Post-Boxing Day Shopping

I stared into the changing-room mirror. I was not a little impressed by what I saw.
"Wow," I said admiringly. "This bra makes me look incredible."
"You mean to say," I replied, "that this bra gives a needed empasis to a certain area."
"I mean that indeed," I said.
"Then you should buy it, if it pleases you. Moreover, it has a thirty-percent discount. This is not something to be spurned."
"I am grateful for your approval, and am similarly pleased with the price. However, this concept of thrift you constantly thrust upon me is beginning to wear thin."
"Much like your old bra," I observed.
"Yes," I said. "Exactly. If it were not for your incessant reminders of things like "cost" and "need", I would have bought a new bra some months ago and would not have had to put up with the eternal grumbling of my mother regarding the dire state of my underwear."
"You would also, most likely, be broke and living under a bridge," I pointed out.
"Yes, but at least I would be well-dressed and living under a bridge."
"But your bed would still consist of a pile of rocks, and your pillow an old tire."
"This is beyond the point," I stated firmly. "The fact remains - were it not for you, I would today be dressed in a fashionable and exciting outfit - not the middle-aged remains of a skirt I bought four years ago. You turn every shopping expedition into a time of dread." I remembered with horror the events of two months ago. I'd been on the brink of buying a much-needed top and shorts, when I began to wonder if I thought the price was just a little too high and whether my moral duty could sustain buying expensive mass-produced merchandise to the detriment of the underpaid workers of China, which induced a panic session that only the combined efforts of the shop assistant, my prodical flatmate Natasha, the friendly fellow shopper in the neighbouring cubicle, and a frantic phonecall to my mother could overcome.
"I am sorry for having only your best interests at heart," I said coldly. "One hopes your bank balance, at least, truly appreciates my influence."
I ignored this statement. I changed back into my threadbare outfit and stormed out of the cubicle. I sped about the shop in a furious rage. I would be daring. I would rebel. I would buy a packet of cheap pre-packaged briefs (modesty forbids me to say "knickers") as well. I went to the counter and paid before I could change my mind.

..

During the walk home, as I sipped a mango frozen yoghurt I'd bought in further defiance, I pointed out to myself, "Have you ever noticed how grumpy I constantly get?"
"I have," I replied.
"And have you ever noticed how you always seem to be at the bottom of it?" I demanded.
"'Always' is an exaggeration," I said. "Not 'always'. Just 'often'."
"You're always nitpicking," I complained.
"But," I continued doggedly, "have you noticed how it's usually me who cheers you up again?"
I had to admit, grudgingly, that I had a point.
"There, you see!" I said encouragingly. "Now straighten your back! Smile! Stride forth with confidence and triumph, for you have new underwear! Admire the striking purple leaves on that tree over there! Sip that ill-considered beverage you bought with pleasure! Pull out your i-pod and listen to cheerful, summery music! There! Do you not feel much better?"
"I do indeed," I said, my mood already much improved.

...

When I got home, I showed my purchases off to my mother.
"That's lovely," she said approvingly of my bra. "How much did it cost?"
"Twenty-eight dollars. Thirty-percent discount," I said with pride.
"Oh, that's good going," she said. "It's always best to buy underwear when it's on special - it's so expensive - are you alright? - you appear to be choking - "
"Just - just a funny thought," I said, wheezing with laughter. "Something somebody said -"

Later on, of course, I had to explain myself to myself.
"What was so funny?" I asked.
"I just suddenly thought - if you ever got tired of dispensing common sense and helpful advice and decided to retire, that would be okay, because there's a replacement all ready and lined up," I chuckled.
"Who?" I asked.
"My mother," I replied.
"How do you know I'm not your mother?"
For one long, frightening instant I actually considered it.
"Ha ha," I said at last. "Don't be ridiculous."
"You said it yourself. I dispense common sense and helpful advice. How is this different from what your mother does?"
"I should have said, 'unwanted' advice."
"In fact," I said, warming to my argument, "you might actually refer to me as your portable mother. I'm there with you, wherever you go, always ready to leap in with some helpful suggestion..."
I stuck my fingers in my ears, screwed my eyes shut and began to rock backwards and forwards. "La la la la la," I hummed. If I kept doing this, the voice would go away. The nightmare would not become real. I would be prevented from becoming insane. All would be well.

