Wonder of the World

I was hoping to have another chapter of the Spider and the Hound series for you this month, but for various reasons (laziness and chronic olympics-watching, mostly) I don't. So instead, I will offer up a short piece I wrote for the forum I've recently joined, WritersBeat. As a bit of explanation, this piece was written to the prompt 'What If'. Hopefully, it should be fairly clear what I was if-ing. For anyone who is desperately waiting for the next S&H chapter (don't all shout at once), it'll be up as soon as I've finished it, hopefully in a week or so.

Wonder of the World

It's immensely inappropriate, the protestors squealed. Far too graphic, too 'in your face'. It's not art - art is something you have a choice about, to view or not to view. This is architecture, and it's too... phallic.

The newspapers were having a field day with the protests. There had been outbursts before over the sexualisation of today's children, but now, buoyed up by recent successes, they were taking on their biggest challenge. In their words, a colossal challenge.

The scene: the city of Rhodes. The year: 2015. The problem: the public nudity of the Colossus of Rhodes.

The group standing at the base of the 50 foot pedestal, was made up mostly of young mothers and older grandparents. Placards and banners bore emotive slogans like 'For decency's sake', 'Colossal problem', and 'Porn on the streets'. Demands were made for some sort of covering for the statue's rather large assets. It was called 'The Fig Leaf Project', and was as sombre as a church committee meeting.

Nearby, a separate group protested at the protestors, with catchier catchphrases - 'Pride of the city!', 'What's wrong with the schlong?' and 'We want a foot long dong!'. Penis jokes drifted through the air, and some people had even come in fancy dress. This group had the air of a festival.

Between the groups, the police had placed barriers to stop the two groups meeting. Despite them, the tension began to mount. Shouted slogans turned into raucous insults, megaphone arguments broke out, and the more enthusiastic of the protestors sidetracked the police and began fights around the harbour. One of the Fig Leaf protestors was pushed into the water by a man dressed as a testicle. A very angry, grey-haired lady beat a fancy dress penis around the head with her placard. In lieu of throwing eggs, yoghurt was fired from water pistols.

By the end of the day, the harbour was a mess. The police had arrested over twenty people from both sides of the fight, but the survivors still wandered the docks, dazed, defeated, or exhausted. Yoghurt was smeared everywhere. Journalists watched from the sidelines, smutty grins on their faces, knowing that they'd never be allowed to publish a report to do the day justice.

Surprisingly, the events of the 'decency riot' doubled Rhodes' popularity as a tourist destination. The local government, eager to take advantage, began plans to run a similar event for the next year. Local talent vied for the chance to perform at the newly created 'Penis Appreciation Day', and the celebration drew people in from all over the world. The Fig Leaf Project ran a stall at the event every year, until a group of enterprising students knitted a 6 foot high fig leaf and tied it around the booth. After that, they moved onto less quarrelsome projects.

The Colossus of Rhodes, unmoved by the protests and celebrations, continued to stare out to sea, towering, imposing, and completely, proudly, naked.