I’ll be using this for my presentation on friday. Here’s my prezi:
http://prezi.com/ym3qlsdwavjx/fantasy/
Freewrite: Cat in the Hat in Forty Years
One fish, two fish,
I can’t eat you, fish!
My teeth are gone, my hair is white,
But you are my mother, right?
Green eggs and ham is all I can eat,
Yes, it was once good,
But now I’m beat!
I used to box with lovely knox,
Now I can’t match my own socks!
Wednesday’s wacky,
My rhymes get tacky,
I may have to give up my hat!
Oh what I would give to be a young cat!
All the places you’ll go,
I said to my son.
But now he’s going places,
And I’m going none.
The Disease
“Stay away from people, Ava! You hear me?” her mother’s voice was raspy and weak over the phone. “I’ve caught it. So has your father. Stay at home, don’t go in or out, and protect Caleb. I love you.”
Ava choked on her tears. “I love you too, mom.” she heard a click, and held her phone close. “Caleb… Caleb, stay home. Don’t go outside, okay? We’ll stay here. We’ll be okay.”
“Will I see mommy again?” Caleb hugged his tattered cloth teddy bear. His mother had sewn it for him as a baby.
“I don’t know.”
The next morning, after a night of fitful sleep, Ava used what little food they had to make breakfast: dry cereal. She began to pick at the cereal, staring aimlessly out the window at the empty streets outside. There was a sort of grayish, dirty tint to everything and an eerie sense of silence. Ava half-expected tumbleweed to blow by.
Instead, a scruffy man in a once-white suit — her milkman — stumbled into view, coming towards the house. Ava shrank back. He was holding some sort of box, but she couldn’t tell what he was doing. The doorbell rang. Such an unfamiliar sound. Ava held her breath for minutes, not daring to come into view of the window. When she was sure he had gone, she peered through the peephole in the door. There was a large-ish cardboard box labeled “SUPPLIES” in bold letters. Deciding to take a chance, she tugged her surgical mask on, grabbed some gloves, and opened the door a crack to grab the box. And she screamed, dragged the box inside, threw her gloves in the fireplace, and panted. Outside had been the dead body of the milkman. But the weirdest part was, she was sure he had feathered, angel-like wings…
The box, it turned out, was full of food, water, blankets, masks, milk, medicine and vitamins, toiletries, soap, candles, a first aid kit, and a radio. Ava didn’t know why anyone would choose her house to receive the supplies, but this would probably last them for months. “Thank you,” she whispered, although no one could hear.
Ava turned on the radio while she and Caleb enjoyed breakfast. “…symptoms include a headache that gets worse, fever, shaking, and dementia, leading to death after any time from two days to two weeks. Another 72 cases of the Disease were reported locally. Everyone please stay inside your house, do not make contact with anyone outside of your family.”
A sharp throbbing ripped through Ava’s head, and she smacked the radio off. “Caleb. Stay inside and disinfect that box. I’m going to my room.”
“But sissy, I have a headache!”
Ava stopped. “Caleb, uhh… it’s probably the radio giving you that. Take a headache pill, okay? I’ll be upstairs.”
In her room, Ava snuggled into her blankets. Why had she opened the door? Now they were both infected, and there was nothing she could do.
Downstairs, Caleb took a headache pill, and the throbbing faded slightly. “Okay, disinfecting spray…” He held open his hand, and suddenly the cabinet door opened and the spray flew into his hand. Awed, he focused on the door. “Close the door.” After a pause, the cabinet door creaked closed.
His headache came back, so he decided to take a break and disinfect the box.
The pungent smell got into his nose, and he began to cough uncontrollably. “Wa–water!” he yelled, and one of the water bottles appeared in his hand. He gulped it down to the last drop.
He began to make objects in the box dance across the room, whirling like soloist ballerinas, and land in their respective cabinets. As soon as the last can of fruit settled in its stack, he felt his strength drain from him and began to tremble uncontrollably. “MOMMY!” he yelled, trying to steel his muscles. It was no use. He fell to the floor and shook with the ice in his veins. “MOMMY!”
Ava raced down the stairs. “Caleb! Caleb, can you hear me?” she held him in her arms, rocking him like he was still a baby. “Shh, shh… everything will be okay.”
“Mommy… mommy… the headache is gone.” Caleb smiled and opened his eyes. “Ava, it’s gone! I’m all better!” After a quick temperature check, she realized this was true. She called it a miracle, and found herself thanking the air once again.
Caleb’s ocean-blue eyes shone with love, relief, and wonder. They were child’s eyes. They were the eyes of a safe person, eyes that meant he was alive. And his laugh, his voice, they were all safe… “Ava? Ava! Did you hear me? Watch this!” Ava looked up. Caleb murmured something and held out his hand, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. But nothing happened. He frowned. “They’re gone!”
Ava frowned as Caleb explained his newfound abilities to her. “But then you took them away, Ava. I can’t do it anymore. Wait, I bet you have powers too! You healed me. That’s your power, Ava.”
