Earth, Water, and Fire
Two vacation houses sat somewhere with green grass, a canopy of trees, an overcast sky, and scattered ponds. Everything felt cool.
My parents told me to go outside to check on our animal, a bear, and to see if it needed any food. I ran down the oak stars and trotted up to the back doors. My boyfriend was standing there, expressionless, and asking me what to do. My eyes immediately darted to the back door, where I saw a white wooden frame without any glass. Both of the doors had no glass, and they were starting to let the water inside.
It wasn’t raining, and I couldn’t hear the hiss and crash of the ocean, but there was dark gray salt water rushing over the brick walkway and through the open doorway. I stepped outside to see if I could find the bear, but the pair of black beady eyes staring back at me were not a bear’s. A massive, black seal popped its head up from a small pool of water and bared its teeth at me. Frightened, I shouted for my boyfriend to help me close the doors to keep the seal away. We struggled through the rushing water, but we finally closed both doors and bolted upstairs.
I wanted to see how our other house, the guest house next door, was doing with all the water. I went over and found no water. Just as I was about to leave I glanced out of a window and watched a small walkway lamp, lit with a flame, set a patch of golden dead grass on fire. I panicked, watching it start to set the entire lawn aflame, and ran back over to the main house. Just as I got to the dining room on the second floor it began raining, wetting everything just enough for the fire to disappear.
bangladesh is not near japan.
my family and i were flying to bangladesh for our vacation. as our plane was landing i kept thinking, “this plane will sink right into the water! that floating runway isn’t big enough to hold us.” and yet we landed safe and sound.
everything was floating, or at least surrounded by, water. i kept gazing intently at the little houses that had brightly colored roofs. the exterior, except for the windows and roofs, was all the same kind of sandy-color. they were like adobe huts.
we got to the house we were staying at, which had a bright purple roof. as soon as we stepped inside our floating home it began to pour outside. i felt the floors beneath me creak and slide as the water beneath us became rough. i looked at my mother and said, “i can’t wait to tell everyone about this!”
i ran outside in the downpour and jumped onto a small bamboo raft. i felt it sink and start to fill with water, so i rolled out of it and onto our deck. mom was laughing at me.
“we’re right next to japan,” dad remarked.
“really? that means we can stop by tokyo for dinner!” i exclaimed, very excited to practice my japanese language skills.
i was standing on the edge of a large cliff shaped like an anvil. the rock and dirt beneath my toes was red, like colorado’s sand. there was a samurai in front of me, a very tall and wise old man with long white hair that billowed in the wind. he glanced back at me, grinned, and stood up. i was about to say something to him when he leapt off of the cliff’s edge and descended through the clouds.
i woke up.
when will i be blue?
it was wintertime, and everything was lit in blue. i was watching one of my friends ride through the snowstorm on her scooter, grinning and laughing at me in the posed manner that’s only used for film and television. she had large goggles to protect her eyes from the nonexistent sun, and the tips of the handles of her scooter was light blue. i told her it was odd that she would choose blue.
i was driving down winding roads, bathed in glittering sunlight just after rain, going much too fast. i turned a corner, feeling the force and lag as my speedometer lurched up over 120mph. i kept driving.
i trod along the worn path of the forest, looking to my right and seeing my friend trotting not too far ahead of me. all four of us were wolves. i kept a close eye on her; the forest and the mission we were on was dangerous.
we climbed over a patch of thick roots and came to the top of a small cliff on the mountain. the soil beneath me was as soft as sod wet with fresh rain. a man in a suit walked up behind me.
“how can you be water if the only ability you have is to smell the salt of the ocean?” he accused me.
i turned to my three companions. one of them, the girl on the scooter, bowed her head down and took a deep breath of the earth. her fur, crimson like the rest of us, began to soak up the green of the earth. she had become what she was chosen to be, the wolf spirit of the earth.
frustrated that i was not accomplishing what i had set out to do, i huffed out a growl and rested my jaw against the forehead of my other companion. she looked up at me with concern and said, “your spearspeak is hurting me.”
“i’m sorry,” i sighed, stepping away from her. i looked over her fur, picturing the colour that it would soon take. she would be air, a light gold with silver accents. another one would be fire, and keep the crimson colour with yellow and orange flares. i was left, water, and would be shades of blue. if only i could acquire my powers like they all had.
