a conversation about media:
a modern day fairy tale:
Cassie was staring at her ceiling trying her best to fall asleep. She was only 14, but still felt like she was old enough to stay out in the city late by herself. Her parents disagreed, however, and so here she was, stuck in her room, at nine at night. The soft ticking of her clock was the only sound until she heard the gentle vibration of her phone, followed by the glowing of it's screen. She rolled over and checked to see who would be contacting her at this hour. It was a text message from a strange number: 1-000-000-0000. The message read: "Cassie, look out your window."
Curious enough, and not in the mood for sleep, Cassie sat up and opened her blinds. Normally, she would have seen the slow moving night traffic seven floors below. This time, however, outside of her window was nothing but a long stretch of grassy fields. Without questioning anything, Cassie put her cell phone into her bag, but her bag over her shoulder, and opened her window wide enough to crawl out of.
As soon as she tumbled out of the window and onto the soft grass, she realized it was daylight. She looked back at her window. It was just floating there. Cassie walked around behind it, and nothing was there.
Wondering what to do now, she reached into her bag to check her phone again. Another text message from the mysterious number appeared: "Find the manhole, enter the sewer."
Not really wanting to leave the lovely field, but seeing nothing else much left to do, she proceeded to wander around searching the ground for a manhole. One finally appeared a few yards to the left of her floating window.
Lifting the cover, Cassie slipped down and grasped the musty ladder. Minutes felt like hours as she climbed deeper into darkness and away from the light, until a small butterfly fluttered around her ear and whispered to her, “why not just take the escalator?”
As she turned her head to question the butterfly, she saw there was the top of an escalator directly behind her. She carefully stepped over onto the escalator as the tiny butterfly fluttered away.
“This is much more convenient” Cassie thought to herself.
The escalator suddenly started changing. The stairs became gold and the railings sprouted gems. The tunnel Cassie had been traveling through was rapidly turning into a deep maroon silk. She was so entranced by what was going on around her she fell to her knees as the escalator ended.
Picking herself back up, Cassie looked down a great hall with elegant eggplant carpeting and a high ceiling. A fantastic large diamond chandelier hung above her head. On the walls hung impressive frames of all shapes and sizes, but with no pictures inside. Finally, at the very end of the hall in a majestic throne sat a tall woman in a shimmering evening gown and a large ruby crown. She was slouched down with her legs thrown over the side of her chair, and she was staring into her phone typing madly with her thumbs.
Cassie took a deep breath and walked toward the end of the hallway. The women didn’t look up until Cassie stood right before her. Her piercing green eyes finally looked up from her phone and into Cassie’s.
“I thought you would never arrive!” The tall women said.
“Was it you who sent me these text messages?”
“Indeed! I need that key around your neck.”
Cassie began to protest as she felt around her neck, only to find that there was, in fact, a thick plastic black key with white gems inlaid into it. She took it off and handed it to the women. The women stood up, took the key, and walked around to the back of her throne.
She dragged a large rectangular metal box out from behind it, and then knelt down. Taking the key in her left hand, and steadying herself with her right, the tall woman lightly swiped the key in front of the lock. With a soft clicking noise, the box popped open. The tall women excitedly pushed open the lid of the box and took out a long golden staff with pink gems encrusted in the head.
“I ordered it a few days ago. It came sooner than expected. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
Cassie told her it was not a problem as she was handed her necklace back.
“You can get back pretty easily through the window over here.” The tall women pointed to the left of her throne at two large eggplant curtains that seemed to sprout directly out of the carpet. Cassie walked over and pushed them aside. She looked into the window and saw her bedroom. She turned to wave to the tall women, but she was busy admiring her new staff, as well as typing madly on her phone again.
Cassie opened the window, crawled through, and almost drifted to sleep immediately as she fell into bed.
Cassie awoke the next morning and almost forgot completely of the magnificent dream she had had the night before. Lying there and thinking about how real it felt, she touched her neck and realized she was wearing a thick black key.
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