October 14th, 2008

Posted by Thaydra and filed under Book Reviews | No Comments »

My latest read was from my library’s One Book-One Community program.  This year the book chosen was To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  An instant classic published in 1960.  It is about Scout- a young girl- and how she grows up in Maycomb, Alabama.  It follows how she tries to comprehend the world of adults around her, and the process of Negros being free and the issues they face. 

 

 Her father, a prominant white lawyer, is chosen to defend a negro man in a rape charge.  Scout and her brother have to endure the torment of being the children of a white man defending a negro, as well as try to understand the thinking processes of the adults around them. 

 

It deals with issues of rape, racial injustice, prejudice, lost innocence, social and gender structures.  It is often taught in schools, but has been challenged due to it’s use of racial “slurs”, which I find ridiculous, considering that is how they spoke back then.  To take it out would cause the book to lose much of it’s validity in my eyes.  I think having them in there adds to the impact of the message of the book. 

 

Not by any means my type of regular read, but I am glad I read it.  I would recommend that anyone who has not read it go out and borrow it from your local library.

October 13th, 2008

Posted by Thaydra and filed under writing ideas | No Comments »

( This was a dream I had a couple nights ago )

I was in a building, and it looked to be an old abandoned perhaps research facility.  There was a very large room, and above was a loft-like area enclosed in thick plastic windows overlooking the room.  There was a catwalk stairwell that circled up onto the loft area.  There had been some kind of “monster” lurking around, killing people.  It was here in the building, and there was a group of people hiding here.  They had worked their way up the stairs and had barricaded themselves within the viewing room.  In an attempt to save their children, they had put them in a large box that had been suspended by cables in the room, and covered them with a tarp, then moving them out to the middle of the ceiling, hopefully out of sight, smell and mind of the monster. 

 

The creature approached, shuffling his way up the catwalk.  He reminded me of Golem, from Lord of the Rings, but zombified.  He made little noise other than soft grunts and the shuffling of his torn clothing that hung from his flesh as he made his way up.  One of the children had for some reason moved the tarp, and was frantically trying to get it back in place, but failing.  The golem had seen the children, and they starting screaming and crying to the adults in the room, begging for help and notice.  It seemed they hadn’t seen the creature making it’s way toward them.  The adults looked on impassively as the children continued to panic.  The creature was at the door to the room, and entered without the adults making a move.  He (the creature) then turned toward the children, and much to their shock, looked to be a normal adult, standing there with the others, save for the gleam in his eyes.  His eyes gave away his true spirit. 

 

 

The children were then put into another room.  They were stiff and small like dolls.  Put up upon shelves around a padded room that housed some freak that cackled and clapped as his new toys were given to him to play with.

 

**********************  Shuffle  **********************

 

I was in a big warehouse type building.  Slate grey concrete walls, and stained, but swept floors.  The place was barren of any furnishings save for what looked like the serving section of the school’s hot lunch.  There was a line of people stringing through the warehouse towards the lunch buffet, but there was no food waiting in the hot plates of the table.  Instead, there was a woman handing out little pill cup sized servings of something comparable to a very pulpy lemonade.  I remember someone assuring the crowd that the drink was okay- that it was made of lemons so was safe for us. 

I took my small cup from the “lunch lady” and surveyed it.  I gulped it down, and was surprised to see that it did indeed taste like lemonade, albeit with mashed lemons in it as well.  I turned and gave this information to those still waiting behind me, and saw a bit of tension release from the crowd.  I was then ushered in through another doorway that led to another big deserted room save for those of us who had already taken our medicine.  The entire population was there to take part in this.

Still in somewhat of a line, we followed through a maze of rooms.  Confused as to what was going on, many of us gazed around us, taking in the scene, and commenting softly between one another.  Suddenly there was some kind of meat thrown into the room.  It almost appeared to be a limb from a person, and I thought I even saw shreds of clothing still attached.  The crowd instantly frenzied, but not in a panic to flee.  Instead, they tore and fought over the limb between them as if starving animals.  More and more was tossed into the room, and the feeding frenzy heightened.  I felt myself somewhat part of the fray, my senses peaked and adrenaline pumping into my veins.  A floating feeling overcame me, and I heard someone call out, ‘hey!  look at her!”.  I looked down, and saw that I was being swept away in waves of blood, flowing like a river through the halls of the building, grabbing people and carrying them through the doorways.  The tide seemed to have separate flows, as people were taken all kinds of various directions. 

 

I was swept out of the building and into the ocean.  The blood mixed with water, and I think I lost consciousness.  I came to a shore, and was placed upon it’s sands.  I made my way up the bank, and found myself in a light residential area.  I knew that the world’s population had been taken, and changed into whatever the people in the wherehouse had made them into.  It had almost looked arachnid.  But I also knew that there were survivors that hid within the world as we had once knew it, and that one was here in this area.  I could hear her singing and talking.  I carefully picked my way up the bank and through some shrubbery.  I could see the back porch of the house, and through the windows saw a woman walking around.  There was a picnic table so I sat down.  Someone was with me, but i almost think it was another version of myself.  It was talking, and I was telling it to shush and stay still.  The woman would not be able to see us, as we were invisible to her, but she would be able to hear us. 

 

Suddenly she appeared out on the porch, her eyes wide and no trace of sanity left in her.  There was a noose around her neck.  She began screaming, ” I know you are out there!!  I can’t see you but I see you!!  I know you are there, you hear me?! 

 

We sat quietly.  Children began appearing behind her- a couple of toddlers.  She came out to the table with the children and sat there, still rambling on.  The children could see us, and they smiled and giggled at us.  Still, for some reason we were not allowed to let the woman know of our presence.  She went to a tree, and proceeded to put the noose to use.  Horrified, but unable to intercede, we watched as she hung herself.  Many more children came out of various ages and races.  None seemed affected by her action, and some of the little ones tried climbing up the tree.  My shadow went and held one of them up by it’s back as it clung to the tree, keeping it from falling.  We were able to interact with the children. 

 

After she had gone, we had to move.  I was in search of a research center, so that I could try and fix what had happened throughout the world.  The people who had done this were something that was a fixture of time and space.  They were otherworldly and other-timely.  They were able to look down upon the earth and see those of us who had escaped their building.  They threw down some kind of laser like meteors that only came after us.  Apparently there were quite a few of us with this huge group of people ( we were able to let the adults see us ) and many of us were killed by their fire.  We decided we would have to travel underground, for their radars could not see through the Earth’s crust.  We let the humans know this, telling them we would be able to hear them, but they may not be able to hear us.  (we were telepathic as well).  And we went underground. 

 

 

This was where I woke.