A World of Invisible Things.

JUST FINISHED A CREATIVE WRITING GROUP AT DANCE DIMENSION. ONE CLASS WAS CHILDREN PRE-SCHOOL TO GRADE 3. I HAD EACH OF THEM ALL CONTRIBUTE TO GROWING A STORY. IT ALWAYS AMAZES ME WHAT THEY COME UP WITH. HERE'S THE RESULT INSPIRED BY ALL THEIR PRECIOUS THOUGHTS 

Once upon a time there was a full moon in my backyard.

It was all I could see. A neighbor who never saw my moons told me to look to the sky.

When I looked up I saw not stars but the most magnificent dragon,

wings unfurled, blotting above with a blanket of black..

I should have run as people did when there be dragons.

I should have been in awe of him as I was with the moon.

Instead I felt bad, felt sad, felt everything but glad,

for the dragon wore a frown, not a snaggle-toothed sneer.

A spear jutted out from between his teeth.

Then the moon and the dragon were gone, like that.

Days past, the world turned, I could feel the earth rotate beneath my feet.

Once upon a time there was a crescent moon in my backyard.

It rest, one point anchored to the earth, beside a fountain.

This was no ordinary fountain for it reached high into the sky, far beyond the clouds.

Water sprayed from its spouts as if it was raining all over the world.

It rained on the dragon’s wings and he clumsily landed on my lawn,

a splinter of a spear remained between his lips.

I should have run as people did when they were face to face with a fire breather.

I should have feared the fire behind his stove, hot breath.

Instead I felt his need and my need too, and I reached out and patted his armored head.

Then the rarest sight of all, rarer than dragons and backyard moons,

a dragon’s tear fell, just one, that dried up on the dragon’s hot scales as soon as it was.

Should I call for my parents to rush us to hospital, a veterinarian or whoever cares for dragons?

Alas there are no such things, so with a sorry on my lips and a plea to not be burnt toast,

I grasped the spear and with both hands pulled it out.

Another tear, perhaps for the sting of his wound, perhaps for being a dragon to start with, 

or perhaps for the same reason a tear flowed from my eye as well; because aside from this

 fantastic moment, this budding friendship could not be in a world

 that didn’t believe in flying dragons and fallen moons.

More days past, the world kept turning. I looked up at the stars every night.

Once upon a time there was a new moon in my backyard.

No one could see it, but me but I knew it was there,

just as I knew on that starless night that I had someone watching over me.

Dark Tales Reviews - The Age of Miracles

THE AGE OF MIRACLES by Karen Thompson Walker

Ahoy!You won't find this book in the Young Adult section of your bookstore although at first glance it seems like the appropriate category. This is a quintessential coming-of-age story. For a teen summer read the verbiage makes for an easy read and the ample sprinkling of metaphor delicate. Not to say that the novel is lightweight. It has all the textbook trappings of a YA novel; first love, unstable domestic situation, illness, loss of loved ones and a daunting obstacle to overcome.  The point of view is a filter of teen malaise, everything is high drama, Romeo and Juliet, every new day bringing something new to mope and grouse about.
Except in Julia's world her reactions are, if anything, understated for the Earth is slowing its rotation which begins a domino effect of natural disasters that should make bullying and lunchroom alliances non-events. Not for Julia. What follows is one part dissertation on the breakdown of society and the malleable nature of Man and one part a chronicle of the transformation of child to adult.
The miraculous age refers not to the end of the world, but puberty when body's and mind's transform in strange and wonderful ways. The days and events that determine who we will become.
 A well respected, well read acquaintance of mine commented as she read this novel, "I'm waiting for something to happen." Excuse me? Its just the end of the world as we know it. People are drooping dead like the birds that fall from the sky. Neighbor vie against one another for survival. Crops wither and the future is as dark as the nights that grow longer each sunset.
Here's the one trick pony that is making this such a critic's favorite. This distopian future seen through Julia's eyes plays as melodrama because in her world view the world doesn't rotate around its core, it rotates, or should rotate, around her. When that is challenged, when it is realized to never have existed at all, that is a teen Armageddon far worse the erasing of suburbia.
This is a realization teens are already keenly aware of. Adults barely remember the stage production of puberty, how the little things stung and scarred. Behaps it is to avoid revisiting the pain and because in hind sight the events seem trivial in the grand scope of things.
I stand corrected. This book does belong in the General Fiction department alongside the grownup books for it is a reminder to us with our teen years in the rear view mirror how the little things matter.

THINK: Mean Girls written by Ray Bradbury.

1^st LINE – “We didn't notice right away.”