Catching Fire

          

            It feels like an eternity since the first Games. An eternity, yet somehow as if it were just yesterday, too. I try to reconcile the events in my mind—the brutal killing, the finicky, manipulated playing field, the mixed emotions of unrelenting love and competition. The last on that list is what has both plagued and kept me upright since we were out there the last time.

            The things I saw won’t go away. The nightmares are constant, even in daylight, but there’s still work to be done. The Capitol is gaining strength as the oppressed districts are gaining a voice. And Katniss is their main target.

Katniss…why do I still think of lying together under that cave, so wounded and defeated, yet somehow safe because she was there too. I try not to wish myself back to that cave, telling myself this freedom is better.

But this freedom, however loosely that word can be used, is only a mirage. Our “love” is only a mirage that is required in order for our safety to be secure.  And now I’ve proposed publically to this girl with an arrow whose love for me is rooted in something shifting and insincere. The fact that there’s someone else doesn’t help, either. Her love for him is much stronger, more concrete than whatever it is she feels for me.

I hate it. And now we’re heading back into the arena for round two. The Capitol knows what’s rising in the districts. It knows who the leader is and what it will take to break her. I wish it would rather break me instead. I wish she could go home to her mother and sister and shoot her perfectly positioned arrows at game other than man. It’s not that simple, though.

No, we must be go back. Like our “love,” it’s required of us, and the Capitol will kill us one way or another, so there’s no point in rebelling publically just yet. For now, all we can do is protect “the girl who’s on fire.” I don’t know where it will lead, but hopefully she’ll be safe at the end of this. Hopefully I’ll be there with her, too. 

[Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Published 2009 by Scholastic]

The Fault in Our Stars

            I hate cancer. It touches everyone, even if it’s only on the hem of a dress or two fingers touching by happenstance. I try to think of why it was created. Was it created? Maybe it’s just always been a thing. Maybe the Egyptians suffered from it, too. I can see a brown man with a headdress sending a note into work—probably some job related to the pyramids—describing how his throat has this large lump in it that won’t go down, or maybe how his skin, since the cartoon pictures I’ve seen of ancient Egypt always look dreadfully sunny, developed multiple little moles that look abnormal and have started making him nauseous. Would his boss be like, “Oh, sounds like cancer…”, or would he force the sick man to come into work anyway?

            Nowadays no one seems to be forced to go into work because of cancer. Forced into therapy sessions, waiting rooms, last ditch attempts of joy at carnivals, but not work. It’s as if you get cancer and suddenly you have all this time in the world to do exactly nothing before you prematurely die, or die a little later than expected, but still meet the same fate as the former. Everyone’s so consumed with rushing and running around and doing nonsensical tasks that cancer patients would consider a luxury. Sometimes I feel like I took it all for granted. I think everyone takes it for granted, actually. Rushing around, I mean. We get to go to school and work with real hair, and eat lunch without tasting metal. Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ve taken that stuff pretty selfishly, as if we deserve a happy, easy life. But then again, maybe everyone’s just a cancer patient waiting to happen, so this nonsensical busy-bodying is a pre-given gift for our future time spent in hospital beds and chemotherapy.

            My dad’s had cancer twice now. Once was in an unsavory place that is probably best not discussed, not because I care personally, but because he might be embarrassed. Anyway, now you probably know what kind of cancer he had and I went and ruined my whole plan of concealing the last ounce of dignity that part of his body had. At least I can report that the second place he had cancer was all over—on his skin.

            My dad used to golf a lot. Sometimes every day, all day. He’d always been that way. But I guess the sun got to him. The sun’s weird that way. It’s always referenced as being such a healthy, happy thing, then one day we all find out we have skin cancer and there was nothing we could have done except sat inside all day or continually reapplied suntan lotion every fifteen minutes. That’s not fair. But I guess none of this cancer stuff is.

            So anyways, my dad got cancer, twice, and he survived, but he’s different now. He doesn’t talk as much and he never golfs now. He was the first person I told about my own cancer. Well, I mean, he was in the doctor’s office too, so technically he was indirectly the first person the doctor told I had cancer to. I guess we share cancer now. It’s kind of our thing. Just me, my dad, and all these silly cancer patients I go to support group with.

            Today a new girl’s supposed to come. I think her name is Hazel. I can remember that because my eyes are hazel, so in a vain way, I’ll always be able to remember who she is. I kind of think we’ll be the same in a lot of ways. Even if we don’t become friends, I can sense her representing a part of me, of all the rest of us dying kids, who never got to live in a bigger way.

I’m trying not to make this a race—seeing who dies first. It’ll probably be me. I’ve been here longer and have stopped making an attempt at friendships. Hopefully she’ll do something I never had the time to do. Hopefully she’ll realize sooner than I did that none of this is our fault. Or maybe it is. Maybe she’ll figure that out for all of us. 

[The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Published 2012 by Dutton Books.]

A Wrinkle in Time

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A Wrinkle in Time, written by Madeleine L’Engle, is a science fiction novel centered on Meg Murry, a girl whose father went missing while completing a scientific project for the government                                           

                        

Following the sci-fi strain, the novel approaches the possibility of a fifth dimension, in which travelling from one point to another does not require a linear path. L’Engle titles this form of travel tessering or wrinkling through time. Tessering is a construct created to allow for the distance between two points to be minimized by taking shortcuts through time and space, which Meg discovers firsthand through her brother Charles Wallace’s eccentric friends Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which.

         By tessering through time, the five voyagers, plus Meg’s newly made friend Calvin, discover that a great cloud of evil is hovering throughout the universe. Informed by the three Mrs.’s, Mr. Murry has been trapped on a planet that was overcome by the evil. Equipped with specific items to help each child’s unique ability, the Murry’s and Calvin travel to the planet Camazotz without Mrs. Whatis, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, attempting to find and rescue Mr. Murry.

            The children are successful in their search for Mr. Murry, but The Dark Thing has taken over Camazotz so strongly that Charles Wallace succumbs to its power under the prompting of the Man with Red Eyes. Meg, Mr. Murry, and Calvin escape the planet, but are left with the task of retrieving Charles Wallace after they make it back to safety. In the end, Meg must call upon the one thing that evil lacks in order to save and restore her brother…whatever that is.

            A Wrinkle in Time meshes two seemingly unrelated topics—theology and science fiction—to provide readers with an imaginative take on the struggle between good and evil. L’Engle’s personal experience with Christianity provided the novel’s outlook with spirituality and allusions to Biblical points of interest. For some readers, the semi-frequent use of Scripture and/or reference to Christian views might condemn the book for trying to force a point in an otherwise playful story. Personally, I think what L’Engle has achieved is a stunning work fit to grab a young adult’s attention through imagery and enticing scientific what-ifs, while simultaneously portraying the Christian narrative of love overcoming evil, however slim the chances may seem.

            Reaching children and young adult’s can be a difficult task, especially as social pressure becomes paramount to personal interest. In terms of religion and Christianity, this pressure can begin to deteriorate a natural desire to gain spiritual consciousness and faith. Luckily, books like A Wrinkle in Time work to give children the best of both the secular and spiritual world, while instilling vital principles and morals without much fuss. Even as an adult reader, I was affirmed and appreciative for the novel and how it managed to both entertain and inspire not only my imagination, but my spirituality, as well.

[A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Published 1962 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in New York, NY.]