I don't check my phone until I return to my room, water dripping from my short hair. I have a message from Leea.
My and Nick can't make it yet. Meet me at the lake?
I get dressed and go downstairs to grab some breakfast. Mom's leaving in a second, so all I have time for is a piece of bread and an apple I'll ear in the car.
"I'm not going all the way to the center," I tell mom as I get into the car, "Just drop me off at the bus stop next to the stores."
In a few minutes she pulls over and I scramble out of the car with my backpack and a half-eaten apple. I wave at mom and head towards the forest behind our local shop. There's a small lake in the forest I found with Leea last summer, and we've been hanging out there a few times. Of course never when there's snow on the ground up to your ankles. Well, it's not actually so much a lake than a pond, but Leea likes to call it a lake anyway, so a lake it is.
There are fresh footprints on the path to the lake, implying Leea is there already. The sun is about as high up as it gets in December, and I have to shield my eyes against the shine of the snow.
A short way away from the lake I hear a soft thump, like something dropping into the snow. I turn to look to my right. There's Leea, standing under a bare tree, covered in snow. She grins when she sees me.
"You're... snowy."
"Yep," she says.
"So is there something in particular you wanted to talk about?" I ask as she shakes most of the snow off her head and shoulders.
"The new song you wanted to do."
"What about it?"
"I want to make it too."
I'm silent for a moment, waiting for her to continue. She doesn't.
"I know. You said so yesterday." I say stupidly, but I can't figure out anything else to say.
Leea walks to another tree and kicks it. She gets a whump of snow down on herself and squirms as some of it goes down her neck under her jacket.
"So, I want to brainstorm before the other two get off their school work. So we can just present them with a brilliant idea, and then we won't have to use all that time arguing about what we should do and if we should do it at all, or if we actually do want to have a reindeer on stage."
"Ok," I simply say.
"I'm thinking capturing the essence of Christmas."
Another silence, as she doesn't continue.
"Which is...?"
"I'm not sure. That's the problem."
"Ok. So what are your options?"
"Being with family. Relaxing. Religion. Just wanting to celebrate, cause it's dark and depressing. That's my favourite one, since Christmas does pre-date assumed birth of Jesus, which we celebrate now. Ancient Romans had a party too at the end of Deccember, and they had some religious excuse for it too. But I'd kinda like to think that that's when we celebrate things, because people just simply need the cheer-up that comes with a party. Or then it's about gifts. Or about being nice to people."
She walked to another tree.
"Which one do you think I'm right about?"
"I think..." she kicked the tree as I started answering, "I'm not sure. They're all valid points. But if I had to choose one..."
Thump.
I stopped talking. She stopped moving. What ever had just dropped out of the tree was heavier, or at least denser than just snow. What ever it was, it was now covered in snow. Leea looked at me and raised an eyebrow, as if asking we what to do. I shrugged.
She stepped forward and started pushing the snow that dropped from the tree off the heap of snow. Something came out. She just stared.
It was a small thing. Like a human, only knee-high and way too pale and skinny. And not wearing nearly enough to make it outside in the winter. At least if it had been a human. It's chest moved to the slow rhythm of breathing.
"What is that?" Leea whispered wide-eyed. I shook my head.
____________________________________________________________
Also, you want this to be fantasy, you make it fantasy.
What? No, I don't know how to do that. You started with cars and coffeeshops, and choir practise. I don't know how to turn that into fantasy. Because cars and fantasy just don't fit together.
Unless you're Neil Gaiman. And I'm definitely not Neil Gaiman.
Or I suppose JK Rowling, but her type of fantasy is a very strict kind, and if I have to use that as an example, we're just going to end up with a Harry Potter -parody.
So all I have is Neil Gaiman's model of combining the real world with fantasy. His way is actually pretty great. So that's what I'm trying to shift towards a little here.
Ok, the reason I want to write fantasy especially in this situation is very simple. It's so much easier. Last year quite literally anything could happen in the story, because, well, it's the kind of world where it is possible to explain anything happening if you just want to. But in the normal world where there isn't magic and weird creatures the story has to... make sense. And I'm not good at coming up with story that makes sense in the real world. Even if I have you to make it move forwards and I only have to write a little at a time. If only rational things can happen, I can't think of anything interesting that would happen.
That's why I prefer fantasy.
So there you go.
Uh, right. Your topic for tomorrow.
Flame
Btw, I'm trying not to use the same topics we used last year. I think it's better that way.
~matu
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