Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING
ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more
speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective
eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..."
Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and
then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant,
nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see
fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling:
“I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world,
an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even
controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility,
integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And
maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.
F Trope: magic to
summon someTHING
Ruby Yilmaz and
Liam Kaya sat side-by-side, skimming through websites. Liam muttered in Phasa
Thai.
“English, Liam.
English! While we’re here, we’re supposed to be practicing our English,”
whispered Ruby. English was her birth language even though her parents had
emigrated from Thailand to Australia before she was born and they spoke Phasa
Thai at home. “It’s the language of physics!”
Liam grunted and
said, “If you want my opinion, then the English isn’t going to be the language
of physics much longer – that’ll be either Mandarin Chinese or Hindi.”
Ruby grinned and
continued to scan the articles they had to read for the Intro to Physics in the
21st Century class they were taking together this semester. She sighed.
What she’d RATHER be reading was articles on ancient magic.
“Look at this,”
said Liam.
Ruby leaned over.
While she was glad the lettering was English, she rolled her eyes at the site
name, “Conjuring Made Easy”. She whispered, “You’re supposed to be reading the
articles updating the CERN discoveries!”
“Hey! How do we
know magic is supernatural? What if it’s manipulating the laws of physics as we
don’t understand them?”
Ruby rolled her
eyes and went back to reading. Let Liam waste his time. SHE wanted to move to
some rich country someday – like China – and get a real job as a physicist! She
wanted to be in on the Chinese dream of establishing a colony on the water
world orbiting Alpha Centauri A – what the Chinese called Nán Mén Èr – and what they’d begun hollowing out an asteroid to reach.
“If magic is bogus, then why don’t we print this
spell and go over to my place?”
Ruby rolled her eyes again. It wasn’t that Liam
wasn’t good looking – it was just that he was quite certain that she found him
attractive. The fact was that she had her eye on a certain very tall, very
blonde, very, very shy Swedish young man in their physics class...
Liam said abruptly, “I know you’ve got it in for
Elias, but I just want to see if this magic stuff actually works.”
Ruby opened her mouth to deny her attraction to
the Swede’s light-skinned, elven looks, then closed it, considered, and said,
“All right. BUT…” Liam’s look of delight froze on his face. She continued,
“There’s no messing around and we get back to work after you’re done summoning
whatever it is you plan on summoning.”
“I’m thinking I’m going to conjure up something
that understands the laws of physics AND can explain them to me.”
She laughed and, gathering up her books,
followed him out of the library. By the time they reached the dorm, however, it
was threatening rain. “I’d better get going to my room…”
“That would be dumb! You live two kilometers
from here. You’re sure to get caught out in the rain if you leave now – and you
don’t have any tunnels you can duck into. Just stay the night. My roommate
won’t be back. He’s busy sleeping with his latest boyfriend down the hall.”
Ruby made a face
then said, “I’ll come up, but I’m not guaranteeing I’ll stay. If it’s not
raining, I’m going home.”
Liam nodded and
once they were firmly settled into his room and he’d pulled up the website
again, he said, “All right. This summoning spell doesn’t seem to be too hard to
pull off.”
“No blood of a
virgin required?”
He snorted, “I’m
NOT pricking my finger to bleed for a magic spell again. We’ll have to ask the
guy next door.”
Ruby gasped,
smacked him and laughed, saying, “Well THERE’S a silver lining to these rain
clouds!”
Liam was silent,
then muttered something that sounded almost like Phasa Thai. Lighting flashed
and thunder rumbled to shake the window pane of the dorm room. Ruby scowled,
focusing her attention on a particularly complex abstract regarding proof of
the Higgs boson they’d discovered at CERN.
She was hunched
over her computer when Liam screamed…
Names: ♀
England, Turkey; ♂ England, Hopi
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