I chuckled and decided to let my teasing be. After all, I couldn't hear myself any more.

Christmas

"Merry Christmas," I said.
"Merry Christmas," I replied.
I was too bloated to say anything more.

The Gods of Literature

I strode off agitatedly into empty space.

“I can't take much more of this. I need help,” I said.

There was a swirl of colour, and there were suddenly Beings all around me. I couldn't tell who or what they were; all I could perceive were their vague and hazy outlines. I knew, though, with the irrational certainty only intuition can bring, that they were definately more than ordinary.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“We are your gods of Literature,” said a Voice, and I knew then that my intuition had been absolutely correct.

The Beings shimmered into focus and revealed themselves to be none other than Robin Hobb, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Elizabeth Peters and, in a blaze of glory that could belong only to one man, His Most Illustrious Professorship, the Great J.R.R. Tolkien.

“Wow,” I said, awed.

“You summoned us, and we came,” said His Grandness in a sweeping voice.

“I – wow – thanks,” I managed to say. I stared at them. The Magnificent Tolkien looked resplendant in a tweed jacket, and His tobacco pipe complimented His greying hair perfectly. Robin Hobb was a grumpy-looking older woman who spoke English with a pronounced American nasal twang, Elizabeth Peters wore a truly spectacular hat which defied the established concept of scale, and Cecilia Dart-Thornton looked like sweetness personified.

“Isaac Asimov couldn't make it, I'm afraid,” said Cecilia, and The Unparalleled Wonder added, “Yes, he was having an argument with Arthur C. Clark about gravity or some other such nonsense, which apparently could not be disrupted.”

“And J.K. Rowling had charity work. She sends her apologies,” interjected Cecilia.

“Humph,” said Robin, as though charity was not a sufficient excuse for her absence. Or perhaps she wished she had a decent excuse, too.

“Well, I'm certainly grateful – no, more than that, I am honoured that you have decided to visit me here in this way,” I said grandly.

“It's not like we'd be able to visit you in any other way,”pointed out Elizabeth.

“Where are we, anyway?” asked Cecelia, peering around into the gloom of my thought.

“Oh – this was just my grumpy space, I come here when I'm sad or miserable, like I was when I asked for you,” I explained.

“Then I deem it to be unsuitable for our discussion,” said He Who Creates Glory. “Take us somewhere more pleasant.”

I waved my magic wand and took them to my happy place.

“Amazing,” said Elizabeth; “How beautiful!” cried Cecilia.

Robin admitted it had merit.

“Did you make this paradise?” He asked of me.

“No,” I replied. “Not yet. But I will.”

(Can I describe for you my paradise? No. Not yet. But I will. One day when I have the words.)

“There are chickens in your paradise,” observed Robin.

“Of course there are,” I replied. “How else would I get eggs?”

“The supermarket?” suggested Elizabeth.

I smiled.

“It's very beautiful,” said His Munificence, and I solemnly replied, “The most beautiful place that will ever be,” but inside I was jumping up and down shrieking He likes it! He likes it! Hehehe!

“Now tell us why you were sad, and what we can do to help,” said Cecilia softly.

“Oh,” I mumbled, “nothing much – just Christmas... and weird emotional stuff...”

“Ah,” said Robin.

“We've all been there,” agreed Cecilia

“Tell us who he is. And then point him out to us. Look! I brought I parasol!” cried Elizabeth, brandishing a pink example of the type around her head in a way that made her hat flop about excitedly. We all backed away hastily. In her hands, a parasol was a potentially lethal weapon.

“No one!” I said quickly. “It's not like that - it's not important, anyway, just a matter of damaged pride -”

“Let us know when you believe that,” He said.

“Listen!” I shouted, waving my arms about agitatedly as an expression of my extreme annoyance, “I didn't ask you here to interrogate me about my non-existant love life! You're authors! You write things! You don't dispense unwanted realationship advice like a gang of fanatical agony aunts! You're writers. Teach me how to write.”

There was a long silence.

“Well, that's just cheating,” said Robin finally.

“Excuse me?” I replied heatedly.

“That's right,” agreed Elizabeth. “Writing is something you discover and invent for yourself. No one can teach you that.”

“But – but I'm so confused,” I confessed. And not a little annoyed. “I have so many contradictory ideas – I scarcely know how to start – couldn't you just talk and explain your opinions and ideas of things to me?”

