Story: [[Recipe for Disaster]]

What a disaster the lab was. There were jars on the wooden tables of every shape and size. There were leaves hanging from the ceiling: oak and ivy, banana leaves and pine needles. Every once in a while someone would see a lone pine cone dangling from a piece of string. Ready to be plucked, everything was ready to be plucked. 

Ralsey the Alchemist-Pinterest

There were mounds of sand, dirt. Pink, purple, orange, tan, white every color of the sun lining the walls and in the center of the tables there were ten thin, glass cylinders from ceiling to floor. These glass cylinders were lined up, back to back between the tables, which were all situated to face them. Every ocean, river and stream flowed through these cylinders making a woosh sound every time a new body of water was filtered into the cylinders. With a push of the button from the alchemist's hands there would be a new batch of water. He had it all memorized, the alchemist did, he was that smart. He knew the colors of the ocean and where they were located, the colors of the sand and where they were located. He knew everything and anything about nature. He knew how to bottle clouds and lightning, snow and sleet. He was a master of nature and now, he wished to bottle it up in jars, the disasters he will create to help replenish areas of the world, marred by nature. His name was Ralsey and he was a descendant of the ancient Egyptians. Some say he may have been Ra in a past life, but he never believed in that wishy-washy science. He had goggles over his eyes that sometimes he pushed to the top of his head, because you can never be too careful. He sported a long white coat with pens tucked in the pocket and gloves that reached his elbow. The gloves were rubbery and tough to penetrate. 

1 quart of Atlantic

1 ounce of sand (any kind)

1/2 quart of salt

and a dash of bottled rain clouds.

Jarred Ocean-TheArtTent

"Ahh, at last. I have bottled a tsunami. May whoever holds it in their hands do so with responsibility and the realization of its consequences."

Oh, and was the person who obtained the jar not aware of its consequences. The person who was to use this jar broke it on the side of a ship. He caused a great tsunami to wipe out the island of Bermuda, making a vortex of natural disaster, now known as the Bermuda Triangle.

 1/4 pound of Amazon dirt

5 lbs of Amazonian trees

2 lbs of various leaves

and a dash of greed.

Jarred Amazon-Tumblr

Did I mention that the Ralsey can bottle greed? He doesn't do it that often because greed is one of the most dangerous of sins. This time he felt confident that a caring person would use it wisely.

"I'm frightened by the very thing I have created." He held the jar up in the light to look at its contents. "For the person who wields this jar can cause so much damage..."

The alchemist was right to be frightened, because who else would get the jar, but greedy logging companies? Taking down Amazonian trees and eradicating  homes and animals, those logging companies helped cause deforestation.

60 lbs of wind

10 lbs of thunder

1/4 cup of southern rainwater

2 lbs of  hail

and a dash of destruction.

Jarred Tornado-YouTube

"Oh Hail! One of my most dangerous creations! It can wipe out an entire city. Now, I must hide it, for no one must cause the destruction. It may stay locked away so as not to cause another disaster."

If only it was that easy...

Later that evening, Ralsey's lab was broken into and his prized jar was stolen, by none other than a teenager who thought it looked cool. Little did he know, when they traveled back to Oklahoma, they would unleash an F5 tornado and wipe out not one, but two towns causing death, homelessness and suffering.

"No more! I cannot make any more of my recipes being used for maliciously! The world has taken my jars and used them for malicious purposes! The jars were powerful and caused so much harm! They could have used it during the Sahara drought to replenish the desert to its former self! They could have been used to plant beautiful trees in southern Africa and they could have given winds to the hottest island! Instead they used them for their stupidity, greed and curiosity!"

...and so the alchemist Ralsey did stop and he locked himself away in his lab to undo the destruction his creations caused. Ralsey would spend many years, trying and trying to undo the harm. Potion after potion and many sleepless nights was just simply not enough. He went mad with the idea of the total chaos he had caused and he suffered an untimely death. It all happened when he mixed the wrong concoction and an explosion of the worst kind destroyed his entire lab and all the work he had accomplished.

Author's Note:

In the story the author mentions there is a jar that holds a flood. I thought that it would be a great idea to really do something different. I thought it would be great to really show another style of writing where the ingredients are front and center and the character is an add on. In the original story the character of Ra is front and center, but not here. Here he is a background character to the ongoing of destruction. Ra is a sun god in Egyptian mythology and is considered the chief cosmic god. Ra is the center of many stories that I read in Egyptian Myth and Legend and I decided to continue that tradition in my own. In the particular story I chose bits and pieces of the story and gathered them together to make my own. In the traditional
story, the god Nu mentions a great flood and that is where
the brainstorm of destruction comes from. I was inspired by the traditional story, and this particular scene: "... The jars were emptied out as was his desire, and the land was covered with the flood." Ra is subjected to people proclaiming he is not fit to be ruler anymore. Then he calls on various Egyptian Gods to ask them what to do because those helped create spoke against him. Ra then sent Hathor to destroy them. The introduction of the jars is seen as a way to not only destroy his enemies, but a way to save mankind. 

Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie (1907).
Ra and Hathor-Egyptian Myth and Legend