Friday's Adventure

So after my last class on Friday (“Fantasy and the Fantastic”) my friend (codename: Gabi) and I… well, long story short, we ended up writing a story together on the whiteboard in th theater and dance lecture hall. :)

I started the first entry, and every line break denotes a switch in authors. It’s primitive and silly, but pure. There really aren’t words for how pleased I am with how well my afternoon went.

“Once upon a time

in a land not really all that far away,

there were two girls who sat in class after it had ended because they were too lazy to stand up.

The sloth of one of the quirky students derived from the physical and mental exhaustion of a four and a half hour chem lab the night previous.

The other girl, the one who stayed up until 4 AM because she couldn’t face going to bed, sympathized greatly because all forms of science and math (though mostly math) made her break out in hives.

The first, whose code name was Gabi (a name that suited her personality quite excellently), groaned and started sleepily tapping her fingers one-by-one on the other’s fingernails, “I don’t want to go back and do laundry… or homework… or anything else even slightly resembling responsible college student behavior.”

“Well,” said the other (codename: Sarah), “I don’t want to go to work.” This exchange occurred several more times, until one of them said, “We should go lie outside in the sun.” And the other said, “But we’d have to get up.” They thought about lying on the stage in front of them, but it looked awfully dirty.

Then, Sarah made a most perceptive and admirably sympathetic point: “but the stage does seem rather empty and lonely. I feel like we should be doing something on it! I mean, think of all that time it spends in here… bare… devoid of love and attention. And then, when the lights finally illuminate its shiny, excitedly anticipating face, people just end up using and abusing it for their own selfish purposes!”

Gabi took this point under consideration for a moment, then nodded decisively and said, “We could draw on the chalkboard.” Sarah grinned. “I’ll draw on the whiteboard, and you draw on the chalkboard.” It was quickly agreed upon, and in her excitement Gabi forewent the stairs and leapt up onto the stage. Sarah found the projector buttons and raised it up.

While Gabi was becoming unreasonably fascinated with the magic projector-moving buttons and bounding around waving her piece of chalk wildly contemplating the subject of her work of art, Sarah was putting her own burst of energy into a touching message of love for her companion (complete with a picture of a beautiful azure daisy!).

So intent on her lovely message and daisy was she that by the time she looked up, she realized with aw that Gabi was an amazing artist, and was in the process of crafting a fantastic creature that surrounded her own sweet message. Sarah was finished long before Gabi, so she decided to craft her own fantastic creature: George.

George’s final form was brought to fruition as Gabi put the finishing touches on her dragon. After gratuitous amounts of giggly contemplation of the funny, but still adorable little subsurface critter (as well as a not-altogether warranted equivalence of George to Sarah’s self-portrait by her own mother) George was officially named and titled ‘George the Gremlin.’

After spending a suitable amount of time admiring both the dragon and the gremlin, the two girls got to explore a bit. Gabi found a cord attached to the podium that looked like one could plug an ipod into it. With a rambunctious exclamation, Sarah leapt off the stage and snatched up her ipod, then ran back over to the podium.

All gleeful dreams of afternoon parties with music, munchies, and innocent expression of creativity burst like so many sticky bubbles that you think you’ve grasped, when in fact you have simply covered your hands in goo, as after much fiddling and fruitless attempts to hit play and hear the slightest whisper of a sound, Sarah and Gabi gave up the production of excellent dance music.

They were not to suffer disappointment for long, but we’ll come back to that part later in our story. The two girls went to the back of the lecture hall to investigate there, but found nothing of any real interest, except for a few frightening pictures of clowns drawn in blue ink at the top of the stairs. At the back of the lecture hall, they got to examine their art at a different perspective. “We need to fill in the empty space,” Gabi decided. Sarah agreed.

After a few moments of consideration, the latter burst out, “Want to write a story?” “Yeah!” came the enthusiastic response. The two girls, driven by that mysterious, immeasurable energy that graces youthful enthusiasm before society has had ample time to cast its shadow on the heart, leapt down the stairs and back onto the stage. As they were beginning their story, Sarah made a discovery of salvation.

“We should write our story,” she said. Gabi looked up from her first entry. “What?” (And, indeed, if Sarah had stopped to think about it, she would have realized there had been a lapse between her idea and her words.) “Here,” Sarah said, and moved toward the whiteboard. “Let me show you what I mean.” And she began to write: “…there were two girls who sat in class after it had ended…”

Exclaiming her sudden understanding of “our story,” Gabi excitedly took up the thread as Sarah made the brilliant discover that her MacBook in her backpack could play music. After a few hours of hard work, excellent tunes and absurd dancing, the two artist-writers stepped back from their work, rereading with pride a tale beginning with words that initiate so many of our life stories:

Once upon a time,

in a land not really all that far away…

Spring