, and to follow the pacing you were trying to set with the story.
I thought that your retelling of this story with the characters as mobsters was pretty clever and creative. Despite this, I think that some of the character development is slightly lacking. With the exception of your description of Islene as "dusky" (which was excellent, by the way), it seemed that the exposition to the story left me wanting a bit more detailed information regarding the characters' appearances, habits, and so forth.
This was a very creative retelling and I look forward to reading your project!
You know, as I was writing this I kept asking myself, "Should I add more description? Give the characters more detail and paint a better picture of them in the mind of the reader?"
DeleteThe answer to this ended up being 'no' because I almost always go over the word limit when I get too descriptive (think Tolkien-style descriptive). I'm trying to find a good balance, I swear! I'll see how much detail I can cram in the next story so you (the reader) have a better idea of what the characters look like. Thanks for your critique!
I really enjoyed your story. Making the main characters mobsters was a cool and creative way to retell the story. I definitely never would have thought to do that. The story reminds me a lot of Rumpelstiltskin ad how his name was a secret. It was a good idea to make Islene to take the money. If she was truly a diabolical mastermind then there is definitely no question of whether to take the money or not! Good job!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your retelling of this story. It seems like it could really be a plot in an action movie. People are greedy, so the plot of this story is fairly realistic. I like the dialogue you used for the phone call. It gives Ron more character, as he first refuses to give Islene the passcode and is still very hesitant even when he does give it to her.
ReplyDeleteI first want to say how awesome it is that you used a picture of Joe Mantegna as the mob boss. Not only is he the perfect full blooded Italian that perfectly suits the description that you gave of the mob boss, but I also love the show Criminal Minds. He is absolutely one of my favorite characters/actors on the show. I also enjoyed reading the story as a whole. It was a great interpretation on the story you chose as your inspiration.
ReplyDeleteHEY GIRL HEY!
ReplyDeleteInitial reactions: I LOVE JOE MANTEGNA! Who doesn't, am I right? Anyway, my other first reaction is that I would urge you to change your text color. Right now it's black on dark brown until your last paragraph and it is difficult to see, making it really difficult to read and get into your story because I have to strain to read it.
Now, moving on to the story itself; I loved it! I thought it was so cool how you changed the story of Isis and the name of Ra into something so much more modern and super fun to read. I thought you did an awesome job with this! You created wonderful suspense and I can really hear your voice coming through. This story is edgy and choosing that picture of Joe to represent Ron was excellent. He is a wonderful actor and that photo really portrays a confident, and in this case, mobster feel.
I really love the way you re-wrote The Secret Name of Ra because it is really unique. I can tell you used your creativity on this. I wrote my storytelling on the same story but just changed the perspective. When I was reading, most of the story was in a dark colored text, which is hard to read with the dark colored background. So maybe you could choose a lighter color so it is easier for your readers to read. In the first sentence, you could have added a comma after Ron ‘The leader of the most successful mafia in town, Ron,’ to make the sentence flow better. Also, instead of using parenthesis in your third sentence you could re construct the sentence so that the thought you had in the parenthesis could be separated in the sentence with commas. To show separate paragraphs, it might be good to indent the paragraphs as well. Other than that, your story structure was very enjoyable and caught my attention.
ReplyDelete