Karen of Mavarin's Stories

What It's All About

2007-06-04T11:55:32Z

“What is it about?”

“It’s about how we change in response to outside pressures.”

“Boring. What is it about?”

“It’s about three teenagers trying to stay alive.”

“Better.”

“This isn’t helping.”

“Let me see the manuscript.”

The next day: “It wasn’t about that at all.”

“What?”

“It’s not about people changing, or trying to stay alive. That’s incidental. It’s about alienation, Fox News, and the corruption of the Bush White House. Allegorically, of course.”

“No, it isn’t. Okay, the one character is alienated, but that’s about it.”

“Wrong. His friends are alienated, too, from their family and friends and a corrupt government. The government lies to the people, aided by the mass media.”

“There are no mass media in the story. It’s a fantasy world.”

“Your storyteller characters are the media.They are complicit in the government’s lies.”

“But I wrote that part before Bush took office.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s all right there in the story.” He looked at me kindly. “Writers never know what the story is about.”

The Secret Freeway

2007-03-26T07:21:24Z

I first discovered the secret freeway in 1986, the same year I learned that the back doors of every Yellow Roof restaurant lead into the same parking lot.

This is how it started.

It was a little over 4 AM when I pulled into the “Yeller’s” at El Cajon, California. It had been our traditional stop, the place to get breakfast en route from the Cleveland National Forest rest area to Disneyland. But everything was different this time. Jill wasn’t with me, and never would be again. I wasn’t headed for Disneyland, and it wasn’t time for breakfast.

I needed coffee, so I stopped anyway. It didn’t help much. I hit I-8 again eastbound, thinking that if I could just make it to the Cleveland rest area, I could sleep there. It was pretty much all I thought about.

An hour later, I pulled off. It wasn’t until I’d parked that I noticed the snow, neatly plowed but starting to drift in the biting wind.

And the Ohio plates on most of the cars. And the I-90 sign.

I was ten miles from Cleveland, OH, via the secret freeway.

Transformation

2007-03-24T03:56:01Z

A synthesized fanfare sounded above Sara’s head, followed immediately by disappointed groans from her rivals and a smattering of applause from onlookers. A dome of flawlessly clear glass (or was it glass?) extended itself from a point about fifty feet above the spire, locking her in and the other contestants out.

Then the light began in a cold wave, battering her even through the padding of the black bodysuit. Sara buried her head in her arms, eyes tightly shut. Her body began to tremble, not like someone with Parkinson’s in the old days, but like the motorized massager in her top drawer at home. She buzzed.

The excess light faded from the dome above, and Sara was able to open her eyes. The humans around her began to shout and chant: “Take it off! Take it off!”

She unzipped her bodysuit, and stepped out gracefully. The crowd gasped and cheered. The shirt and shorts beneath existed only as rainbow accents to her flexible crystalline exoskeleton through which she now shined.

So it begins, she thought. Sing.

Do You Want to Meet a Pirate?

2007-03-23T04:54:48Z

“Tell me a story,” the little girl demanded.

“What kind of story?”

“About pirates.”

“Do you like pirates?”

“Yup. Only I don’t know any.”

“Would you like to meet a pirate? Or would you rather just hear a story about one?”

“There aren’t any more pirates.”

“Yes there are. I know some pirates. One in particular.”

“A real pirate? With a ship and everything? Or do you mean the boring kind, that just copies video and sells it?”

“The kind with a ship and everything.”

“I don’t believe you. What’s the name of the ship?”

“Bad Wolf.”

“That’s a funny name for a ship. There aren’t any wolves in the ocean.”

“You’ve never heard of the Sea Wolf?”

“No. Can I meet him?”

“Her. That depends. Are you brave enough?”

“Yeah. Why? What will she do to me?”

“She might shanghai you.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Make you part of her crew.”

“That would be cool.”

“You couldn’t go home for a long time. No mommy or daddy.”

“That’s okay.”

“No tv. No iPod, phone or video game.”

“Well….”

“No computer.”

“I’ll think about it.”

The Birthday Race

2007-03-23T04:31:40Z

The day before her birthday was a busy one. She prepared and packed three color-coded meals, dropped the cats at Sarah’s place, loaded her MicroMac with a day’s work, music, two books, one game, fresh batteries and Hypno 3.5, and napped for two hours. Then she put her gear on: the padded black bodysuit, the PowerPlus bracelets, two full jars of FrictionGone, and the new pair of Mars Jets she’d broken in the previous weekend.

She was ready.

The fence sank into the earth at midnight precisely. It was hard to be sure in the dark, but she estimated that about a hundred fifty of her rivals were sprinting toward the obelisk now, just as she was. Some – twins, probably – acted in tandem, one to reach the goal, the other to stop the lead racers.

Her months of training paid off. There was no one between her and the obelisk now. Three men tried to grab her from behind, but she slipped away.

She made it. The spire flashed, lighting her face in victory. It would be interesting to spend her birthday ruling a planet.