“No, no… you were hallucinating, Caleb. It’s okay now.” Ava said. But she wondered. What if that was true? What if she had the power to heal people? She knew she was already infected, so why not try…? Something in the back of her mind told her to stop. Her mother’s voice rang out like a faint memory. Stay home, don’t go in or out. She pushed the door open, as if in a dream. She stumbled into the deserted street, toward the nearest bright yellow quarantine sign. Protect Caleb. She rang the doorbell. A man with a young-looking face stumbled to the window. But his pure white, patchy hair and lifeless eyes spooked Ava. She pushed the door open. “I can heal you.” she said, hoping he could still hear.
He thrust his hand forward, and Ava was blown back with an invisible force. But, as soon as the invisible hands holding her back fell away, the man began to howl in pain. She rushed forward, placed her hands on his forehead, and whispered words of encouragement to him. After a few minutes, his howls turned to quiet whimpers, to silence. He looked at her and smiled as if he hadn’t used those muscles in a long time. But she was gone, and into the street before she could turn back.
Her headache was intensifying. This had to be dementia, it was too crazy. But whatever it was, she had to cure people. Because she was the only one who could.
After going to a few more houses and leaving with the image of grateful faces, Ava was ready to scream in pain herself. She felt as if her head was splitting open, and someone had injected fire into her veins. She was burning up, but she was too far from home, and too close to saving people she loved, to turn back. She ended up at the hospital. The stench of sickness was stifled by the putrid odor of disinfectant. Ava pushed the door open, but wished she hadn’t. The usually too-clean white walls were stained with neglect. Hundreds of faded blue cots stretched out in front of her. And not one was empty. People lay there, looking barely conscious. Looking like they had lost hope. But the one person that stood out to her was a lady that seemed once-beautiful, with silvery hair streaked with a rich brown. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed the most peaceful out of everyone. It was her mother. And she was being carried out of the room. But she couldn’t be…
“MOM!” Ava ran through the jumbled maze of cots toward her mother. “Mom, please, are you still alive? I caught the disease, but I can heal you. Please answer me, please!”
Her mother smiled. “Ava, there’s nothing you can do for me. Just know that I love you, and Caleb. Heal your father. I love you…”
Ava struggled to keep up with the brisk step of the hospital workers. “Just talk to me, can I do anything? Anything! Talk to me, mom, please…”
Her mother relaxed into the cot and closed her eyes. “I flew, honey. I flew.” she said. “I’ve never even dreamed of doing that, and I did! This disease… it gave me powers. And you should see everyone else in the hospital. Your father? He talked to this dog! And this other guy, well he could set his hands on fire. And that crazy old lady that we always see at the store was changing her hair colors… with her mind! I don’t know what this is, Ava. But it was fun. I’m so happy…”
Ava let her mother talk, tears welling in her eyes as she held the woman’s hand. Her stories trailed off into jumbled phrases, and then she was silent. She was gone. Ava felt tears running down her face, but she ran out to the main hospital anyway, healing people along her way. With each person she healed, her head hurt more, but it didn’t matter. She was saving lives. She ran blindly until she found her father, aimlessly chatting to a lady with lime green hair. “Hi, dad.” her voice cracked. “Mom…”
“I know, honey. I know.” He looked like he was trying not to cry. “But it’s okay, it’s fine. We’ve lived life. I’ve been around for 47 years, I’m ready to die. Now you need to get home before you catch anything. You’re only so young…”
Ava smiled wryly. “No, dad. I’ve caught it. And my power? I can heal you. Please… take my hand, daddy.”
She used the last of her strength to take away her father’s disease. But she felt the fire in her veins taking over her body, her heart slowing, a gaping blackness pushing at her consciousness. “I love you, daddy,” she whispered. And she let the blackness take her.
6-word Flash Fiction: The Mind Behind War
Not my fault, they shot first.
Nanofiction: Smile
Someone could be falling in love with your smile, he said. So I smiled, but no one fell in love. Instead I changed, I became someone who I was not. Still, that and the smiles weren’t enough. It wasn’t until seven years later that I realized he was the one falling in love with it.
Hint Fiction: What It Takes
I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood on the edge of the bridge, knees bent, alone. It would have taken one person to stop me.
History of Fantasy Literature
The modern fantasy genre is less than 200 years old, but there were works of fantastical literature predating that. To be true fantasy, the literature must be designed to be fictitious, with individual interpretation (not variations on a theme), and set in a defined world “not long, long ago far, far away like many fairy tales). It began with European romances, then developed into fairy tales. With J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings, fantasy became a distinct and viable genre. Authors wrote stories based off of Tolkein’s themes, then eventually created their own. Since then, fantasy has exploded into one of the most popular genres of today.
Some notable fantasy novels include The Sword of Shannara (the first fantasy novel to make it on the New York Times Bestseller List), Wheel of Time, A Game of Thrones (one of the first more violent fantasy books, making the genre less idealistic), Harry Potter, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Fantasy: The Genre
I’m researching the fantasy genre, specifically prose. I define fantasy as something with unrealistic properties, such as magic or mythical creatures. Examples in literature are Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Twilight series, Dracula, etc. Often some of the top books on the New York Times Bestseller List are fantasy-based. Also, there are plenty of popular fantasy TV shows (think Lost, True Blood, Vampire Diaries) and movies (such as Pirates of the Caribbean, the Dark Knight). I can see why. Fantasy is so fun to get lost in, and fun to write because there really aren’t any limits.
