A super-short mega-story writing challenge, driven by the awesome power of hydro

Here’s yet another super-short mega story writing challenge.

Use the photo to inspire a 150-200 word super-short story – a proper one, with beginning, middle, end and punchline (all super-short stories gotta have a punchline) – and post it on your blog, with the prompt photo and a link back to this blog for others to pick up and join in the fun. Happy writing.

The Clyde Dam. For scale, check out the vehicle on the platform at the side of the power house. — The Clyde Dam. For scale, see that dot on the ledge in the centre of the power house? That’s a truck. http://www.mjwrightnz.wordpress.com

A few words about the photo. This is the Clyde Dam in southern New Zealand. It was built during the 1980s and the lake behind it, Lake Dunstan, was filled during the early 1990s, part-flooding the town of Cromwell to the north. Rumour that a Morris 1000 was left, deliberately, on a bridge that became part of the lake-bed has yet to be confirmed. The power station generates up to 464 megawatts – sustainably, using renewable resources and gravity.

To get a handle on the scale of this enterprise, see that dot in the middle of the ledge adjacent to the power house? It’s a truck. The dam is 490 metres across and 100 metres high. And while it’s the third-largest dam in New Zealand, all of them are dwarfed by the biggest hydro-engineering project we’ve done here, which involves a lot more than just dams (ptooey – dams! Small fish…). More on that another time – though I will say, us Kiwis… we don’t do things by halves.