“I'm so sorry, sweetheart,” said Cecilia. "But we had to go through the exact same process - exploring and figuring things out for ourselves. We can't help you with that."
"Oh, but -" I began, but then He spoke, and I fell silent in attentive deference.

“There can be no harm in the sharing of our ideas, surely,” He said. “I well remember when I first started writing – most of the time I hadn't the faintest clue of what I was doing. I found it helpful to talk with fellow people who were interested in the same sort of thing. Do you think I could have gained the skills and successes I did without those people to aid and critique me? I would have remained where I was – alone, without an inkling.” He chuckled softly to himself.

There was another long silence as we contemplated these pearls of wisdom. Perhaps the three Lady Authors were remembering all the people who had ever helped them with their writing.

“All right,” said Robin begrudgingly. “We'll do it.”

“Absolutely!” trilled Cecilia.

“Where do you want to start?” asked Elizabeth.

I gazed around at them happily, took a deep breath – and asked my first question.

Signs of a Degenerate World

"The world's gone mad," I said in shock.
I was too stunned to say anything, so I merely nodded mutely.
"I mean, how does one react when one comes face to face with tangible evidence of our society's steadily increasing corruption?"
I shook my head in bewilderment, still silent.
"This just cannot be happening. No, it isn't happening. I'm going to walk away and pretend this never happened, that I never came here, never witnessed this."
"This is a good plan," I finally managed to say, faintly.
Yet for all my good intentions, I still stood there, frozen in sick horror, staring up at that most innocuous of signs: The Whitcoulls' Top 100 Books.

...

Oh, Whitcoulls! How you have toyed with my emotions over the years! You lure me seductively into your well-appointed store, with stands of glorious books layed out in the most beautiful of logical arrangements. You entice me to pick up a book, new and glistening with promise, and then I drift, dream-like, up to your counter to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a book I read in less than a day. But do I begrudge you?

No. For you are Whitcoulls, provider of books, and I love you. You create a convenient place to meet people at the mall - for if they should happen to be late, who could become bored in your illustrious confines?

But today, I could not even bear to step across your threshold.

"They changed it," I said in shock. "The Top 100. It's changed."
"They change it every year," I pointed out. "They have a vote, and people decide which are their favourite books, and Whitcoulls turns it into a lucrative advertising campaign. You couldn't expect it to remain the same forever."
"But look," I whispered. "Look at which book has the number one spot."
I looked. "It's some sort of series... The Millenium trilogy, by some man I've never even heard of..."
"And you know what that means," I said.
"The Lord of the Rings," I replied in rising horror. "It isn't number one."
"Exactly," I hissed.
"Oh - but - but this must simply be one of those fleeting times when pop literature briefly captivates the minds of the indoctrinated masses, and ends up momemtarily besting the greatest of literary classics. Like when The Da Vinci Code inexplicably ended up number one, with The Lord of the Rings coming in second. You were horrified. And the following year The Da Vinci Code had returned to its rightful place of 21st, and Tolkien once more reigned triumphant. You'll see. The Lord of the Rings will still be quite high up there."
With beating heart my eyes turned to the second spot on the list. And it was then, just then, that I realised the depths our modern world had sunken to.

Twilight held second place.

The pounding of my heart was reminiscent of the drums echoing through Moria - doom, doom went the drums in the deep.

My eyes frantically flicked to third place.

The Time Traveller's wife.

Doom. Doom.

Fourth place.

My Sister's Keeper.

Doom. Doom.

Fifth Place.

Cross Stitch - previously unheard of, and from this point onwards scorned forever more.

Doom. Doom.

At last my eyes beheld the sight they longed to see - The Lord of the Rings, resplendant in the red cover identical to the one it was originally published in so many years ago, sitting morosely at the end of the shelf, unheeded and unwanted, in sixth place.

"The world's gone mad," I whispered.

Shock held me immobile. I was faced with the complete restructuring of my world. How was I supposed to think, to act, to speak, when my fellow man regarded the greatest work of fiction ever written to be lesser than the meanest trashy pulp novel?

Was I to conform to the world's expectations and treat The Lord of the Rings with scorn and derision?

