She looks just like her…so beautiful…Elissa will you be my Carrie Ann?  I cocked my head to the side to peer at the mere beauty of her, but also at the utter similarity she shared with my late sister. 

               

“Ryan are you okay?” Elissa rubbed the top of my hand and smiled before dropping her head back and staring at the sun.  I did the same. As she chatted at the forever distance of happiness before she met me-I thought of the short time I had with his beautiful baby sister. No more waiting. No more struggling alone in the midst of my past.  No more standing at the gate of eternal depression. Somehow I did the impossible: I took a step backwards towards happiness….but that was never meant to be.

               

Her silhouette danced along the tree trunks before breaking into a sprinting shadow.  Carrie Ann was running toward the people she saw leisurely golfing. I felt like I couldn’t run fast enough, my chest tightened and my throat was beginning to go into a searing pain.  When Carrie Ann, the real Carrie Ann, died I vowed to make it up to her and if this one got away, another attempt of getting revenge for my past…failed.  When my daydreaming closed I realized I had caught up with Carrie Ann.  There she was in front of me: white nightgown scraping the air, her screams piercing the blotted sky, tangled hair flying in terror behind her.  This was it. One leap and my fears were over. 

               

She’s dead.  Her closed eyes and soft lips respite forever.  Empty body, heartless and soulless,  now just another life gone and passed with time. Carrie Ann number three’s story had ended, but I refused to let my own go even if it meant being stuck in this same chapter for the rest of my life.  Happily ever after wasn’t good enough because for true happiness you need revenge. 

Prologue to Manitole and Santé Diego

Manitole and Santé Diego

Problem of the Air Tank

(Authors Note: This is a draft of a longer story I might write about.  Manitole is like present day police but stricter. And Santé Diego is like present day sun. In possible later chapters you will understand why the sun is called this.)

Earth had become a burden, if Christopher Columbus only knew what was to come he would have hoped the Earth really was square so he could sail off the edge into infinity. Even before that: Mother Earth would have ceased to continue caring for all of the inanimate life for it was only to go to waste in the next three thousand years.

Santé Diego had risen high into the sky and blotted it with light.  Everyone waited on their doorsteps along with the other two families assigned to live with them and chanted the morning prayer:

“Santé Diego we see your rising, we accept the rays you have offered. And if you….Santé Diego… ever not rise we shall ever mourn in the darkness.”

Manitole marched down the street assuring everyone’s mouth was moving in unison. Just last month, Little Tommy stood silently during the Morning Prayer and was taken away by the Manitole to jail.  No matter how much Tommy’s mother would have screamed-Manitole wouldn’t have even glanced back. 

                “Lea now we must go to the Breath Catcher, grab your tin.” Lea rushed inside under her mother’s orders and grabbed the awaiting tin on the counter which she connected to her mouth for her transporting air supply. Eventually the three families got into the back of a Manitole truck which took them to the BC Factory.  Lea took her mother Eva by the hand and got into the back of the line.  This is where Lea often read over the rules to occupy her time.

1.       Three air tanks per household.

2.       If you cannot pay the fee, you do not get your air tanks.

3.       Wait patiently, if any rowdiness occurs there will be no air tanks for one day for that particular household.

“Next.” A sturdy man called from behind the counter. Eva slipped him the coins. “Here is your air tank.” Eva took it slowly and scurried with Lea in hand to their Manitole truck.

Once home, Eva set their Air tank on the table and switched it to on.  Luckily, they were to have another day with fresh air unlike the poor who could not pay for this and were slowly dying of smaller and smaller amounts of quality air to breathe.

                No care. No helping. No easy way.  It was simply fighting for your life every single day.

No Trust No Heartbreak

(Authors Note: In this essay I compare three totally different people and find the one thing that all of them have in common.)

“You have to trust me.” Jacob, Stacey’s love of her life, didn’t want her to get hurt.  After all, he had come so far to save her. Stacey had to trust Jacob, but she went against her own heart and instead left him in the hall with a bruise on his head.  Maybe that’s why she ended up with a vicious murderer pinning her into the ground pressing a hammer into her cheek.  This part of White is for Magic is where the author, Laurie Stolarz, inferences on the fact that for Stacey to resolve her past she had to learn to trust the people she loved in the present. 

As Stacey slowly started trusting people, she was starting to resolve her past.  Maura was the first person she ever really loved and trusted entirely, though she was now 6 feet beneath the ground.  Murdered by a stranger who went by the name of Miles Parker.  Stacey much preferred to call him jerk face, but for the sake of public trials she had to settle for calling him Mr. Parker.  Though, you could clearly see now why her optimistic and vulnerable attitude closed out the world and let no one earn her trust.

                Shutting out and finding everyone untrustworthy was a way Stacey protected herself from getting hurt, much like Haymitch in the Hunger Games.  He convinced himself that everyone had their ugly side that would betray and hurt with no regret.  Soon, Haymitch made you realize that he himself sometimes turned into that ugly unbearable side as he taught Katniss and Peeta to make people like you, and then turn your back to win the Hunger Games.  This only made his trusting issue more visible. Even though he tried to cover it back up with whisky and beer, people had become aware of his problems.  

                Sometimes the trust isn’t lost in the early years. Guy Montag from Fahrenheit 451 had always put his soul into burning books.  Once he realized how much information was contained inside the leather covers, he attempted to cause a revolution that would make stories known to the whole city.  No one was the ‘good guy’ anymore because you couldn’t guess how much they might know. 

                Guy Montag, Haymitch, and Stacey all shut themselves out because of not wanting to get hurt or show any kind of feelings towards anything. Later in all the books though they earn peoples loyalty, respect, and most important-trust.  When people started showing this feeling towards them, their inferior attitudes broke down and they paid the same trust and affection towards others.