Your Sense of Adventure

So Writer's Digest had an interesting writing prompt awhile back but I never got a chance to do anything with it until about an hour ago. When I was finished, I was pretty happy with what I had, but it's about 100 words too long to be submitted and it's probably too late to submit it now anyway. But I couldn't stand the thought of just letting it sit there on my hard drive. Then I thought "Hey, wait a minute! I have a blog! What else is a blog for if not posting stuff that I'm proud of that no one else cares about?" So, here it is, my vignette:

Your Sense of Adventure

A friend rings your doorbell way too early in the morning to be ringing doorbells. You answer the door in your PJs, and the friend says, “Pack a bag quickly. I have to get out of here now and need you to come with me.” You are intrigued.

            Instantly awake, you say, “Okay. Give me a minute.”

Obviously it takes you more than a minute. Your friend waits at your bedroom door, impatiently tapping her toe and constantly checking the door and the windows as you hastily throw anything and everything you might need into an overnight bag.

“Ready?” She asks as soon as you zip up the bag.

“Ready. Where are we going?”

            “West. As far away from here as we can get and as fast as we can get there.”

            You think fleetingly of the school, your students. You’ll miss them. But will they miss you? After all, they’re only third-graders. Once the school realizes you’re not coming in, the class will be assigned a substitute teacher. Some poor substitute who will now have a permanent, full-time job. You silently wish the unknown teacher all the best as you gladly throw away your job, your career, everything you have, and head to the garage with your friend on your heels.

            The Honda does not exactly have a reputation for making a great get-away vehicle, but it’ll have to do. As your friend heads towards the car you turn and start to lock the door behind you before asking yourself “Why bother?” You can’t come back. Whatever your friend is running from, it’s dangerous and, if it’s got her this freaked, she can’t ever return. You deciding to join her means you can’t ever return. With a shrug, you turn from your unlocked door and hop in the driver’s seat, your stomach doing massive back-flips as you turn the key in the ignition.

            Tires screech against pavement as you back out of your garage and head down the driveway, away from your beautiful townhouse.

            Behind you, the sun is rising. You feel as if you are running away from it. This feeling is enhanced by the way your friend continues to glance over her shoulder. Every car you encounter on the road makes her flinch.

            You get on the nearest ramp to get on the high way and continue heading west. The sun is already fully risen and well on its way upward by the time your friend starts giving you directions. You have no plan so, if she has one, you might as well follow it – this being her escape and all.

            By the time she tells you to get off the highway you realize you recognize this place. You’ve been here before. Frantically, you search your memory but your mind and body are still too full of the excitement of the moment to try and worry about the past.

            Then, as she instructs you to turn left onto a dirt road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, you remember the last time you were here. You start to slow down as you wonder just what, exactly, is going on here?

            “Sheila? When have you ever been here?”

            Sheila turns to you with a sheepish grin as she admits that the game is up.

            You reach the old, familiar cabin, with that familiar figure standing on the front porch, holding his mug of coffee. You slam on the brakes and stop in the middle of the road.

            “I’m sorry, but you never would have agreed to do this, so I had to, well, appeal to your sense of adventure.”

            “Oh, you are so dead.”

Haha! And You Thought We Were Done With Harry Potter

Sorry but, apparently, J.K. Rowling just couldn't stop writing about Harry and the world of wizards. After having finished the seventh Harry Potter book and sending it off to all the printing houses, eagerly awaiting their chance to make millions and millions of copies, she appeared to have gotten Harry Potter withdrawal because she went on to write The Tales of Beedle the Bard as well as two Hogwarts schoolbooks. Honestly, I'm surprised that's all she wrote because, judging by the number of times she references them in her other books, it sounds like she could have easily written A History of Magic and Hogwarts, A History. As it is, I will use this final Harry Potter post to discuss the remaining three books, due to the fact that they are all so short.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard
I give you fair warning: for each and every one of these books I have to discuss how impressed I am by the extent to which Rowling has built her own world. That goes for the book of fairy tales as well, of course, starting with the fact that Harry and Hermione had never heard any of these tales and Ron had never heard of Cinderella. I deeply appreciate the fact that the fairy tales bear some definite similarities to our Muggle fairy tales while retaining the obvious differences. I am also in awe of the fact that Dumbledore (in his notes on the book) mentioned some of the different versions that certain fairy tales had gone through. I love this particularly because it is so true of stories which are so old that nobody can remember where they came from or how the original went. Of course, there's also the anti-Muggle factor infused into some of these stories and that, too, is typical of any stories which have lasted a considerable amount of time. Just as we have had certain books banned over the centuries, so certain wizards decided to modify stories with a moral which doesn't appeal to them in order to preach a moral more to their liking (which, I guess, defeats the purpose of the original story). I was also grateful to finally get a distinction between "wizard" and "warlock". I had been wondering about that.