Was my copy of The Lord of the Rings, illustrated by Alan Lee and celebrating the hundredth birthday of the Great Professor himself, to lose its spot of reverence upon my bookshelf?

No. Never, and certainly not today.

I shook the dust of Whitcoulls from my feet and stormed off. I wished to go to a place where great literature was treated appropriately. Stupidly, I went to the theatre and watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I came home and I wept.

Then I burned my Twilight novels.

Ostensibly the First of Many

"What does one write about when one does nothing all day save read and drink tea?" I asked one day.
"One either does not write at all, or one finds something other to do than read or drink tea, and writes about that," I replied.
"Your logic is unparalled," I said. "You have given me a great deal to think about."
I smiled modestly. "I try to be of service, occasionally."
"You are a wonderful person," I said.
"I know," I said.

...

Yesterday I got a job - not an easy task during the Christmas season. The job was not one to be proclaimed from street corners, nor shouted from the roof-tops, but it would, I thought, provide me with a small, steady income - not something to be scoffed at by a poor, desperate student. It was a small job delivering pamphlets to a few streets around the Te Atatu area, and as well as providing money would give me the chance to get fresh air and critique people's front gardens.
"Truly," I said, "I have done well."
"You won't earn very much," I said with the authority of Prophecy.
"It's more than I'd earn if I didn't do it," I pointed out.
"Very true. And it would be good for you. You're getting flabby and slothful staying at home reading all day. You need exercise."
"Oh, shut up! Stop making me feel bad. I like staying at home reading all day. And besides, I managed to fit into a pair of shorts I bought when I was twelve today, so your arguments regarding my physical wellbeing are certainly sub-standard." If I had chanced to look into a mirror I'm sure I would have seen a smug smile stretch across my face.
"Those shorts were too big for you when you were twelve," said that infuriating and eternally accurate voice in my head, "and when you sit your circulation gets cut off. Look down. Your legs are turning a disturbingly purple hue."
"Shut up, fool," I said, thereby winning the argument.

...

Later that afternoon a woman with the physique of a pro-wrestler who has discovered the combined delights of chocolate and the comfort of her living-room sofa turned up at my doorstep with a pile of pamphlets and a grumpy demeanor.
"Are you run number 61039?" she demanded.
"Not a clue," I replied cheerily.
"You should have a paper with the number on it."
It turns out I had a paper with the number on it. I found it and returned to the woman on the doorstep, whose leg hairs were bristling with impatience.
"Yep, this is yours," she said, scanning the paper, and proceeded to dump the pamphlets into my unsuspecting hands.
"Thank you very much," I said, gasping. The pamphlets were ridiculously heavy. My arms trembled with the shock of holding something heavier than your average 600-page novel, and I was in danger of dropping them.
"Small run this week," she commented as she watched me struggle. "Last week we had fifteen of the things to go out."
"Wow," I said.
"Yeah," she grunted, and added, "Oh, this is yours," and gave me another piece of paper which contained my instructions and expected paycheck.

It was then that I discovered, with a shock, that my expected paycheck for this delivery, which would take an hour at the very least if one included the bike trip to and from the area, would be a grand total of three dollars and thirty-five cents.

I barricaded myself in my room.

"I've never felt so cheated," I moaned.
"It's certainly less than ideal. I admit, even I am surprised," I replied.
"I don't want to do it!" I wailed, "I want to give it up! I don't want to be an agent of consumer advertising and a purveyor of paper waste!"
"This is not an ideal attitude!" I scolded. "Think! Exercise! Fresh air! A change of scenery -"
"You make it sound like some sort of exotic holiday," I complained.
"- a chance to view gardens that could quite possibly be better than the ones on your street - "
"That's not hard, they're all just variations of the same degree of horrible -"
"- and don't forget that you'll be able to ride your bike, Cassandra, again, now that your uncle so kindly repaired the puncture. A positive attitude and ready smile, my dear, will get you far in life."
"This is true," I said, perking up. "Alright, I'll do it."
"I'm so proud of you," I said fondly.

It was easier said than done. The air in my tire, so lovingly repaired yesterday, had mysteriously leaked out. I spent a good ten minutes examining the tire in great detail, but when the air valve snapped off in my hand I gave it up as a lost cause.

It was raining. I went inside, and sulked, and read Harry Potter fan fic, and drank peppermint tea.

That evening, I resigned.