Dear participants,

      It's collaboration time

  In this task, you are invited to work collaboratively on writing a short story of about one thousand words.So far, the stimulus for your writings, throughout our project was visual ie a picture gave you the inspiration to write.Now the stimulus is words themselves. The 1st group (Greek students)  were given a couple of story openings to choose and write the 1st part of the story where the 2nd group would stick to and continue and then the 3rd  and the 4rth.Words would give more words and hence we reverse the title from 'Apicture is worth a thousand words' to 'One thousand words are worth of what picture?'After arrangement with teachers and considering each group's availability, the order was decided as: Greece-Poland-France-Turkey. So when our story is complete, each country has to post one picture that is thought to illustrate the story.

                                

                                                                    Collective story

                                         Title: The Last chance

            GREECE:  Time was running out. It was John’s last chance to prove he could cope with the high demands of the match and his team’s expectations. The semi-final between Greece and Poland was approaching to its end. 10 seconds remained to bring the winner that would face France in the final UEFA European Championship. The coach had called timeout and while he was giving instructions, John’s mind was travelling away. His family had moved to Greece from Istanbul since he was a baby and at the age of 23, he was accepted in the National Greek team as a promising scorer. His school life was a complete failure because his stammering in speech and his frequent blushing when he felt anxious often triggered his classmates’ laugh and jokes. His sport life was not happier either. He could feel instinctively that his teammates did not like him. Even the coach seemed to be prejudiced against him. He certainly encouraged him while training but in most games he was not given the chance to leave the bench often. And here came this moment. Two basic players got seriously injured so he was used as a last choice. You could see the stress and anxiety in everybody’s face. It was too much load on his shoulders. Once again all his life ran ahead his mind. He was born…                                POLAND: ...in Istanbul’s district. The neighbourhood was very dangerous. There were a lot of gangs, which were constantly fighting against one another. That's why his mother decided to move to Greece. Unfortunately, the change of their residence didn't help in change of his father's behaviour. He was the incarnation of evil. Every day he was maltreating John and his mother. But, in fact, John was more worried about his mother than himself. He loved her very, very much, he handled her like an angel, her smile was for him the most precious thing in the world. And one day, he was woken up by screams which got on from the kitchen. He peeped there through the crevice and saw the father bending over his mother with a big kitchen knife in his hand. John held his breath - his mom fell down on the floor. She was terribly bleeding. John immediately stepped into the kitchen and fell down on his knees next to the mother. At that time he saw his father escaping through the window but then not that man was the most important. The only person he was thinking about was his beloved mother who didn't move. He put his ear to her heart and realized that it was already too late. In an instant the whole world completely collapsed. He couldn't believe what he had just experienced. It was the worst time in his life. Despite the immense loneliness, pain, and a number of suicide attempts he walked away from it. It happened due to the fact that he found the passion...Football became his whole life. He couldn't give heart to people who so many times hurt him, so he dedicated himself solely to the only thing that made him happy. Nonetheless, demons of the past were still coming back to him. His secrecy, solitude and pain hidden in the heart discouraged the others from making friends with him. Teammates didn't like or appreciate him. Then, ultimately, he could prove his worth for so many years having been crushed by his father and buddies. He was playing as best as he could and it was a beautiful game. He was gliding like a bird over the grass and was gaining consecutive goals. Final seconds. Little lacking to win. Only one action! He was maneuvering among opponents and the noise of the crowd. One second. One look towards the man who overturned a trolley filled with hot-dogs. His penetrating eyes fixed upon him. His face..... Face of the man who took him away everything! The face of the murderer. The face of his father...Time  stopped.    ...FRANCE :John was petrified. His father’s face had haunted him for so long. He saw people screaming around him but could not hear them. His mother’s beautiful face reappeared. Scream, blood, his mum on the ground, everything suddenly seemed so real. He was paralyzed. That’s when he saw his father’s smirk. The hate instantly resurfaced but he got back to his wits and saw an opponent running towards him. Then the only thing that mattered to him was to score a goal. He thought the whole world was watching him, and also the hotdog man. Commentators went crazy: “there is John, going through the defense, oh my God, he’s just passed Milik, dribbled Pesyko, the moment of truth, he gets a clear shot and ooohhh YYEESSS!!! Fabianski cannot stop this amazing shot!!!” He knew he was becoming a hero by scoring this goal and bringing his national team versus France in the final but he did not celebrate while all his teammates were running to him and jumped over him. He just stood in the middle of the pitch, looking fixedly at his genitor. As they got back to the changing rooms, his partners asked what was wrong, wondering why he had been standing there for two minutes staring at the hotdog man. Then John made up his mind to tell them about his story as he thought that would be relieving and somehow felt he had to finally share something with these guys who had always been prejudiced against him. His partners were indeed astonished as he told them the whole story. As John left the stadium, he saw a man cleaning a hotdog cart. He got closer to him, strangely willing to talk with this person he had hated for so many years, but finally stepped back, unable to move any further. At the same moment, John’s father, who was actually behind him, put his hand on his shoulder..                                                                                                                 …TURKEY :John couldn’t move for a second. He felt as if his heart would stop but at the same time he knew that he had to confront with his past, with the man that had turned his life into a hell. He finally was ready to look at his father in the eyes and he turned around. ‘You’ve done a great job, boy! You made all of us proud,’ said the man. John remained motionless and couldn’t say a word so he just nodded his head and smiled back to the man. As the man was walking away, John wondered how he could have mistaken the man for his father. Has his past taken over his life this much? While these questions were lingering on his mind, he felt a sudden relief, a relief he had never felt before. The man was right. He made everybody proud of him. Finally, he realized that despite all the solitude, pain and secrecy he suffered all his life, he actually achieved his main goal in life. He proved everyone and most importantly himself that he was worthy. A bright future was waiting for him and he would never ever let the past haunt him again.

                                                                        The end

You can embed your pictures below:

   Posted by the French team 

 

Posted by the Polish team

    Posted by the Greek group       (A photomontage picture, created by Alexandra Fratila)

 

Posted by the Turkish Team