Quidditch Through the Ages
Here I give Rowling enormous credit, not only for inventing an exciting and entirely original game played exclusively on broomsticks, but also for: inventing a history of the game, including a reason for the invention of the Snitch; numerous other games played on broomsticks several centuries ago, before Quidditch gained popularity; and the invention and progression of the flying broomstick. While a broomstick was supposedly chosen as a flying vessel because it was such an inconspicuous object (easily hidden or explained in a wizard's or witch's home in the days of witch hunts) I don't see how it's any less conspicuous than any piece of furniture, such as the flying carpets that the witches and wizards of the east are more fond of. However, things like that often have an arbitrary beginning and then, after centuries of doing it a certain way, it comes to appear to be the most natural solution, so I'm okay with it. 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
I love everything about this book from the fact that she came up with, not only 75 different creatures, but also, in some instances, variations within those species. Dragons alone come in 10 different varieties and Rowling took the time to invent and describe them all. I especially appreciate the explanations provided in this book as to why Muggles are unaware of these creatures. Obviously things like dragons and unicorns maintain a presence in our folklore, but have you ever wondered why your garden isn't infested with gnomes that you need to spin around until dizzy and then throw as far away from your house as possible? I did, and this book gives a believable (as believable as a book about wizards can be) explanation for it. My favorite part of this book was the doodlings and sarcastic notes left by Harry and friends. They only help to further cement their personalities, which Rowling expertly manages to showcase, even in such a confined outlet.

And there you have it: an expertly well-crafted story, full of vivid characters that we both love and love to hate, set in an incredibly well-built world which is simultaneously fantastical and based in reality.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by J. K. Rowling

My least favorite Harry Potter book. I'm sorry, but most of them running around in the woods looking for Horcruxes is pretty slow-moving. Also Harry whines way too much about Dumbledore not telling him every little detail about his personal life. I agree with EVERYONE when they tell Harry not to let Rita Skeeter's book about Dumbledore sully Harry's memory of Dumbledore. Harry argues that he wants to know the truth. Valid concern but, um, Harry, we've already dealt with the lovely Miss Skeeter, remember? She wrote horrible, horrible lies about you and your friends, then turned around and wrote the truth only because it was the only way to get her job back. Dude, she writes what sells and Dumbeldore The Great just died so, guess what's going to sell? A book further enumerating all of his wonderful deeds? Not so much. So how does finding out the truth have anything to do with reading anything Rita Skeeter wrote ever?

Harry also needs to give teenagers a break. His world is shattered when he sees his father bullying Snape and I do understand that, up to a point. Like I said, he idolized his parents so, realizing that they weren't always the heroic do-gooders must have been hard. When Sirius tries to explain that they were just kids, Harry points out that they were Harry's age. He does the same thing when people talk about young Dumbledore doing some questionable things. What Harry fails to understand is that he is an exceptional teenage boy. That's not to say that he's perfect or that he doesn't make mistakes. In some ways he is a perfectly normal teenage boy (please see afore-mentioned angst). But Harry has had to grow up much too fast. His parents died shortly after his first birthday, his aunt, uncle, and cousin mistreated and abused him for ten years until he got to leave for Hogwarts. Then, at Hogwarts, he discovers Voldemort who keeps trying to kill him. Not exactly a normal childhood and all of that helped make Harry into the extraordinarily brave and generous person that he is. However, most teenagers aren't like that because they haven't had to deal with any of those awful experiences. I know I did some dumb things when I was a teenager and I would hate to think that anyone would hold those things against me decades from now.

I also dislike this book because the ending is so extremely sappy it makes me want to puke. I know Rowling had been building up to that "love conquers all" cliche for awhile, but I still think she laid it on way too thick at the end. I seriously considered skipping the epilogue this time around because I hate it so much. Although, I'll admit that I'm glad I didn't because it wasn't as bad as the first time I read it.

Ok, time to talk about things I did like: MRS. WEASLEY! Mrs. Weasley popping up out of nowhere to get Bellatrix away from Ginny is classic and I love it to bits! I give her extra points for doing this immediately after having lost a son. Most people would crumble under that grief but Mrs. Weasley gets right back up and in the action. I'm sure she'll crumble later but she recognizes that there is a time and a place for that, but that is neither here nor now. Also, FRED! How heart-wrenching was that death? I could not believe it when I read it for the first time. Fred and George were both so full of life and so cavalier about everything it seemed impossible that they could die - as if their refusal to admit that this was all very much a life-threatening situation could protect them. Compared to the death of Fred, it was easy to let go of Lupin and Tonks, especially since I was so mad at Tonks for heading into the action when she had a baby to look after! I can't forgive her for abandoning her son like that and, honestly, I don't find it very believable. While Tonks's love for her husband is admirable and touching, it shouldn't be forgotten that Mother Nature has programmed us women with some pretty heavy-duty hormones once we give birth and those normally kick in so that a mother's first concern is keeping her child safe. Dad can look after himself.

All-in-all this is an excellent series and I thoroughly enjoyed re-visiting it. I'll have to make sure not to wait so long before doing so again!