The Changing Seasons

The day is crisp and clean and the leaves have finally began to change into their appropriate fall garbe.  I am waiting outside for the big rumbling monster to take me away as I putter around in the few fallen soldiers from the two maple trees in my front yard.  From one they fall yellow and from the other they fall a deep crimson. I favor the crimson because even though I know the leaves have died they look more alive than their pale blonde companions.  

It was Autumn and I was in third grade.  The day began like any other in my small public elementary school.  I had english in the morning with Mrs. Friend as I always did that year.  After lunch and recess I would switch to the the classroom across the hall for math and science with Mrs. Festa.  But my story doesn’t take place anywhere near either of my classrooms.

The bell rang that signaled the most glorious time of the day: recess.  Everyone jumped out of their seats and sprinted towards the door, going from depressingly narcoleptic to hyperactive in a matter of milliseconds.  Everyone except for me that is. My classmates pushed and shoved to be the first ones outside so that they could claim their seats on the swings and grab the best kickball for their previously planned game.  I, on the other hand, strolled down the opposite hallway.  Looming white walls surrounded me, the only disruption to their flowing white paint was the occasional grouping of colorful drawings between the evenly spaced doors.  My footsteps echoed in the now empty hallways making it sound like I was bigger and more imposing than the petite eight year old that I was. I stared down at the ground, my usual method for avoiding anything and everything, even though no one was in sight.  I never knew that false insecurity could grip a child so tightly.

I approached the large maroon double doors leading to my destination.  Little bright books, worms, and apples were scattered over the entrance to greet new visitors.  I pushed with all my strength to move the heavy object out of my way. I wandered inside, allowing the door to close with a loud thud behind me.  Cases filled with books lined the beige walls. Tables with six chairs at each were on one side of the room while rows of books covered the other.  A counter rested in the middle of the the huge room, but the chair behind it sat empty. A scent hung in the air that I couldn’t positively identify.  It was old yet new with a hint of something sweet. I knew what I was there for. I grabbed the cart full of returned books and rolled it over to the first book shelf.  As a library helper I was taught how to find and replace books in the library using the sorting system that we called the card catalogue.  We have a few people signed up to be library helpers every day and today my friend, Miranda, and I were on the list.  But Miranda didn’t show up to school today, so I was to work on my own.

I was utterly alone and the feeling sent shivers up my spine.  In school we are never allowed to be by ourselves. We even have to take a buddy with us to use the bathroom, so you can understand how this feeling of privacy could be quite exhilarating.  And to be left alone with all of these books made the moment all the more thrilling. I couldn’t hide my smile. I joyfully picked up a pile of books, skipped over to their correct section, and placed them on the floor.  I picked them up one by one, feeling each unique cover as I did so. Some were rough and scratchy while others were smooth and glossy like fresh paint. My favorites were the ones with scale-like textures all over the outside of the book, but those were rare to find.  Though to my surprise when I absentmindedly reached down for another book, I found that it indeed had the elusive scaly cover. My hand froze over the book. I knew that if if a book had those bumpy little scales it was probable that the book in question was either about snakes, crocodiles, or any other amphibious animal which are my favorite creatures to learn about.  

I looked down and brought the book up to my face to get a better look.  It was blue and shimmery with silver lettering up the spine and a small picture of a man smiling onthe back.  Turning it over revealed that the book was indeed not about any such snakes, or crocodiles, or normal amphibian, but an even greater, more fantastic creature.  The spine curved into a mirrored S shape and held up a massive scaled head. Small blue eyes looked back at me as I stared into her face. Pointed teeth poked out from her mouth yet she was not intimidating.  Her name, I would soon find, is Saphira, and the book I held in a death grip in my hands is titled Eragon.  

I curled up into a corner of the library surrounded by the smell of old pages for the rest of recess and lunch as I read the amazing story of Saphira and Eragon.  The carpet was my soft, warm bed and the pillars of books supported me as my pillows. As I read I could feel myself sinking further and further into the world of Urgles and Elves.  Magic held my mind inside of those pages as my eyes frantically scanned over each word. I couldn’t stop. I was shaking with excitement. The windows were open and through them a slight breeze came carrying the scent of Fall inside my hideaway.  The air brushed against my legs but registered in my mind as the smooth touch of a dragon's tale sliding over my skin.  I fell into this new world and my physical reality converted into a mystical fantasy. I stayed as quiet as I possibly could.  Even when the librarian finally came in after her break I didn’t reveal my presence. “Just this next page,” I kept telling myself.  But one more page would turn into two, then three, then entire chapters. I watched as Eragon slayed a Razac, saw Saphira take her first steps, and witnessed the Varden claim victory over an evil army.  But wait, that doesn’t sound right… No, I didn’t watch, or see, or witness these moments…  I was there. I pressed my blade to the throat of a Shade, I held my mentor in my arms as his heart beat faded into silence, I felt the warmth of crimson liquid flow over my hands,  and I suffered as my heart was broken into a million shards of razor sharp glass. I didn’t just read this book, I experienced every last word as if I was living it. I became Eragon and Saphira.  This was the first time I had felt that I was something bigger than myself.

It was that day that I realized my love for books ran deeper than I once thought.  They weren’t just stories any more, they were escape routes to worlds I never knew existed.  Inside of a book I could be anyone I wanted to be, have anything I desired, and do whatever I wished.  I was once trapped in the world of reality but I found the way to freedom through a single book.

Like Malcolm X, I feel “truly free” when reading than I do when I’m out in the open (Malcolm X 121).  Malcolm X wrote in his biography that reading was his portal to an entirely different life of opportunities (Malcolm X 122).  In this sense we are the same.

As I grew older this realization made me see that I wasn’t forced into the confines of reality after all.  I would be enclosed in my translucent barrier for months on end seeing no means for escape. I couldn’t write or create anything because a fence had manifested around my mind that forbid I step neighbor's lawn.  But then I would find people like Sommers who figured out that it wasn’t the world that was strangling us but ourselves (Sommers 570).  Sommers states that creativity can not be found beyond ourselves only uncovered from within (Sommers 573). I now knew that if I wanted to leave my grey bubble than I could.  I just had to take a step outside of my comfort zone. This is because “we don’t know how the sentence will begin and, rarely ever, how it will end” (Sommers 573). Reading things like Eragon and the rest of Christopher Paolini’s breathtaking series helped me to better understand that doors don’t just open up for us.  We can’t just become confident, wise, marvelous creatures.  We have to claw and dig to make such wondrous discoveries. That day in the library, as I sat in beautiful, eternal silence, was the day that I began to understand that my place in the world was yet to be determined.  

I do not want to be a witch or a wizard,  a demigod or a vampire. No, I do not wish to be any such thing.  What I have always wanted since my solitary moment of peace, since the moment I laid my eyes on those two single words, was to be a Dragon Rider until the end of time itself.

Works Cited

Malcolm X. “Learning to Read.: Writing About Writing 2nd ed., Edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2014, pp. 119-127.

Sommers, Nancy. “I Stand Here Writing.” Writing About Writing, 2nd ed.,  Edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St, Martin’s, 2014, pp. 565-575.