Holiday from Real

         She pulled her sleepy gaze away from her doodling and focused on the west wall if her classroom. A loud rumbling outside had distracted her from her absent-minded sketching. The sun was setting through the window, the alpenglow expanding and brightening with each tick of her watch’s secondhand. The sun seemed so close, so big. It was getting bigger. She watched the meteor as it destroyed the only obstacle standing between it and the class. Desks and body parts flew in all directions. A textbook thrown in the meteor’s wake rocketed past her desk, taking her coffee with it. She had expected something like this was going to happen; it always did. She sighed, switched the track on her CD player and shook off her apocalyptic daydream. Perhaps she should actually try to pay attention to her professor tonight.

         Dréa wandered in the direction of her dorm room after class had ended; studying the variety of ensembles others were wearing. It was Halloween, and she liked that the witches and faeries she saw walking around were real. Even if they looked like they wrapped themselves in sheets tossed through a wood chipper. This is the one time of year she feels completely comfortable with herself. While everyone else dresses up and gets to be someone else, Dréa has the chance to finally be herself. Seeing Arthur and Guinevere walking side by side was hardly out of the ordinary for her. An elf passed by her, brushing her gently with his grey cloak. She silently wondered if the nymph in the tree across the quad was really there. As she climbed the steps to her room, she stepped on an inconveniently placed section of damp carpet, getting her bare feet wet. She should pay attention to where she was walking tonight. Dréa thought back to the paper she had to write that night. After a week of thought, she had no idea how to express in words what she wanted to say. Disassembling her muse costume, she wished she could inspire herself. She sat at her desk and began to write:

         He walked along the shoreline, his nose planted firmly in his book. It was a new book, but that wasn’t obvious at first glance. Only a week since he had bought it and the binding was already thoroughly cracked. Gideon had already read the book end to end four times. A reader at heart, he thrived off the written word, consuming it, digesting it, taking away every possible meaning and interpretation he could. This sort of dedication took all his attention, so he most certainly could not be bothered with where he was walking at the moment. He stepped on rocks, bits of sea glass, and the dried out shells of horseshoe crabs. He didn’t care. The well-being of his feet was no matter when he was concentrating on his book. It wasn’t until he tripped over a particularly large boulder that he looked up. That’s when he first saw her. She had red hair. Not red like what he had seen on other girls. It was a vibrant, chestnut-auburn red. It was a color he had never seen naturally adorning the head of anyone. But it was most certainly her real hair color. Her eyes were gold. It shocked him. He didn’t know people could have gold eyes. Then he cast his glance downward. She was perched on a rock, about twenty feet from the shore. Her tail shimmered in the sunlight, as if it was encrusted with an uncountable number of miniscule diamonds. A mermaid! He thought. A real live mermaid. Wow. Oh shit she’s looking at me.

         Fuck. Dréa tore the page from her notebook and chucked it behind her. And she had started so well. The story was supposed to be realistic. Her teacher wanted her to write something outside of fantasy. That was all Dréa wrote. She was always told to write what she knew, but when she did, her professors told her not to. At least this time her professor wasn’t a jackass about it. This professor actually cared about Dréa’s writing. That was why Dréa actually tried to write something real. She picked up her favorite pen and started again:

         I was already late. I was supposed to have met my sister at two o’clock. It was already half past. I was running. I shouldn’t have stayed after to talk to that chick. She was fucking hot though. I did so love a new student. They’re so…impressionable. A young sexy TA barely gives them the time of day and they fall all over themselves. Whatever. It was time to concentrate on the task at hand. I had to pay attention on the directions she had given me, or else I’d get lost. I can’t believe she wanted me to take a shortcut through the forest to get to her house. I felt like red fucking riding hood in my scarlet windbreaker. And the path wasn’t helping me get along on my way. I thought I was stepping into a clear spot of dirt, and a thorn branch would appear, as if by magic, right under my bare foot. I had to have been bleeding all over the woody path. I didn’t stop. Not until I saw the light.
         It was to my left, slightly above an odd flowering bush. It didn’t look like it was coming from anywhere, just out of thin air. First it was just a vertical tear in space. Then it opened up into a small door shaped like one half of a shield. It couldn’t have been more than six inches in length. And to think, I was amazed by that. I should learn to hold my emotions until all is revealed. Then, a foot. Not like a human foot. Well, it was shaped like a human foot, but it was tiny, like a Barbie’s. And it was teal. It was attached to a little person, something I could only describe as a faerie with butterfly wings. And it said my name. “Hello, Jack.”

         Damn it all to hell! Dréa flipped to the next page of her notebook, but paused before writing again. She had to think this one through. She was wasting the pages in her precious writing pad trying to write a realistic story. She turned on her music, and started to write again, an idea firmly planted in her mind. She wouldn’t stray from reality this time:

         Charlie was excited to be in Hawaii. She never thought that she’d actually make it here. There had been so many problems in the planning, that she had been sure the trip would be postponed indefinitely. But here she was, hiking up the side of Mauna Loa, the world’s largest volcano. At just over two and a half miles, the hike was not an easy one, and Charlie was glad she had gotten in shape before the trip. It took two hours to get to the top, but the vistas from the trail were nothing like she had ever seen before. Mountains, lush green rainforests, and views of the cities and villages at the base of the stone giant were enough to make the strongest person gasp in amazement. Even more exciting was the view down into the volcano once she had reached the top. Charlie had never seen anything so awe-inspiring. Crimson, scarlet, coral, and gold all intermingled like a fiery marble cake. She wondered how the bits of mountain poking up through the magma didn’t melt under the incredible heat. Charlie thought she’d melt just looking at it. She pulled out her digital camera and took a photo. She was quite proud of the composition; she didn’t just take a photo of the molten rock, but was sure to position the view to catch a bit of the side of the volcano and one of the boulders into the shot. Charlie looked at the image in her camera, and zoomed in; looking all around the photograph, making sure it was perfect. She was shocked at what she saw. Leaning against the volcano wall, waving up at the camera, was a tiny little creature. It looked like an imp or goblin or some other fire-loving being. And, if Charlie positioned the photo just right, one might think she and the imp were old friends and she was just taking a candid for her scrapbook.

         Ah dammit! Dréa cursed at herself for straying from her original – realistic – idea. She was entirely frustrated. Would she always stray from the real? Why was it so hard? Everyone else in class wrote amazing pieces of fiction. And they all wrote about things that could happen in real, everyday life. People they meet along the road to town, growing up, love. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure if what she was reading was fiction or not. She was jealous sometimes. She scribbled on a blank page. Doodles. A fairy holding a broken pencil. A fiery imp burning a book. She wrote the beginnings of a terrible haiku.
         Dréa gave up. She picked up the bits of torn pages, took the three pieces she had started, and laid them side-by-side. She read them over. Several times. She got an idea. She smiled, no, she smirked. She opened an empty Word document and began to type vigorously.
         The next day, she handed in three separate short stories in a portfolio. She included an illustrated title page. Her name, the course number, the assignment, and a title. “The First Rule of Writing: Write What You Know”. She handed it in, quite proud for having turned out three decent short stories in the span of one night.