Prompt #13
The most intelligent person I ever knew would never let himself believe in anything. On his best of days, his first words about magic and myths would spiral off into long rants about why they just couldn't exist. On the worst of his days, he became bitter about the most wonderful of things--true love, hope.
Nobody, not even I, could bring him back from his deeply cynical nature. If he had already started, it was impossible to stop him. There were only two solutions to this problem, one of which was so far-fetched it hurt to think about.
The easier of the two, obviously, was to keep him from thinking these things in the first place. if anyone started getting close to the topic of love or magic, I would immediately steer him away. That particular part was extremely difficult, because--you know that seven books about that wizard that are totally not popular at all?--I was a huge fan of them. Those wondrous creations, however, had absolutely no influence on the fact that I firmly believed in magic; I always had.
Which brings me to the second solution: I had to get him to believe in magic.
And he, being the person he was, would need proof.
And I, of-freaking-course, did not have any.
And I, unfortunately, had no idea how I would get it.
Rest assured, though, I would get it.
I was determined.
***
In this experience, I learned that I would stop at a whopping number of absolutely nothing if I thought it would help my friends. Burning flora and buzzing, panicking fauna did not deter me, but I was under no delusion it wouldn't deter my best friend. I kept my grip on his arm tight as we trudged through the deep forest, knowing with perfect familiarity that the tension wracking the limb meant he would take any given opportunity to sprint in the opposite direction.
"This grass is burning!" he squawked heatedly. "Do you know how dry southern-Texas forests are?"
I merely continued to pick my way through the forest with care. When I didn't respond, he burst out, "Very! That's how dry they are! One infinitesimal, dying ember could burn this whole forest down!"
"You're being dramatic," I said with an eye roll. Despite his IQ being at the level of Einstein's, he could be a drama queen.
"I am not," he said defensively. "Haven't you hear about the--"
"Shh! Did you hear that?" I held up a hand, as if it would actually keep him from talking.
"What, the sound of our impending deaths? Because--"
"No, it sounded like a growl. Or some sort of deep...warbling?"
He looked at me incredulously, as if he were questioning my sanity. "No, I certainly did not hear a 'growl' or a 'deep warbling.' Which, by the way, would not sound--"
"You didn't hear it because you were talking, idiot."
"Idiot? That is the most inaccurate--"
"Shh!" I hissed again. He made a childish face at me, and we started moving again.
As we moved deeper into the forest, the growling became more evident. After another half-hour of hissing at each other for stupid reasons and making our way through the burning trees, we came into a large clearing with a gigantic boulder sitting in the middle of it.
"Great," he said to me, blatantly sarcastic. "You've found a giant boulder. Now can we leave?"
"No."
"Why are we out here, anyway? You still haven't told me."
"Be quiet."
"You've said those words--or some variation of them--to me a total of twenty-eight times in the last hour."
"And you still haven't gotten the message?"
He started to sputter, "Of course I've--AAAAAAAGGHHH!"
Out of thin air, it seemed, a ball of fire came flying straight at us. Even as we dropped to the floor and it passed over our heads, my best friend still continued to scream at an offensively high pitch. I put my hand over his mouth and looked up to where the fireball had supposedly come from, and--
Sweet mother of Dumbledore--"Oh my God!"
A grey dragon the size of a Redwood had unfurled its wings, creating the most menacing and fascinating sight I had even seen in my fifteen years on this earth.
"And you thought dragons didn't exist!" I bragged at him. He was still frozen in shock, pressed against the dry grass to which we had dropped.
I think I found the proof.
The dragon's jaw opened and heat blazed inside, which could only mean one thing.
"Take cover!" I screamed. I dropped behind what I hoped was a real boulder, while my friend sprinted to a nearby tree and hid himself behind it, which--seriously? You get nothing below a 95 in your classes, and you hide behind a tree?
We ended up having to wait it out, after he moved to take cover behind the boulder with me. After years and years and years and years of waiting for the dragon to calm down and go back to sleep, dammit, I finally turned to my best friend and exhaled, "Do you believe now?"
"I'll never doubt anything, ever again."
No comments:
Post a Comment